Middle of the night thoughts and how to manage them!

Are you someone who lays awake for ages at night with ideas, racing thoughts or working through tomorrow's to-do list? I used to be this way and it was a nightmare. I usually woke tired and irritable and forgetting half of what I thought about.

Over the years, I developed my own ways of coping that have not only helped me in life but as a Virtual Assistant also. Here are a few tips that may help you too.

1. At the end of your work day or before you go to bed, take a few minutes to go through today. What did you not get to? What did you not complete?

2. Start tomorrow's to-do list and add the tasks you need to finish. Mark what is essential and what you would like to finish the next day time permitting. I would suggest making 2 columns. 1 column for ''work'' and 1 column for ''life".

3. Once you are happy with your list, walk away and forget it for the evening.

4. Inevitably, you will think of a few things between now and when you fall asleep. If you do so, the most efficient thing I have found is sending myself an email! If I'm laying in bed thinking that I didn't pay that bill, I'll send my self an email to my work account. Did I forget to send that spreadsheet? I send myself an email etc. You may even prefer to use the notes app in your phone or leave a notebook by your bed for these instances. Whatever works for you.

5. When I arrive to work the next day, I go through my emails, add any new tasks to my to-do list that I started yesterday and off I go about my day.

6. Similarly, when I'm at work, I often send emails to my home account as I think of things that I need to remember to do when I get home.

These little things make sure I don't miss anything but more importantly let me switch my brain off when it's meant to and I'm not awake all night stressing about something I can't do anything about in that moment.

I also think it's really important to keep anything work related out of the bedroom. Your brain recognises that as a place of rest and it needs to remain that way to make it beneficial. How do you cope with your middle of the night thoughts?