Probably this could help you sleep...

Tossing right and left on the bed. Pressing the pillow hard, sometimes on the right ear, sometimes on the left. Borrowing that eye mask from a friend who got it in some expensive flight to beat out the already dark room. Checking up the phone multiple times. Bingeing on those timeless insta/fb stories to kill some minutes of the long night hours to eventually feel that would tire the eyes. Eyeing the previous memories present in your phone's gallery to bring in nostalgia, some pleasure or some moments which you fought over. Yet...until its 4 in the morning, its still, not on its way to arrive.

In the witness box, is the hard-earned sleep which you fought with during the working hrs avoiding to hit you, later often struggling to get it when it ought to be practised.

Times are around when I was experiencing my first leadership role.

Summarising, there were just two types of days - either I was thinking about some initiative or solving some issues. Both the types brought in long days of solving problems stretching it to late restless nights.

Much of the days anyone would want - challenging days, to work out at their maximum potential in the pursuit of their vision to achieve some goals. The arrow was much hard in there! :P

Midway of solving the sleep disorder, brought in was - fear. Fear of missing out the necessary night sleep, later missing out on my daily "Good Morning" message at my "White House" Whatsapp group. Fear brought in Obsession. The obsession to solve the problem the same day. Urgent meetings used to be called up to curb the planning or solving out the issue the same day. Did bring me in good sleep when the meetings could actually execute the same day and not surprisingly, the sleepless tossing left-right nights carried on. Some problems couldn't be solved on the same day also, pained my teammates, made their days also longer. Pinged some of my seniors, sharing this issue - was called a normal one - they had also taken some similar arrows in there! (Maybe was trying to solve my sleeping problem by discomforting their sleep too :P. PS: Sorry guys if you recognise yourself here.)

The first model to solve the puzzle failed miserably!

Went on to Google, tried to research it. Going through hand-full of articles and YouTube videos, I think still unknowingly, when I was going through one of such traumatic night (I still feel blessed of these nights- I wanted these!).

Around 2am, just picked up some A3 sheets in my room, stuck it on my cupboard, picked up some coloured pens and jotted down all the ideas I had regarding one of the upcoming initiatives that time. I didn't even bother to waste a single second in wearing my glasses.

And hush, still I remember, the sleep I had that night. A Baby Sleep!

Yet to call it a model, tried to seek what could be the lasting practice to bring that Baby Sleep every night. The A3 sheets on the cupboard also started to fill. Travel days in the way, missed out the cupboard, the A3 sheets, the coloured pens. Neither I could strike off the things on the sheets and keep track of the things. Was merely using my diary for jotting down the MoMs or notes. Dug deeper down the MoMs and the notes. Could club and highlight the content as a bulleted task list - for the team and me. Yay! A simple to-do-list!

The clock struck 11ish in the night, data off, pen and my to-do-notebook on.

I started writing my to-do-list for the next day in a numbered order. When started, it majorly started off with the work things. Either a detailed task list or even the keyword of the task would suffice it to be part of the to-do-list. The morning started with - (“sshhh” the phone, don't touch it other than the alarm) - eyeing the list for about a minute. Shutting off the eyes and imagining getting the listed things done. Featuring some strong keywords, Visualising the To-Do-List into Occurrence (often mentioned by my dad when I was too young to relate with it). Opening the eye shutters post the visualization thing is over. (I defined it as an achieved visualisation if I can imagine more than 70% of it can be executed.) The to-do-list prepared on the previous night was prepared against the day's rough timeline. With some energy~time allotted for contingencies.

11ish in the night again, struck off the completed tasks with utmost joy! Over the period found 80% of the tasks completed. To grab in more arrows down in there, tried putting a task list of next 3 days and planned to complete it the next day. With the 80% completion coming down to 60-70% I was still able to strike off my tasks for more than one and a half day.

Good Sleep zz, Goooood Sleeeeep zzzzzz

Following it since then. Usually, carry two notebooks -

• a thin lined to-do-list diary/notepad
• a plain one for planning and jotting ideas.

Proximity to a personal whiteboard - a bliss!

Improved my sleep - I was sleeping with "Clear the Clutter" funda when I was jotting down what all was going in my mind in form of tasks or even taking decisions (sharing about decisions -would have to write another piece) and improved my productivity - once I had jotted down the tasks list I was actually committing their execution (writing down improves commitment). Neither bothered anyone late at night – mattress – for tossing 80kg mass right and left, people- pinging away at night for company, teammates- calling up for urgent meetings solving the problems obsessively.