148: Rethink Your Evening Ritual to Power Your Days

Episode Transcript

Courtney Baker:
So Verbs, I think today’s episode is the perfect episode to pick a villain. So out of the gate, I have three villains.

Verbs Boyer:
Yes.

Courtney Baker:
That I have selected for you. Villain number one, Netflix.

Verbs Boyer:
Ooh.

Courtney Baker:
Villain number two, I’m going for Instagram. That’s who I’m coming for.

Verbs Boyer:
Ooh.

Courtney Baker:
Or villain number three, and this may tell people how cool or not cool you are, Verbs. So I mean, I don’t want to put too much pressure on you. Villain number three, TikTok. You decide who our villain for today’s episode is going to be.

Verbs Boyer:
Ah, I’m going to go for Instagram.

Courtney Baker:
Instagram? Okay. I like it. I think that’s a really solid choice. I think that’s a really good one. And I think we can… Do you think everybody’s kind of figured out what we’re talking about today? They’re probably thinking we’re talking about distraction and in a way we are, but that is not what we’re going to be talking about today.

Verbs Boyer:
I’ll say this. I have the script in front of me and I still don’t know where you’re going with the villain part yet. But I’m eager to learn.

Courtney Baker:
Okay. Well, here it is. The villain. What we’re going to be talking about today is your evening ritual. And I think this is a ritual that gets overlooked a lot. And I think it’s because of the villains. I think a lot of times we get sucked into our favorite villain, Instagram, or one of those other villains. We get sucked in and we totally miss the evening ritual. We’re like, “Oh, we’ve gotten the things done that we need to do today.” We think. “And so I’m just going to sit here and like use the rest of my time to check out and scroll Instagram.”

Verbs Boyer:
Just veg out.

Courtney Baker:
When really the evening ritual is actually a really powerful tool that we overlook because we’ve got sucked into the distraction of these villains. And so today we’re going to be talking about how do you actually leverage an evening ritual? How do you not let the villain of Instagram steal the power of this ritual?

Verbs Boyer:
All right, I’m excited. Can we slay villains today? That’s what I want to know. Let’s get into it.

Verbs Boyer:
Welcome to another episode of Focus On This, the most productive podcast on the internet, so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Verbs here with Courtney Baker. Happy Monday to you all and happy Monday to you, Courtney.

Courtney Baker:
Happy Monday, Verbs. It’s another good one. I would actually like to propose that today’s day is good because of yesterday’s or last night’s decisions. So Verbs, out of the gate, how was your evening ritual last night?

Verbs Boyer:
Any other time I feel like I have a very thorough answer to this question.

Courtney Baker:
I shouldn’t have asked you this because I know what’s going on at your house right now, and I should have been smart enough not to put you on the spot, but I think you should just tell people.

Verbs Boyer:
Oh, this is a setup.

Courtney Baker:
What’s going on. Yeah.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. No, absolutely. So obviously we’re in the middle of summer. So there’s the kids at home trying to figure out what to do for summer activities and just a different sort of schedule altogether. So for us and our household, my wife is actually gone for the week. And so the evenings look a little bit different than normal, but we’re getting into a pattern at least for this week until she returns. We’re getting into a good rhythm to where at least everybody can sleep at a reasonable time. So yeah, we’re walking that fine line of staying up too late at the moment. But I think I got a plan.

Courtney Baker:
I think that’s a really good segue into what we’re going to be talking about today because one of these may be about what time you go to sleep. But I think as we get into this, what’s really important is that your productivity, your creativity, your leadership all require sleep. Counter to what Elon Musk would have you believe, it actually is key for you doing those things well.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. And as you mentioned, Courtney, I think just even that statement tomorrow’s success starts with tonight’s decisions is super critical for us to consider. But what’s absolutely essential in an evening ritual?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. So the first essential item is… In our script, everyone listening, it says bedtime, but I, in my own adult mind, cannot call it a bedtime. It’s what time I’m going to go to sleep. I just can’t do it. Okay. So full transparency. We were going to say bedtime, I’m going to say what time you’re going to sleep. And without a really-

Verbs Boyer:
Hey.

