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Can't switch off at night? Try writing tomorrow's list

By Cat, founder of ReSync · 25 October 2026 · 4 min read

Lying in bed running through everything you didn't finish is exhausting. For many people with ADHD it's a nightly routine: research pooling 13 studies found that adults with ADHD report worse sleep on most self-reported measures, including taking longer to fall asleep (Díaz-Román, Mitchell and Cortese, 2018).

The to-do list experiment

In a 2018 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Scullin and colleagues brought 57 young adults into a sleep lab. Before bed, half spent five minutes writing a to-do list for the coming days, and half wrote about tasks they had already completed. Their sleep was then measured overnight with polysomnography.

The to-do list group fell asleep about nine minutes faster on average, and the more specific their lists, the faster they fell asleep. The researchers suggest that getting unfinished tasks out of your head and onto paper may reduce the mental "looping" that keeps you awake.

A simple wind-down to try

• Brain dump first. Write everything that's taking up space, without sorting it.
• Then pick tomorrow's few. Choose one important thing and one tiny thing for the morning.
• Be specific. "Email Sam about Friday" works better than "emails".
• Close the list. Once it's written, you have permission to stop thinking about it until morning.

If you've had ongoing sleep problems for weeks, it's worth talking to your GP, as sleep difficulties have many possible causes.

How ReSync uses this

ReSync's evening wind-down and Brain dump journal prompt are designed for this moment: empty your head, choose tomorrow's first step, and let the rest wait.