How to Fix Your Sleep Schedule (You Can’t)

Sleep is free, healthy and widely available. It’s also the one thing nobody can do on purpose.

Every night, a version of me commits to an early night. Every night, a different version of me, the one holding the phone, overrules him. The second version always wins. He has the screen, and he never pays for it in the morning. I do.

“Sleep when you’re dead,” says the same economy that wants you in by 8.

I can’t fix your sleep schedule. But I can document the process, so you know you’re not doing it wrong. Everyone’s doing it exactly like this.

1. STEP 1Decide tonight is the night you go to bed early.
2. STEP 2Get into bed at 10pm.
3. STEP 3Pick up phone "just to set an alarm."
4. STEP 4Learn everything about a shipwreck from 1872.
5. STEP 5It is 1:40am.
6. STEP 6Calculate how much sleep you'll get if you fall asleep right now.
7. STEP 7Recalculate every fifteen minutes, with less hope each time.
8. STEP 8Wake at 6:58 feeling like a decommissioned ship.