There May Be Financial Merit in Making Your Bed

 

Who would think that making your bed has anything to do with improving your life? Analyzing this behavior never occurred to me as I believed people always made their beds as part of their daily routine.  Apparently, there’s more to this ritual than I was led to believe.  According to Jennifer Wasylenko, she spells out the five reasons for making your bed.

1.    It gives you a feeling of accomplishment.

2.    It creates a positive state of mind as you go to bed.

3.    It lowers your stress.

4.    It prevents embarrassment.

5.    It leads to other good habits.

I appreciate the last point which drives home the fact that this daily ritual leads to other good habits. Jennifer says, “Once you get in the habit of making your bed, you’ll crave a little more organization because you will appreciate how it makes you feel.”   

If this ritual could lead to the development of organizing and maintaining financial records, then I would encourage everyone to start making their beds.   Having an orderly record-keeping system is important.  If you are prone to not knowing where your important “stuff” is stored and would like to develop an efficient system, now’s the time to start.      

It’s a brand new month closing in on a brand new year. If you are willing, a new year can bring about the implementation of new habits or resolutions.

Plenty of resources can be found on the Internet about organizing your financial documents.  Most people are familiar with “For Dummies” books, created to teach and simplify our lives.  Here’s an article from their series, How to Organize Your Financial Records.  Use the information to design an effective process for yourself.  Generally your incoming financial mail is mostly bills, bank/investment statements, contracts, and important tax filing documents.  The use of tools such as filing cabinets with file folders, binders with protective pages to hold receipts, and a basket for bills-to-pay will manage the flow of documents passing through your hands in route to their final destiny.    

Opportunities are now available to receive and retrieve information on-line through electronic bills and statements.   This is a good way to simplify your life.  Learning to electronically save information will reduce the clutter and mounting piles of paper. You can’t lose a phone bill when it’s stored at a service provider’s website.  Even charitable receipts can be emailed.   This new mail delivery brings challenges to create an on-line filing system so documents can be easily retrieved with a couple of mouse clicks.

Perhaps, your call to action may begin with making your bed every morning. Perhaps, this will prepare you to tackle the big project of organizing your financial records. Perhaps, developing one good habit leads to the creation of multiple good habits. 

I am anxious to hear the results of this experiment.  I, for one, cannot leave the house if my bed is not made.  It repeatedly demands, “Make me!” Nothing could be worse than a talking bed even if this irritating voice is only in my head.  If the theories behind making your bed change your financial behavior, please feel free to share.