Courtney Baker:
Clear… Yes?

Verbs Boyer:
I was going to call it just straight night-night because that’s what time it is versus bedtime.

Courtney Baker:
Oh man.

Verbs Boyer:
But keep going. Keep going.

Courtney Baker:
So here’s the deal. Whether you call it a bedtime, the time you go to sleep, or night-night, going to sleep at a set time helps your circadian rhythms. So Verbs, do you want to break that down a little bit for everybody listening?

Verbs Boyer:
Gladly, Courtney. So I’m not even going to pretend like I have this. So I just looked up Wikipedia for the definition. But a circadian rhythm or a circadian cycle is a natural internal process. It regulates the sleep wake cycle and repeats thoroughly every 24 hours.

Courtney Baker:
That is it folks.

Verbs Boyer:
It regulates your night-night.

Courtney Baker:
You’ve heard it here. You know, it’s important. Okay. I can’t say the word half the time, but it’s important. So I mean, I feel like what would be helpful to break down is I said at the beginning of the episode, our number one villain today is Instagram. But beyond Instagram and some of the other villains, why do you think for as adults, most of us grew up with a time that we had to go to sleep, at a bedtime, like why do we not do that anymore as adults?

Verbs Boyer:
You know what, I think that’s a good question. I feel like because most of our day… Well, so let’s backtrack like you said it. In childhood, most of us had a set bedtime. Then folks kind of get into the college stays or just moving away out of the house. And so it’s like, “Oh I have more freedom to my schedule now. I can sleep or not sleep whenever I want to.”

Verbs Boyer:
So you have a little span of time where you’re trying to figure out what that looks like for you. Then the adulting phase hits, little bit more responsibilities. And it’s like, “Oh, I actually need to clock in tomorrow at work at this time so it would benefit me if I went to sleep sometime within the near future so I can at least be alert, cognitive, and all that stuff to be able to perform at my job well.”

Verbs Boyer:
So you have the responsibility part of your day. So as you drift into the evening, it’s like, you know what? I feel like I just need to veg out. I don’t have anything to do right now in this moment.

Courtney Baker:
Yes. Mm-hmm.

Verbs Boyer:
And then once you get into that veg mode, it’s a slippery slope, and before you know it, you’ve watched a thousand reels on your Instagram feed and it’s three o’clock in the morning.

Courtney Baker:
Oh my gosh. That is the very extreme.

Verbs Boyer:
That’s my take on it.

Courtney Baker:
Yes. I think that totally lines up with what I feel in my own life at times of like, “Oh, okay, now I’ve got to the time where it’s like finally my time to do whatever I want to do and how do I have as much of it as possible.”

Courtney Baker:
But I also think that as culturally we’ve gotten so used to running on a smaller amount of hours that we get used to it every time. Our body acclimate to sleeping six hours, running off six hours of sleep. We don’t actually even know what we’re capable of when we’re consistently getting seven hours of sleep a night. And so it’s like the further you get from that, the further you just don’t even have any context of how you could feel.

Courtney Baker:
And so I think as you’re thinking about this and maybe wondering like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all need to sleep more,” I would submit that as like, “Hey, this first essential ingredient is an ingredient that could get you performance like you’ve never had before.”

Courtney Baker:
Like if you think about your job, like you’re a professional athlete, what you do as your profession, how do you set yourself up the best possible way for the performance the next day? This is it. We do have a villain that we have to fight against. That’s very true. But I think by kind of setting them out and saying we have these villains that we’ve got to fight against, it kind of helps. At least in my mind of like, “Okay, this is a slippery slope. I see it for what it is. Now I know how to plan for it.”

Verbs Boyer:
Mm-hmm. I think you’re right on that as well. And like you said, it’s like once culture has given us the pass to sleep less, then we feel like, “Oh, I have that go to, if I need to pull that card or veg out for a moment. And it’s culturally acceptable. Nobody’s checking in on me in the evening time to see what time I’m actually going to sleep.”

