Make Your Bed, Or Not

My daughter recently moved into a place with her significant other. A first for both. So, I was curious about how it was going. You know, negotiating all the inevitable compromises that come along when combining two lives. Apparently, one little issue came up: whether to make the bed every day.

According to Architectural Digest, a case could be made either way. The pros? It could make you more productive and improve your sleep quality. The cons? Leaving the sheets open creates air flow and discourages dust mites. That, and you could injure yourself making your bed.

Unless your pillows are 100 lb. sacks of concrete, that’s hard to believe. Let’s call that a win for making your bed.

Then there’s Admiral William McRaven who famously gave a commencement speech at the University of Texas in 2014, which you can find on YouTube. The speech was later converted into a #1 New York Times Best Seller. Perhaps you can guess where he falls on the issue.

“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another… By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.”

Aye aye, admiral.

There Are Two Types of People: Those Who Make Their Bed and Those Who Don’t, by Elizabeth Yuko, Architectural Digest, April 24, 2020. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World, by William H. McRaven, April 4, 2017.