Remember how I listened to a speech and decided to start making the bed every morning? Well, I've actually managed to keep up the habit. I haven't actually kept track, but I probably have a fairly decent streak of consecutive days where I've made the bed. That's something to be proud of, to be sure, but I'm actually more proud of how I make the bed.
It all starts with the fact that I have a mild allergy to dust. Knowing that, I try to vacuum regularly and otherwise keep dust from accumulating in my personal space. My bed counts as part of my personal space, so I figured that I might as well rotate the sheets while I was at it. That way, no one sheet is always on the top, nor is the same side always facing the top. I figured that'd help to minimize any potential dust accumulation.
Well, okay, so I need to rotate the sheets somehow. I happen to use 3 sheets, so the easiest plan was to simply reverse everything. I just took all of the sheets and flipped the whole pile upside down. Now, I actually threw the whole pile on the ground, and put them back on one at a time, so this made intuitive sense (also, I keep the floor clean enough that I figured this was safe). The bottom sheet was now on top, and vice versa. On top of that, it was very simple to implement this plan. For the first couple of days, I went with this. After all, the top sheet wasn't on top for any two consecutive days, so I was achieving the desired goal of rotating the sheets.
Let's say each sheet had a light side and a dark side (it'll be easier to explain this way). Assuming that the very first row represents the top and the last row represents the bottom, the sheets looked like this on consecutive days:
After three days the pattern repeated. However, I quickly realized that with this plan, the middle sheet always stayed in the middle. Even though it was being flipped upside down every day, it still stayed in the middle. Also, despite the rotation, only two sides of sheets would ever face the top (Sheet 1's light side and Sheet 3's dark side). It was an improvement over the original situation, but arguably, it was only a marginal improvement.
So, I added a twist. After I overturned the whole pile of sheets, I pulled off one sheet and threw it off to the side. Once that was done, then I started to put them back on. That sounds like a lot of trouble, but basically, all I really did was shift everything by one. In practice, it takes all of like ten extra seconds. Flip the pile over, throw off one sheet to the side, and then make my bed. However, the beauty of this is in just how much it rotates everything:
It all starts with the fact that I have a mild allergy to dust. Knowing that, I try to vacuum regularly and otherwise keep dust from accumulating in my personal space. My bed counts as part of my personal space, so I figured that I might as well rotate the sheets while I was at it. That way, no one sheet is always on the top, nor is the same side always facing the top. I figured that'd help to minimize any potential dust accumulation.
Well, okay, so I need to rotate the sheets somehow. I happen to use 3 sheets, so the easiest plan was to simply reverse everything. I just took all of the sheets and flipped the whole pile upside down. Now, I actually threw the whole pile on the ground, and put them back on one at a time, so this made intuitive sense (also, I keep the floor clean enough that I figured this was safe). The bottom sheet was now on top, and vice versa. On top of that, it was very simple to implement this plan. For the first couple of days, I went with this. After all, the top sheet wasn't on top for any two consecutive days, so I was achieving the desired goal of rotating the sheets.
Let's say each sheet had a light side and a dark side (it'll be easier to explain this way). Assuming that the very first row represents the top and the last row represents the bottom, the sheets looked like this on consecutive days:
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
| Sheet 1 (Light Side) | Sheet 3 (Dark Side) | Sheet 1 (Light Side) |
| Sheet 1 (Dark Side) | Sheet 3 (Light Side) | Sheet 1 (Dark Side) |
| Sheet 2 (Light Side) | Sheet 2 (Dark Side) | Sheet 2 (Light Side) |
| Sheet 2 (Dark Side) | Sheet 2 (Light Side) | Sheet 2 (Dark Side) |
| Sheet 3 (Light Side) | Sheet 1 (Dark Side) | Sheet 3 (Light Side) |
| Sheet 3 (Dark Side) | Sheet 1 (Light Side) | Sheet 3 (Dark Side) |
After three days the pattern repeated. However, I quickly realized that with this plan, the middle sheet always stayed in the middle. Even though it was being flipped upside down every day, it still stayed in the middle. Also, despite the rotation, only two sides of sheets would ever face the top (Sheet 1's light side and Sheet 3's dark side). It was an improvement over the original situation, but arguably, it was only a marginal improvement.
So, I added a twist. After I overturned the whole pile of sheets, I pulled off one sheet and threw it off to the side. Once that was done, then I started to put them back on. That sounds like a lot of trouble, but basically, all I really did was shift everything by one. In practice, it takes all of like ten extra seconds. Flip the pile over, throw off one sheet to the side, and then make my bed. However, the beauty of this is in just how much it rotates everything:
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 |
| Sheet 1 (Light) | Sheet 2 (Dark) | Sheet 3 (Light) | Sheet 1 (Dark) | Sheet 2 (Light) | Sheet 3 (Dark) |
| Sheet 1 (Dark) | Sheet 2 (Light) | Sheet 3 (Dark) | Sheet 1 (Light) | Sheet 2 (Dark) | Sheet 3 (Light) |
| Sheet 2 (Light) | Sheet 3 (Dark) | Sheet 1 (Light) | Sheet 2 (Dark) | Sheet 3 (Light) | Sheet 1 (Dark) |
| Sheet 2 (Dark) | Sheet 3 (Light) | Sheet 1 (Dark) | Sheet 2 (Light) | Sheet 3 (Dark) | Sheet 1 (Light) |
| Sheet 3 (Light) | Sheet 1 (Dark) | Sheet 2 (Light) | Sheet 3 (Dark) | Sheet 1 (Light) | Sheet 2 (Dark) |
| Sheet 3 (Dark) | Sheet 1 (Light) | Sheet 2 (Dark) | Sheet 3 (Light) | Sheet 1 (Dark) | Sheet 2 (Light) |
It would take about a week before the same sheet/side sees the top of the bed again. I was more than a tad pleased with myself when I realized this. Ain't no dust building up on my bed/sheets.
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