Verbs Boyer:
So a lot of times we pull that. We utilize that pass and slip into a veg out moment in the evening time. But like you said, if we want to really be set up for a high performance that next day, then we could reject that card and really consider how we want to start that next day, which starts in that evening.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m going to pop in real quick cause I have the perfect, not perfect, but in our house with my 13 year old, we’ve been reading a book, which it’s pretty popular book. It’s called Learning How to Learn. For people on the video podcast, we had people come by and look at the focus dance that we suggested a couple weeks ago. So now you can see me holding up this cover and that’s on YouTube, but I’m also going to show you, we just read a chapter yesterday on the power of sleep. And I just connected over this photo so now I’m showing it to you guys.

Nick Jaworski:
All right, this is a neuron that before sleep, you’ve learned some stuff and this is a neuron afterwards. And what you’ll see is that after sleep, you end up getting these extra strong connections. Like you can see these little feet on stuff. They grow during your sleep. So the only way to internalize the things that you’ve learned how to do and to help solidify those is through sleep. And just seeing that I’m like, “I got to go like tend to my neurons. I got to get to bed. I got to get sleep so I can learn.”

Nick Jaworski:
And so you got to go to bed everybody. I’m notoriously bad on it. Did you guys say what your bedtimes were? I was looking that up. Did you say what time you guys go to bed?

Courtney Baker:
Oh, what our bedtimes?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
Mine always shifts kind of based on my morning ritual, but I’m always between 9:00 and 10:00. Like it’s either at 9:00 or at 10:00.

Nick Jaworski:
Cool.

Courtney Baker:
Is that early or late?

Verbs Boyer:
Yep. I’m the same way.

Nick Jaworski:
That’s high achieving amazing. That’s just so early to me. I would really struggle with that.

Verbs Boyer:
Wait, Nick.

Courtney Baker:
Really?

Verbs Boyer:
What time do you go to bed, Nick?

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, God. I should not have brought this up.

Verbs Boyer:
Wait, wait, wait. Right. So this is not a shaming process. It’s just a curious question. If 10 o’clock is early.

Nick Jaworski:
So well, Courtney said 9:00 to 10:00, so I’m thinking like 9:30. I know that Michael and Megan go to bed somewhere in that window. I think that if I’m in bed at 10:30, I’m happy. But realistically we’re talking closer to like 11:30, and it’s for no good reason. So we watched so many episodes of Love on the Spectrum a couple days ago, which is great. Highly recommend that show.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
But I did not need to watch all of them at that point.

Courtney Baker:
I mean, I think this is… If you’ve ever read the book, The Power of When is really helpful with figuring out when is the best time for you to actually go to sleep. So I, by no means am saying nine o’clock is the right time for everyone. I don’t think that’s true. I think the question though, for you, Nick, is if it is 11:30 and that’s like really the right time for you, and does it mean like you’re getting seven hours of sleep and you’re waking up at, what would that be? Between 6:30-

Nick Jaworski:
I mean it’s 6 or 7 hours. I spent a lot of time, very like focusing on training my child on their morning routines so that I did not have to wake up. So in the morning he can do it all. It’s amazing. It’s great.

Courtney Baker:
I think the real key here, Nick, is that you set the intentional line so that you’ve accounted for the opposite end. You’re just saying like, “Okay, I’ve gotten enough sleep. I’m going to ensure that I’ve gotten enough.”

Courtney Baker:
And so it’s really like, okay, well what’s the line?

Nick Jaworski:
Here’s what we’re going to do, this week in the Full Focus community, we’re going to put up a post that asks everybody what time they go to bed. Let’s see-

Courtney Baker:
I love it.

Nick Jaworski:
Let’s see what our high achievers, our focus heads, just coin that.

Verbs Boyer:
High five. High five.

Nick Jaworski:
Let’s see what time they’re going to sleep.

Courtney Baker:
Well I do want this to be like, it is no shame. Again, I really believe in the power of when. And we all have different circadian rhythms and how our bodies work. And so it may be that you don’t can go to bed till midnight and you wake up at eight and that is totally great. It’s really more about how do you set a bedtime or a time that you go to sleep that gets you the result that you need, which is plenty of sleep.

