Why make your bed? Well, not only does doing it every day build your discipline, which strengthens your willpower, keeping your place looking orderly helps conserve your day-to-day willpower supply as well, so you can channel it into more important tasks. Plus it just looks nice, and it feels really good to get into a made bed when you turn in each night. If you want to learn a military-style method for a tighter result, here’s how to make a bed you can bounce a quarter off of.
Heading Out on Your Own — Day 14: Establish a Simple Cleaning Routine and Stick to It
Heading Out on Your Own
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Ahhh….memories of Navy Boot Camp surfaced just now. I have to get back to making my bed this way….with the hospital corners.
This is a nice hotel-like bed you’ve made there. But in reality, and if you don’t want to change your sheets each week, I propose leaving the bed untidy and even getting the sheet and quilt from the bed. We sweat in the night, we leave our epidermis on the pillow and on the quilt, and on the sheets. With moist from our sweat it’s the greatest food for bedworms. The best thing you could do is to leave the bed to dry. Don’t cover it with quilt, just leave it to dry completely. It will be more hygienic for longer time.
I just want to know what size bed that is. That’s massive.
It’s actually easier to do the hospital corners with the sheet and the blanket at the same time…but I’m not sure why you would want to cover up that work with a comforter.
Protip: To get some really snappy corners, utilize a large straight edge like a binder to tuck the sheet in and pull the angled sheet over. Just like we did in basic.
like a boss, I tell ya’
After living in Europe for several years, I honestly have to say that a duvet is the way to go.
I could never make a satisfactory bed.
And at this point in my life, all I have as a blanket is a sleeping bag.
@ zenobius…. You don’t change your sheets weekly?… Really???? Ewwwww
“and it feels really good to get into a made bed when you turn in each night.”
Going to have to disagree, like in a Seinfeld episode, I don’t like the tuck.
I need freedom, but it does look nicer I agree.
Augh! I’m having flashbacks to morning inspections from plebe year at West Point!
For an added touch, fold the pillow side of the blanket over twice maintaining a palm’s width in the fold for its entire length. Then put the pillows flush against the fold. We had to do this in bootcamp, and I gotta say, I always liked how it looked. It makes your rack look like fitted suit.
Don’t parents force you to make the bed, at least a couple times while growing up? To wash dishes? To clean up your room? How to vacuum? Wash yourself? Do laundry? IF this is the case, then parents have really taken a step back in the parenting department.
I love sleeping in a bed with tucked sheets, and my wife abhors it. You guessed the compromise – my side is tucked in, hers is not. Martha Stuart would no doubt highly disapprove.
Agree with the others. Flashback to my time at Basic Training. Still a great way to make a bed, but my wife hates it. Sheets are too tight.
Two tips:
>I have heard that dust mites thrive if the bed is made soon after rising; so I pull off the top sheet/blanket and “fluff” them; then let it sit and air out while I get ready for the day. I then make my bed after breakfast.
> Being almost as tall than my bed is long, I make my hospital corners on the foot of the bed, rather than the side.
Yeah, graphic 2 does make the bed out to be unusually long.
I agree with Wes. Toss a duvet on it.
– Sheet, check.
– Duvet, check.
Done.
Luckily I knew this one. HEaded to BMQ soon so that is at least one think I already know. lol
As a top-bunk child who never once made a bed until living at college, I think this article overlooks the single biggest benefit of a keeping the bed made:
It is very helpful, perhaps even essential, to the pursuit of having someone join you in that bed.