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"Two weeks into the Sleep Challenge Arianna Huffington and I are doing, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve heard from hundreds of you here and on HuffingtonPost.com about how you&amp;amp;#8217;re hitting the hay just a little bit earlier&amp;amp;#8212;some of you for the first time in years. I&amp;amp;#8217;m thrilled! So here&amp;amp;#8217;s a question for all of you: What are you doing less of to make more time for sleep?That&amp;amp;#8217;s the question money guru Suze Orman asked me last week when I ran into her in the green room at CNN. One reason women don&amp;amp;#8217;t get enough sleep, she pointed out, is that they&amp;amp;#8217;re overcommitted&amp;amp;#8212;not just to work and family, but to volunteering, organizing, thank-you-note-writing and a million other little obligations that, left unchecked, keep them up till all hours when they should be in bed. &amp;amp;#8220;Women only know how to do more!&amp;amp;#8221; she said. &amp;amp;#8220;They don&amp;amp;#8217;t know how to do less.&amp;amp;#8221; But doing less is the trick we all need to master, she says&amp;amp;#8212;otherwise all the best-laid early-bedtime plans in the world won&amp;amp;#8217;t help us. &amp;amp;#8220;Say no out of love for yourself,&amp;amp;#8221; Orman insists, &amp;amp;#8220;versus yes out of fear of what other people will think about you.&amp;amp;#8221; She&amp;amp;#8217;s right, of course. Learning to say a simple, dignified &amp;amp;#8220;no&amp;amp;#8221; is a crucial life skill every woman should master, but boy is it hard. You start thinking: Well, do I really have a good reason not to organize Jenny&amp;amp;#8217;s bridal shower? Am I honestly too busy to look over my neighbor&amp;amp;#8217;s niece&amp;amp;#8217;s resume and give her some job-hunting pointers? Shouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t I finally put together that photo album? (Answers: You do; you are; don&amp;amp;#8217;t bother, because to quote George Clooney in Up in the Air, &amp;amp;#8220;Photos are for people who can&amp;amp;#8217;t remember. Drink some gingko and let the photos burn.&amp;amp;#8221;) Now, I count myself lucky in the saying-no department: I learned how to do it early on in my career as a sheer survival strategy, and I gained no-saying confidence when I realized that I had been smart enough to marry a man who frequently said yes (even to shower-throwing and album-making), which I figure gives me some credit to glide on. But still, you can&amp;amp;#8217;t get seven-and-a-half hours of sleep a night without trimming some things off the list&amp;amp;#8212;either obligations of the sort Orman&amp;amp;#8217;s talking about or fun stuff. In my life, I consider work and family the two non-negotiables: They&amp;amp;#8217;re my religion, the two things I&amp;amp;#8217;ll pay attention to above all. But everything else is on the table, and since starting the Sleep Challenge, here&amp;amp;#8217;s some of what I&amp;amp;#8217;ve given up: Cooking on weeknights. (Not that I ever did that much of it&amp;amp;#8212;when my daughter was 18 months old, she famously ran down the length of our apartment, holding a takeout menu and screaming &amp;amp;#8220;Dinner! Dinner!&amp;amp;#8221;) Doing favors for people who aren&amp;amp;#8217;t close friends or trusted colleagues. I&amp;amp;#8217;m sorry. I&amp;amp;#8217;d like to. But: no. Throwing parties that require more than a bottle opener and money for the pizza guy. Watching TV in real time. Why on earth those boys at NBC had their knickers in such a twist over whether the Tonight Show should start at 11:35pm or 12:05am is beyond me. Ten minutes on TiVo the next night and you&amp;amp;#8217;re done. The entire bottom third of my to-do list. Nothing really important ever ends down that far anyway. So, fellow Sleep Challengers, what would you give up to get a full night&amp;amp;#8217;s sleep? Do you agree with Orman that as women, we&amp;amp;#8217;re more over-committed than men? And what wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t you give up, no matter how well-rested you would be otherwise? More things you don&amp;#x27;t need to worry about: * 3 Things Women Say That Make Them Look Insecure (and How to Stop and Just Be Your Amazing Self) * 5 Fewer Health Concerns to Worry About * Men Say: Stop Worrying About Those Body &amp;quot;Flaws&amp;quot;! * New PJs and a bed--you could win them here! More Ways to Get Glamour: Subscribe to Glamour magazine! Follow me on Twitter! Friend Glamour on Facebook! Photo: Jupiter Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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