Daylight

Practice · Tomorrow's List

Five minutes to put tomorrow on paper

This is the plainest practice in Daylight, and the one that fits most naturally next to an agenda. Before bed, write down what you'll do tomorrow, specifically and in order.

Path Integral · 26 September 2026 · 4 min read

  • CadenceNightly, for as long as you like
  • SessionAbout 5 minutes
  • Based onScullin et al. (2018)

The practice

In the evening, take five minutes to write the specific things you'll do tomorrow, in the order you'll do them. Daylight starts you off with the reminders already on the page, so the list builds on what you've captured rather than starting from nothing.

What Daylight puts on the page

The specific things to do tomorrow, in the order you'll do them. Start with the reminders already on today's page.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

The study

In 2018, Michael Scullin and colleagues at Baylor University brought 57 young adults into a sleep laboratory. Before lights out, each person spent five minutes writing. Half wrote a to-do list of tasks for the next few days. The other half wrote a list of tasks they had already completed. The researchers then measured, with lab equipment, how long each person took to fall asleep.

The to-do list group fell asleep faster, by about nine minutes on average. Within that group there was a further pattern: the more specific the list, the faster the person tended to fall asleep. Writing about what was already done did not show the same result.

Why a plan might quiet the mind

The study builds on earlier work by E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister. In 2011, they showed that unfinished goals tend to keep coming back as intrusive thoughts, and that making a specific plan for a goal reduced those thoughts, even though the goal was still undone. Writing down what you'll do and when seems to let the mind stop holding onto it.

That's why Daylight asks for specific things in order. “Sort out the house” is a worry. “Book the plumber, then put a wash on” is a plan.

How Daylight runs it

Tomorrow's List is the one practice with no end date. It runs nightly for as long as you want it, because making a plan each evening is a habit rather than a course. It takes about five minutes, and tomorrow's reminders are already on the page to start from.

Honest limits. This was one study, of healthy young adults, over one night in a laboratory. It's an interesting result, not a sleep treatment. If sleep is a real problem for you, talk to your GP. Daylight gives you the method and tells you where it came from. It doesn't promise better sleep.

Sources

  • Scullin, M. K., Krueger, M. L., Ballard, H. K., Pruett, N., & Bliwise, D. L. (2018). The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: A polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(1), 139–146.
  • Masicampo, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 667–683.