Ten o'clock again

Go back to the evening in chapter 1, with a few things moved.

You get in at half past six, and the early part is as busy as ever. The children are down by eight. The kitchen isn't finished, and you walk past it. From eight until a quarter to nine you sit in the good chair with a novel you've been meaning to read for a year. Someone comes down once for water. At a quarter to nine you do the lunches, leave the washing for tomorrow, lock up and brush your teeth. You watch one episode of something with your partner, having said beforehand that it's one.

At ten you yawn, and your eyes are heavy. There's a brief pull to stay, which is the old habit, and it has less behind it than it used to. You've already had your hour, so the day did have something of yours in it. You turn off the lamp and go up. The phone is charging in the kitchen. You're asleep by twenty past.

None of this is dramatic, and I don't want to oversell it. Your days will still be full. Some evenings the hour won't happen, and some nights you'll stay up anyway. The studies I've leaned on are mostly small, and the method is untested as a whole. Sleep won't solve an overloaded life.

What I'm confident of is the narrow claim I started with. You do need time of your own, and you should have it. Midnight is the worst place to get it. You have it there in the poorest condition, and you pay for it out of tomorrow. It also lets the rest of the day go on leaving you out. Your own time can go somewhere better, even if that place is smaller than you'd like.

If you do one thing after closing this book, do the first half of the rule before the second. Tomorrow, find where your hour is going to be, and take it before you're tired. Then, when ten o'clock comes and you notice you're tired, go to bed.