Messy Bed, Messy Head!

What incredible luck we’re having in St. Louis with the weather! Yes, we grouse about how hot it gets in summer, how muggy and unbearable it is with the humidity! We whine about how freezing it becomes in the dead of winter and how sick of the cold we get. But here we are, early November, and this autumn has been nothing but spectacular! It really has been, overall, a steady and methodical advance into the fall season. When I lived in Seattle, we never went from summer to fall in such a fashion – it was always “Oh, look, what a lovely summer day!” to “Why’s it so bloody cold and wet?” with no transition between the weather intervals. So I’m happy to say that this year we are blessed to have an enjoyable TRUE autumn, with the warmish days and cool evenings, leaves turning rich vibrant colors filling yards and streets with spots of red, yellow and orange; days getting shorter and nights long and cozy – and with Daylight Savings in effect, be prepared to embrace as much of the shorter days as you can, as the long shadow of the night will take precedence.

Knowing that time during the day ‘feels’ shorter (because the daylight is less), motivating oneself can be a real challenge, especially for someone like me. I get up at 5:30AM during the week, and in the summer and fall months, it’s not tough when I see the sun rising; I feel motivated to Carpe Diem and make the most of the morning. But in winter it’s a whole different story since I get up in the morning and it’s dark out, and I get home in the evening and it’s still dark out. Most of my awake hours are spent indoors, so what little exposure I have to the outside and the fleeting sun is rare. This is where routine kicks in, where it helps having a daily game plan of things and events you achieve before you set about your day at work. For me, it all starts with getting out of bed, having my cup of coffee, reading and replying to email, and most importantly, making my bed. This small but significant task bears a great relevance to how I start and continue my day, because if my bed is made before I leave the loft, I know that when I return home, I enter into a world that’s already clean, tidy, and ready for me to enjoy the space mess-free. As a client and dear friend said to me just the other evening, “Messy bed, messy head”, and she’s spot on! I’m going to share with you this little trick to help start your day on the right foot so you set yourself up for success with your mental tasks ahead.

If you ponder the notion of how you start your day, think of how you do, or don’t do, things in your life that have the potential to lend organization and mental acuity to your daily activities. If you get up in the morning and you rush about, getting things put together at the last minute to wear, finding breakfast, getting your things ready to run out the door, that’s kind of a set up for how your day could potentially run, with you ON THE RUN, trying to catch up. It’s not a very pleasant way to feel, or a good way to keep your thoughts in harmony. You’ve set yourself up for what could very well be more of a disorganized, uncoordinated and messy way to plow through your day, with a head full of thoughts, tasks, things you must achieve yet you can’t seem to get your hands wrapped around them because they’re in such disarray. I speak from experience telling you this, as once upon a time I was NOT as well organized, well put together in my day as I am now. It was with time, trial and error, patience, and a true desire to devote my mental space to a more coordinated and composed way of thinking that afforded me such a level of expertise in this area. I am at a point now where I am able to begin my day in a well organized manner, easing into the waking world without the chaos of mess and disorder.

My philosophy was not as short and sweet as “Messy Bed, Messy Head”; on the contrary, it was more of an esoteric thought: disorganized surroundings lead to disorganized thoughts. HAHA! I love the fact that I had this in my head for so many years, this way of being – a mysterious sounding method of pondering one’s surroundings both physically and metaphysically. What really made this a honed topic for my lead blog was when I was having drinks and nibbles with my friend and client Raschelle last week. We were talking about future projects, public relations opportunities for ReDo and getting the ReDo brand out more in the local St. Louis and surrounding communities. We discussed some of my blogs I’d written about organization, focus, finding time to make time, and so on. It was during this chat where she was telling me how her young daughters were taking on her own organizing traits passed to Raschelle from her mother: the “Messy Bed, Messy Head” mantra. I burst out in a loud, sudden guffaw in the restaurant that I garnered a few odd glances. Composing myself, I explained to Raschelle my “profound life philosophy” as stated above, and thanked her for cleverly summing it up in four simple words, this incantation to wake up with and give yourself a positive boost to start your day.

An interesting statistic states that About seventy-five percent of women make the bed every day. Unlike women, men rarely do it: only 45 percent of men make their own bed in the morning. My goal is to start using that low male percentage into a more positive range. With that, consider starting your day off on a foot where your step is more steady, more controlled, a foot that knows where it’s going and what it’s doing and what lies ahead because it knows it’s routine is planned and course is plotted. Following the “Messy Bed, Messy Head” chant, my day, as I stated before, includes easing into the the dawn by making my bed and cleaning up my space for when I come home in the evening. I make my coffee and pack my lunch bag before I read my email. I spritz my sheets with Febreeze before stepping into the shower, and listen to the local NPR station as I bathe and consider what to wear when I hear the weather report for the day. I then make the bed as I get ready for work, grab the things I need to bring with me for my daily activities and walk out of my loft in a calm, steady, prepared state of mind. This is my intended daily routine. Though there are times where this doesn’t always work out to my satisfaction or is executed in a manner I would fully want, I still strive to do this every day, and with practice, patience, trial and error, “Messy Bed, Messy Head” is my newly branded mantra for seizing the day!