Matthew Gates 4m 1,104 #alarmclock
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Wake Up Alarm Clock
If you are anything like me, you go to sleep at an ungodly hour, because you spend hours procrastinating, writing articles, researching interesting things or just nonsense, watching Netflix, and the hours just seem to tick away, and you nod off just a few hours before you have to actually wake up. Then its time for the battle with your alarm clock.
You know how annoying it is, yet you keep setting it everyday, because you know it is doing its job: to wake your lazy tired butt up. Maybe you have a day job, maybe you have a night job, either way, you set an alarm clock which goes off, but you missed the whole point when you hit snooze a dozen times, or worse – I am totally guilty – shutting it off completely and hoping for the best, finally waking up a few hours later.
Unfortunately, I despise the days when I do this, as I did want to wake up early, I did want to go outside, run errands, and do stuff. While these days are rare for me, that I just lie in bed and do nothing until I have to go to work, or better yet, on the weekends, when there is no work, and I get to lay in bed all day and do nothing, I would still prefer to be somewhat productive.
Here are some tricks that I use to wake myself up in the morning.
- Choose an alarm clock with the most annoying sound in the world. If you choose a song you love or a soothing sound, you are probably not going to wake up nor will you even hear the alarm going off. The whole point of an alarm clock is to be annoying, persistent, and to wake you up. The annoying sound is designed to irritate you to the point where you cannot find comfort in going back to sleep.
- Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room. If you reach over to nightstand on your side of the bed in the morning to hit snooze or shut off your alarm, you are defeating the entire purpose of waking up. By setting it on the other side of the room, you are forcing yourself to stand up, recognize that you are awake and alive, and that you probably have to pee really bad, and you also need to wake up after shutting off your alarm.
- Do not lie back down in bed. If there is a worst offender of anything I do, this is it: I lie back down, remind myself that I can sleep for 5 more minutes, and it ends up turning into a half hour, an hour, and sometimes even two hours. Whatever you do, whether it requires you to take a shower, go eat breakfast, or take a walk outside, do everything you can to prevent yourself from laying back down.
- Do not give yourself more than one snooze or turn off your alarm. Another thing I am guilty of is hitting snooze a half a dozen times or just shutting off my alarm completely. What is another 5 minutes going to hurt? 5 minutes 6 times is 30 minutes. Whatever you do, allow yourself for one snooze button, but do not allow yourself anymore than that. Definitely do not shut off your alarm clock if you are not up and ready to face the world. If you do happen to hit the snooze button, refer back to #2 on this list. This will prevent you from laying back down and hitting snooze multiple times, or at least, it will force you to get back out of bed and go turn off the alarm clock.
- If you are using your cellphone or tablet, make sure it is charged before you fall asleep. Airplane mode will help your phone charge faster and prevent incoming calls overnight. I have set my alarm on my phone, only to realize it never went off because my phone died overnight. Make sure it is set and loud enough for you to hear it in the morning. Do not put it under your pillow, but place it on the other side of the room, on the dresser or desk, in a location that allows you to hear it.
- Tell your partner to set an alarm. By having your partner set an alarm, they are personally responsible and you are less likely to touch their alarm in the morning, forcing them to be annoyed and wake you up to get up. They will probably hate you, especially if they don’t have to get up, but if you set your alarm and they set their alarm, you are less likely to continue sleeping through two alarms.
- Set multiple alarms. If you need to be up by 8 AM, set an alarm for 7 AM, 7:15 AM, 7:30 AM, and 7:45 AM. One of those 15 minute intervals will eventually wake you up. If you need more intervals, set it for every 10 minutes, though you are really going to piss off anyone sleeping next to you.
- Go to bed early. If you want to rise early, you should probably go to bed early. The closer you are to having to get up, the less likely it is that you will wake up at that time. Do your best to relax, eat a tablespoon of almond butter, shower, have sex, turn off electronic devices, or anything that will help you get to sleep.
- Set a morning goal. The night before you have to wake up, set a few personal goals that you want to achieve in the morning, such as making a certain type of breakfast, hopping in the shower, shaving, or exercise. Setting a goal is more likely to get you to rise than feeling like you have nothing better to do in the morning than stay asleep.
- Allow yourself one sleep-in day. If you get up early every single day, feel free to take a day off, preferably on a weekend, in which you allow yourself at least one extra hour of sleep. Every once in a while, we all deserve to sleep in, and if you get the chance to stay in bed and not have any goals or errands to do for that day, take the day off, and don’t feel guilty about it. Make it a weekly practice, but if you happen to have slept in another day, even by a half hour, you lose this day. This is the best way to hold yourself accountable and to keep yourself on track to waking up everyday on time.
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