On today’s show I want to stress the importance of getting a good night’s sleep—especially when you are a freelance business owner. I’m really good at sleeping. I need about eight or nine hours a night, and I prioritize my sleep. I’ve also purposefully developed several habits to master and create the perfect sleep environment. And I want to share them with you. As an employee, you might have been able to get through the day when you were tired, even if you weren’t your best self. But as a freelance business owner, everything is based on your own discipline. You have to make yourself get up, get into work mode, start projects, stick to a task, work when you might not feel like it. It can be way too easy to get distracted and browse social media or spend too much time on admin work, “pretending” to yourself that you’re really working. All of this is amplified when you are tired. If you do not get enough sleep, you are not likely to have much discipline that day. Or even if you are trying to do work, your brain is not at its best. There’s one thing I used to do an as employee to sabotage my own sleep needs, even though I knew I was doing it. If you are your own boss and doing this thing, it’s a warning sign: I would stay up way too late at night to prolong the evening so the next day would not arrive. I was dreading something about the next day. As an employee, remember those Sunday blues? Do you ever feel like that as a freelance business owner? I think that’s a warning sign. Ask yourself why you’re dreading the next day. Have you taken on a project you don’t like? Do you have a regular client who you don’t enjoy working with? What can you do so that you look forward to Mondays—or at least not dread them? Now, let’s talk about how to create a conducive sleep environment. Start by creating a cool, dark room. The National Sleep Foundation recommends you keep your bedroom between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal sleep. Another tip: Wear socks to bed to help your internal body temperature find the right setting. Other ideas: black-out curtains or dark, heavy curtains. Ceiling fans or standing fans if the AC doesn’t make it cool enough. Think about noise too. Maybe invest in a white noise machine or noise-masking headphones. And I highly recommend always taking ear plugs with you when you travel, and, at the hotel, request a room on the quiet side of the building. This may be the back of the hotel and you may lose the view, but at least you’ll sleep. Consider a humidifier in the winter. Dry air can irritate your throat and nose and can cause nasal congestion, coughing, even nosebleeds. I also use a stand-alone air purifier to help clean allergens out of our bedroom. Consider the age and style of your pillow and mattress. I’ve been using a Tempur-Pedic neck pillow for years and my neck is never sore when I get up. I couldn’t say that in the past with regular pillows. One more overarching thing about your bedroom: Your bedroom should be a cozy, calming place. Get rid of any clutter. If you have cold floors, buy an area rug or slippers. Add a cozy chair with a blanket or hang some calming photos or art. I like to get into a bed with crisp, clean sheets pulled taut so I make my bed every morning. Now, let’s talk about going to bed and sleep habits. Think about how you go to sleep now. Do you go to sleep at different times each night? Do you stay up so late that you’re almost too tired to drag yourself upstairs? Are you mindlessly watching Netflix or scrolling Instagram all night on the sofa because you’re too tired to do anything else? If you have kids, do you use the time after they go to bed to do chores and catch up on work? Analyze how you typically go to bed. What is your routine? What do you think you’re doing now that you could improve upon? I encourage you to figure out how to wind down before you go to bed—to create a routine that you look forward to. You need a buffer between your daily activities and trying to go to s