SCHS social science teacher David Ledesma comes home from work and shifts to his productive night routine. On any given day, he may start by checking his personal email, then he completes grading and work, pauses for a meal, walks his dog Max, calls his family from the East Coast, catches up on the news, and then heads for bed between 10:00 p.m. and midnight.
A recent trend on social media, the 5-9 depicts overlaps and differences between peoples habits each night from 5:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Ledesma typically tries to prioritize getting one major task done each night, and then he manages his evening around that.
“What’s one thing that I’m going to accomplish that’s not work related today? So is there a load of laundry? Am I going to try and cook a meal?” Ledesma said. “I try to figure out what I want to accomplish that evening and then gear my timing towards that and balancing whatever else I have to do. Whether it’s work, grading, I try to do my work before I eat dinner.”
Junior Samantha Blizzard also prefers to knock out her homework earlier in order to scrapbook, read and play mobile games to de-stress. Chronologically, Blizzard comes home, eats a snack, rests for a bit, completes homework or scrapbooking, takes a nap, has dinner, does more homework, plays games at 7:00 p.m. and falls asleep at roughly 10:00 p.m. on school nights.
“Aside from what I mentioned above, playing video games with good stories is a nice way for me to forget about troubles in my life for a little bit,” Blizzard said. “Alternatively, I read a good book, which accomplishes basically the same thing.”
Ledesma explained some of the things he does to wind down for sleep after walking his dog and reviewing the news to prepare himself for the next day.
“I tuck in my dog, take him out for his last bathroom trip, lock everything up at the house, brush (my) teeth and go to bed,” Ledesma said. “I mean, that’s pretty much what I do. It’s kind of just the winding down of the day.”
Junior Gray Kim begins their afternoon routine by putting their backpack in their room and taking a few minutes to decompress, collect their energy and rest before a constructive night. For Kim, consistency is vital in order to have a productive night.
“I take off my backpack, and I change clothes and clean up. Then I take things out of my backpack that I need for later to do my homework and take a nap or rest for about an hour,” Kim said. “After that, I start on my homework, take a break to eat and get back to work.”
Kim discussed some struggles with sleeping. They mentioned that some of their issues root from taking 30 or 40 minutes to fall asleep even when they had a good rest the previous night. They complete any homework later in the night, around 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. After that, they prepare for the next school day, prior to going to bed at 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m.
“I place the clothes I’m going to wear the next day out on my dresser, put everything I need to take to school on my desk and mentally prepare and plan for what to do the next day,” Kim said.
The 5-9 routine is interchangeable per person and fluctuates per day for people as well. Some students and staff benefit from their daily rituals. Some, however, think their habits could be changed to become more organized or effective.
One goal Ledesma has to improve his evening routine is to become more efficient in time management so he could complete bigger tasks on weekdays and allow for more fun on the weekends.
“If you can figure out how to squeeze that in all during the week, when you’re on the weekend, then you can just have it to do something more exciting,” Ledesma said.