Courtney Baker:
And so again, no shame if you’re a night owl. Night owls are awesome. Actually, have you heard Michael talk about when he was younger he used to always think if you didn’t go to bed early and wake up early, that you were just kind of like lazier than these high achievers? And then, I think it was his daughter Marisa, who is a night owl who is incredible. He really realized like, “Oh no, it’s not about that at all. It’s more how your body is set up to perform.”

Courtney Baker:
But I love that. So I’ll be so interested to see where most people land. I have a guess, which I will share it in the comments of that.

Nick Jaworski:
Okay. All right.

Courtney Baker:
After this week.

Verbs Boyer:
All right. How about essential number two, which is rejuvenation?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. I think rejuvenation is really going to look different for most people. Verbs, when you think of nighttime, the things that you know if you did it. I’m going to feel ready for bed. I’m going to feel really ready for the next day. Like, what is that thing for you?

Verbs Boyer:
Honestly, it’s just, again as a dad, I know if all three children are asleep, the lights are out, and it’s quiet, then I know we can shift and pivot to the next thing, which is preparing for bed, whether I’m having an evening conversation with my wife, whatever it may be. But that kind of, once that’s done, it’s like, “Okay, we can go to the next thing, whatever that would need to be.”

Verbs Boyer:
What about for you, Courtney? What’s that look like for you guys?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. I mean, for me, obviously I have young kids. So getting them once that period of the night is done, obviously then you’ve got the cleanup period. Personally, if I ended the night… This is so strange. I feel almost like I’m having this revelation for the first time, but really it’s been something I’ve really talked about quite a bit. I really think if I just got ready for bed, took my time, because I love a shower. I love a shower. I would take like 12 showers a day if I could. That’s an exaggeration, but I love a shower. And then if I just got in bed and read until I fell asleep, that would be my ideal. Literally, if I never turned on the TV or looked at my phone, that would be the most epic night for me.

Courtney Baker:
And really what I want, like I love to read, but a lot of times I feel the draw of like, “Oh, what’s going on?”

Courtney Baker:
It’s like just easier to open up Instagram or sit down. My husband likes to watch TV, and so I will watch a show with him kind of as a relational thing. Because as much as reading books, it’s not the most communal of experiences. But in my own, that would be my perfect scenario. Part of me is like, “Should we just get rid of all the TVs in our house?”

Courtney Baker:
I think my husband would veto that one. I’m just…

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. That’s that could be a difficult conversation for sure.

Verbs Boyer:
Now it’s time for today’s tip to level up your focus. So today’s tip is to set a bedtime and commit, or set a time to go night-night and commit to going to bed on time for the next month. So that’s the challenge. Set a bedtime and commit to going to bed on time for the next month.

Verbs Boyer:
And by the way, if you are part of the Full Focus community, we are going to be looking for you to drop your entries there in the post as far as what time you might currently be going to bed. And if you’re not a part of the community, you can join right now today just by going to Full Focus Planner Community right there on Facebook. Lots of conversations in general around the planner, but especially after this episode, we’re going to be discussing the ins and outs of proper night-nights.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah, it’s been really fun lately to be in the community, just answering questions. And I don’t know if you two saw a couple weeks ago, I posted my picture of me in the closet, fixing my little thing.

Verbs Boyer:
I did.

Courtney Baker:
So that little…

Verbs Boyer:
Yes.

Courtney Baker:
I don’t know what you call that little clip at the top.

Verbs Boyer:
The little nub.

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Verbs Boyer:
The door nub thing.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Join us in the community with all the shenanigans. We hope to see there.

Verbs Boyer:
All right, Courtney. This has been an interesting conversation because I think a lot of it has been around really what works best for the person to be at their highest performance and their highest level of productivity. So it’s been a great conversation. I want to thank you, the listener, also for joining us today on Focus on this.

Courtney Baker:
This is the most productive podcast on the internet so share it with your friends and don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And we’ll be back next Monday with another great episode. Until then, stay focused.

Verbs Boyer:
Stay focused.