Can a Bedtime To-Do List Help You Fall Asleep?What the Experiment Tested

You turn out the light and remember the appointment to book, the form to send and the message you meant to answer. Writing them down is a manageable idea. Whether it improves sleep depends on what was compared and which outcome changed.

The laboratory study compared two kinds of writing

The experiment analyzed 57 healthy adults aged 18–30, randomly assigned to write for five minutes about future tasks or recently completed activities. Sleep was recorded overnight using polysomnography.¹

The future-task group fell asleep after 15.82 minutes on average, versus 25.09 minutes in the completed-activities group (P = 0.02). Total sleep time and time awake after sleep onset did not differ significantly.¹

This was one laboratory night, not a chronic-insomnia treatment course. Both groups wrote, so it cannot determine whether the future list helped, the completed list hindered or both. More future items were associated with faster sleep onset, but list length was not randomized. It does not establish a required item count.¹

Constructive worry adds possible solutions

A 2006 study² involved 33 college students reporting insomnia. After two baseline nights, one group spent five nights recording possible solutions to worries. The comparison group recorded worries and completed worry questionnaires.²

The constructive-worry group had less pre-sleep cognitive arousal than the comparison group and than at baseline. That outcome concerns how mentally activated participants felt before sleep. It should not be converted into a promise of a particular reduction in minutes awake.²

This exercise also differs from an unrestricted emotional diary: it pairs a concern with a possible response. The accessible original abstract supports that distinction, without supplying a home-treatment prescription.

Problem-solving therapy involved substantially more than a list

A 2013 Australian trial³ randomized 47 adults aged 18–60 with insomnia to two six-week treatments; 40 completed treatment. Both began with a group session covering sleep education, stimulus control and relaxation. Five individual sessions then used either problem-solving therapy or cognitive therapy.³

Both groups improved in sleep efficiency, insomnia severity and sleep quality, with benefits maintained at one-month follow-up. The trial did not find significant differences in the size or rate of sleep improvement between treatments.³

These were supervised treatment packages with shared behavioral components. Their results cannot establish that writing a task list alone reproduces either package, or that the two therapies are equivalent for every patient.

Keep a writing routine small enough to finish

Current NHS⁴ advice suggests making a next-day task list before sleep if worries often occupy you in bed. It also suggests writing down worries or talking to someone you trust. This is practical sleep advice, rather than a promise that a particular notebook, app or writing style treats insomnia.⁴

For example, “deal with insurance” may leave you rehearsing several unfinished steps. “Find the policy number and call about the claim tomorrow” gives you something you can return to. That example illustrates a bounded task; it is not a separately tested formula.

Write the reminder, then put it aside. If the page becomes an expanding work plan, or a reason to stay up longer, simplify it or move planning earlier. You do not need to fill a page, keep a streak or purchase a guided journal to decide whether the habit suits you.

Avoid timing yourself against the laboratory averages. If you remain awake and frustrated, NHS⁴ guidance advises a relaxing activity out of bed and returning when sleepy.⁴

Persistent insomnia deserves a treatment discussion

The AASM⁵ guideline strongly recommends multicomponent cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, for adults with chronic insomnia. It advises against sleep hygiene as the sole treatment. A writing habit may sit alongside care; it should not become another prerequisite you must perfect before seeking it.⁵

Bring a description of what happens: trouble starting sleep, repeated waking or early waking, how often it occurs and how it affects the following day. Ask whether an insomnia assessment and CBT-I fit your circumstances.

Chapter 10, “In Bed All Night, Tired All Day,” in Did I Do That in My Sleep? distinguishes sleep opportunity, sleepiness, fatigue and insomnia, then explains structured treatment options. Use those distinctions to describe the problem a task list leaves unresolved.