It’s time for the first Baby Step for the next category: Home!
As a reminder, the 30 Be Intentional Baby Steps are designed to get you on the right foot, the right track and give you energy, efficiency and organization which will propel you into a life that is able to develop an overall financially smart, happy and frugal home.
We encourage couples and families (including the kids in your home) to do these challenges together so the whole house can function well!
As the 30 steps go along, we will be focusing on 5 areas for the Be Intentional Challenge:
- Self
- Home
- Budget
- Schedule
- Frugality
We have now arrived at the second area of life – the HOME. The next few baby steps are designed to get your home on the right foot! This will not be a comprehensive home plan, but the basics to get your home functioning well so that you can do the more comprehensive steps in future challenges.
Baby Step #6
Make Your Bed Everyday!
And we mean…make your bed everyday, no matter how clean or messy your bedroom or home is, no matter how busy you are (it takes 1-min or less even if you have lots of pillows like us ;)), no matter if you think you are going to take a nap, etc. In fact, get your whole family in the habit of it!
Why do we say to make your bed everyday? There are several reasons why it’s important to make your bed everyday!
- First, it has to do with your outlook and attitude.
- It propels you into the day and gives you this sense of accomplishment first thing in the morning.
- It helps to clear your head. Trust us, it really does
- It puts a drive in you to do more, be more and do it all well.
- It also trains you to be disciplined about your tasks and life.
- It encourages you to clean the rest of your room and ultimately your house. Who wants a made bed in a dirty room?
- It sets an example for your children. It might be a small task, but it encourages your children to develop good healthy habits.
- A made bed at night is more inviting and peaceful when you are trying to reach challenge #1.
- Finally, made beds ALWAYS feel more comfortable than non-made beds!
If you do this everyday, it will become a habit (experts say 3 – 4 weeks for something to become a habit) and that does make disciplining yourself for other tasks come easier!
We also have a fun rule in our house (which helps us meet challenge #2 as well) that whichever one of us is out of the bed last is the one that makes the bed. 😉 Try it, it is a fun way to start the day and meet challenge #2 at the same time!
And, to stick with our tradition on these challenges, we will post a few articles on the benefits of doing this challenge for further reading if you want 🙂
- 6 Reasons Why You Should Make Your Bed from Huffington Post
- Make Your Bed, Change Your Life? from Psychology Today
And if you don’t know how to make a bed, check out this tutorial on WikiHow HERE complete with pictures and video 🙂
Join us at our small Facebook Be Intentional group HERE for encouragement, discussions and more. Just send a request to join and we will add you to the group.
Information about the top photo: That is our bed and our bedroom and I took this picture of our made bed! Also, we are very pleased with our bed as it was the first reward for ourselves that we paid cash for after we got out of debt 🙂
Heather pulham
I have started walking everywhere. I would love to say it was easy to begin with but then nothing worth doing is. Within a fortnight I am feeling way better my skin is clearer than it’s been in years and I sleep so much better. My clothes are getting looser. The best thing of all it’s free.
bee
The social media bar covers most of my mobile screen. Makes it difficult to read yourpage. So ddifficult that I gave up
Alex
HI Bee, What type of mobile device do you have? We have thought about making our site mobile optimized sometime in the near future. Thank you for letting us know! Have a great day!
Allysan
Same on my iPhone! They are even getting in the way of typing this post!! So annoying!!!!!!! Go away stupid buttons!!!!
Alex
Hi Allysan – we didn’t realize the impact those buttons were going to cause on mobile until after the current design was completed. However, please be watching as we should be revealing a new design soon. The buttons will be gone and the site will be more mobile friendly.
Thanks for letting us know and hopefully getting rid of those hovering buttons will be good for all of us. 🙂
Joe Somebody
The last two points are utter crap. When I’m ready for bed, it pisses me off having to deal with moving all the blankets & pillows before I can crawl in bed. And it doesn’t feel any better once I’ve done that than leaving it just like it was when I got out of it.
Points 5 & 7 are the only ones with any merit to them at all. If you need to make you bed every day to feel better about yourself & life, you might need to get tested for OCD.
Also it takes more than 60 seconds to properly make a bed up. I’m out of bed and already have my clothes on in 3-5 minutes. At the 5 minute mark all I have left to do is brush my hair & teeth, then head downstairs to chew some food & go on with life. Making my bed would just be 60+ seconds of my life wasted every day.
Corene
I allow my bed to air all day..and make it just before I go to bed at night. No one is in the bedroom during the day. Am I the only one who does this? I must make it before I use it.
Sharon Millett
We fold the covers back neatly to allow the bed to air all day too. I like the idea of making it first thing in the morning but I think it’s important to air it.
lr
Really!?? bunch of bunk! Making my bed has NEVER encouraged me to neaten up the rest of the room or other parts of the house. In fact a made bed is unhealthy. Just fold the top sheet and blanket back and the let the darned thing air out. Millions of people in lots of countries cannot be wrong. Being told to make your bed is plain and simply a control issue……that is the only psychology involved.
Jenifer Shuster
it is s great thing to make your bed in the morning. I think it needs to be done mid morning however. Let your bed air out a few hours before you trap all the moisture etc within your covers.
Deborah
Very valid points. Well written…old enough to know 🙂