When you have a problem, people often tell you to “sleep on it.” But what happens when an inability to sleep is the problem?
The last few decades, I have suffered from frequent bouts of insomnia. Like many people who have trouble sleeping, I worry about my children, my parents as they get older, and challenges at work.
When this happens, rather than getting worried about a lack of sleep, I have learned to accept that my mind will be active, and to direct it to creative thoughts.
It’s not all bad. Many of these Treasurer’s Notes I have written started in the middle of the night while lying quietly in bed. I don’t immediately get up and start taking notes. I just let my mind wander over past experiences and ponder creative solutions to problems.
Bobby Kennedy popularized the quote: “Some men see things as they are and say ‘why.’ I dream of things that never were and say, ‘why not.’”
I can’t say that I dream of things that never were because I’m not really sleeping. But I have thought about tackling problems creatively when I just let my mind run.
I don’t have a lot of time for undistracted thinking during the day. Running the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office means a lot of meetings, decisions, and events. Like many of you, my phone is always by my side, ringing and vibrating with someone trying to reach me.
Sometimes we just need long periods of quiet to find solutions to the issues we are facing. So, I have learned to view my bouts of insomnia as an opportunity.
That same spirit of creativity runs through the work we do at the State Treasurer’s Office. Creativity is fundamentally about problem-solving: Looking at an old challenge from a new perspective and asking how we can do something better. Every day, my team looks for new and creative ways to serve Illinois families, improve our programs and make the resources we offer more useful and accessible to the people who need them.
I heard from people that it was too difficult for them to claim their missing money through I-CASH. So, we started electronic claims, fast track, and money match to put more money back in people’s pockets more quickly. Before I took office, we paid about 60,000 claims a year. Today, it’s more than 300,000 a year, five times as many.
I frequently heard people complain about their property taxes. I don’t set property taxes or collect them, but we have worked to increase interest income for local governments from $706 THOUSAND the year before I became Treasurer to about $882 MILLION just last year. Every dollar we make through smart, safe investing is a dollar that local government doesn’t have to raise in taxes or cut in services.
I knew families that were worried about saving enough for their children with disabilities without losing federal benefits. After we took office, we set up the Illinois ABLE program. Before, people with disabilities weren’t allowed to have more than $2,000 in total assets. Today, they can save up to $100,000 in an ABLE account and more people are eligible.
I knew too many people who weren’t saving for retirement. Today, we have more than 180,000 who have saved more than $350 million through automatic workplace deductions through My Illinois Savings.
I could go on with other innovations, like our Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, our FIRST Fund, and our financial literacy website.
Not all of these were a result of my 3 a.m. musings. Most of them came from listening to people‘s problems, having many conversations, and working through solutions with lawmakers. But many of the solutions became clearer to me while lying in bed, unable to sleep, and letting my mind wander.
Solutions to our problems don’t always pop up like a lightbulb above the head or in an “A-ha” moment. Sometimes they just take time to think through. So, if you have a problem, sleep on it. If you can.
Sincerely,
Michael