Practice 1: Keep a Log

Start with a way to jot down whatever is circling in your mind, preferably an offline way like a notebook or notepad on the bedside table. If you’ve come across Getting Things Done or Build a Second Brain, you’ve heard this advice before. One phrase for it is externalizing the swirl: get the swirling thoughts out of your head and onto paper so they’re waiting for you in the morning.

This is the most common tactic for work that keeps you awake, and it does one job well. It makes sure you remember. For some people, knowing they won’t forget is enough closure to drift back off. For others, remembering is only half of what the brain is asking for.

[TIMESTAMPS]
00:00 Work keeping you up at night? 3 practices that help
00:21 Practice 1
01:04 The problem with the bedside notebook
01:55 Practice 2
02:15 What 9 years of helping teams taught me about trust
03:23 The simplest task management setup
06:01 Practice 3

Practice 2: Build Trust in Your System

Take a task like canceling a subscription. Writing it down covers the remembering. Sleep still doesn’t come if you doubt that the note will lead to the subscription getting canceled by the date you’re worried about. The brain wants to trust that writing something down will change tomorrow’s actions.

Teams run into the same thing. A meeting ends with action items, people jot them down, and then nobody looks at the list. Without anyone looking, nobody does the things on it, and without follow-through nobody trusts the list. Pretty soon everyone resents meetings. The meeting and the log are both good practices. The breakdown happens afterward, when trust in the follow-through is missing.

The way to build that trust is to work backwards from getting things done: one organized spot where all activities live, checked every day. At the simplest, that’s a whiteboard with the five things that need doing today, left up until they’re done. A spreadsheet or Google Doc works too, and a task management system works best.

Three ingredients of a log you can trust

One shared spot. Everyone on the team sees the same list. For a solo owner that’s one person, with a spouse it’s two, and on a team of 30 all 30 see the same one.

A daily clock. Everyone looks at the list every morning. Every day is the accountability cadence, and checking every other day or whenever it feels right breaks the habit.

One long-running list. Finished items stay and new items go at the bottom. Nothing gets erased, because once something is on the log, it’s happening.

Trust gets built by proving it in real life: things on the log get done. Whether the team is five people, one person, or you today and you tomorrow, trust builds through experience. Cult leaders don’t open with an offer to drink poison either. They warm people up first, and building trust with yourself works the same way.

The free Blueprint webinar shows how to use this logging technique on your own and with a team.

Practice 3: Get From Bedside Table to Trusted System

Trust is what closes the loops in your head. Once you believe something written down is going to be okay, your brain relaxes. No bear chasing you anymore, back to sleep. That happens when thoughts land in a trusted system, which for most small teams is a shared work log. There are two ways to get them there.

Option 1: Analog First, Then the Log

Jot the thought in a notebook, steno pad, or sticky note, then enter it into the trusted system the next morning or as soon as possible. That creates two systems, so the same trust-building applies: every morning, whatever is on the bedside table gets added to the log.

This works well for people with a strong morning routine, like always going to the gym or always brushing their teeth, because one more step is an easy adjustment. For people who don’t trust themselves with first-thing-in-the-morning choices, the two-part approach carries some risk.

Option 2: Straight to the Log

Grab the phone and add the thought directly into the log. Sleep experts advise against screens at that hour, and the payoff is that nothing is left to do in the morning. The thought already went where it belongs, like putting things away the first time so nobody cleans twice.

This works best when the log is portable, either digital or a notebook that goes everywhere. As long as the same log is accessible in every place, logging takes one step.

The One Risk to Watch For

The log builds trust because things on it get done. That breaks down on a team that adds millions of tasks every day and finishes one or two. A strong delegation system fixes it, because if things really need to get done, more people than just you are involved in making it happen. Most small businesses don’t know how to delegate effectively, which makes delegation the natural next piece to put in place.

[REFERENCE LINKS]
🔗 Watch the Best Task Management Software
🔗 Watch the free webinar.

When work lives in your head, you can never clock out. Getting it onto a log you trust is what lets sleep happen.