Sleep puzzle system

KatjaGrace
Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:10:46 GMT

Here’s an obscure life hack.

If (like me) you:

Don’t like going to bed, due to it conflicting with keeping on doing things

When in bed, wish you had something more engaging and enjoyable to do instead of just lying there waiting—for instance, playing a very compelling computer game until you get tired

Do not in fact reliably get tired from playing a very compelling computer game

Like puzzles

..then a solution that has worked surprisingly well for me before (and I wrote about previously) is having hard math puzzles handy to think about as I go to sleep. Somehow thinking about math at the bounds of my limited ability to imagine does make me sleepy. And is also quite compelling.

I haven’t done this for a while, I think due to disorganization and losing track of the puzzles I had, and not having a great source of new ones. But I have recently reinstated this in a nice format.

I think ideally you want this to involve no preparation at all at bed time, and no going on your computer. So you want a nice supply of the right kind of puzzles in a physical place near your bed. So I sorted through puzzles and found a bunch of good-looking ones, printed them out, cut them up, folded them into pleasing parcels, and put them in my ex-housemate’s ex-teapot. Now if I’m ready for bed, I can draw a tiny package, and open something actually fun and helpful to think about in bed.



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