You only need one tip: get a kid. Won't help with productivity though.
How about a cat? There is no snooze button on a cat that wants to be fed. :-)
You need to adjust your cat's feeding cycle.
Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
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Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about a cat? There is no snooze button on a cat that wants to be fed. :-)
Are you comparing the amount of attention cats need with the amount children need (particularly infants & toddlers)? You are so going to have a wakeup call one day :)
I guess I was thinking in terms of having the morning wake-up without the full commitment of a child.
I am quite aware of the differences between a human infant and a cat.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#53The most important step is to get up. It's the best approach when sane-me wakes up first, but usually a totally different personality wakes up first. It can justify almost anything in its effort to stay in bed. Kinda creepy actually, it's what I'd imagine having a multiple personality disorder is like. It's not even a voice , I am not "me" when I wake up :-)
One neat app I've discovered lately that helps me with this tremendously is Sleep as Android[1]. It has a "CAPTCHA" mode for alarms, where you have to do some additional task to wake up. It has a few choices for the task, but the most amazing one is QR Code scanning. You "teach" the phone a QR code of your choice, and when the alarm goes off you have to scan the code to turn it off. The use case is printing a QR code on a piece of paper and sticking it in the kitchen/bathroom/whatever room that requires you getting up and walking. A simple, yet (to me) a mind-blowing feature for an alarm.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#54This is all I need: http://www.amazon.com/EcoTeas-Organic-Yerba-Loose-5-Pound/dp... and http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Ancients-Bombilla-Strainerstraw...
Yerba is a nice booster in the morning. Stronger then regular tea or coffee. Highly recommend it too! I mentioned some tips in a very very old post of mine here: http://blog.ernestsemerda.com/2010/08/06/sleep-5-hours-night...
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#55Have children.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#56Buy a Zeo. It really works. Long/short it monitors your sleep state and wakes you during the best time. I've never in my entire life been a morning person; I recently had enough struggling with my startup and took a fulltime job and decided to be the early guy. Have been to work 7:30 or early without issue for nearly two months. And most shocking, I feel great, fully awake and don't have any tiredness. Great product.…
How do you handle having a band strapped to your head? Does it come off at night and most importantly does it feel comfortable?
It's pretty comfortable, I read complaints about it being too tight. It seems to come packaged at the tightest possible level (mostly I think this is to save space in the box it comes in). It took me a few nights of fiddling to loosen it enough, haven't had an issue comfort-wise since the first few days.
I'd say it comes off maybe twice a month or so. Mostly I think this is me moving around at night but it hasn't caused me any issue waking up, I have a pattern where I wake-up around 3am to go to the bathroom (and/or let my cat out) so when it has happened, I notice I'm not wearing it and throw it back on when I get back into bed. I've never had it come off and wake up in the morning without it on.
The only other issue to be aware of, the software can be a bit buggy. I updated it last week on a trip and it killed the app (would open, but as soon as I put the headband on it closed itself). I ended up having to remove it entirely from my iPhone and pull it down 'clean' from the appstore. Minor, but I lost my settings which were pretty easy to re-add.
Edit: I forgot to mention I use to be a caffeine addict in the morning, starting my day with a mountain dew, and in recent more healthy years, switched to green-tea. I no longer drink anything other than water with my morning vitamins. This is probably the most striking thing I've noticed about waking up at the 'right time'.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#57Buy a Zeo. It really works. Long/short it monitors your sleep state and wakes you during the best time. I've never in my entire life been a morning person; I recently had enough struggling with my startup and took a fulltime job and decided to be the early guy. Have been to work 7:30 or early without issue for nearly two months. And most shocking, I feel great, fully awake and don't have any tiredness. Great product.…
There is an app on the AppStore that claims to do something similar using only built-in phone hardware (accelerometer). Anybody got any experience with it? Seems like some reviewers claims that the readings are bogus. Is the accelerometer on the iPhone sensitive enough to register movements as claimed by the app? http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320...
I tried that out too, but it didn't seem to make it any easier for me to wake up (still felt sleepy/groggy). I decided to buy the Zeo since they had it at my local best-buy and I could easily return it. I honestly didn't expect it to work any better.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#5811. Get enough exercise. I find when I'm getting regular exercise, I open my eyes in the morning and I'm awake and ready to go. It's the opposite when I've been lazing around for a few weeks not doing my physical activity.
That one was actually on my initial list. I left it out though because I have just recently started working out regularly. But yes, so far I have been getting better night sleeps after my workout days.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#59The most important step is to get up. It's the best approach when sane-me wakes up first, but usually a totally different personality wakes up first. It can justify almost anything in its effort to stay in bed. Kinda creepy actually, it's what I'd imagine having a multiple personality disorder is like. It's not even a voice , I am not "me" when I wake up :-)
I think part of maturing into an adult is realizing that future-you is not the same as present-you. Understanding that fact can help you solve problems like getting up in the morning; in fact the OP offers such solutions: Schedule an important meeting or event early in the morning that forces you to get up.
See also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ase/schelling_fences_on_slippery_slo...
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#60Become a farmer and sleep at 8 and wake up at 5. Not modern zombie clown.
As a grain farmer, it is rare to see much happen around this farm before 11AM. Except, perhaps, repair some downed equipment. You pretty much always need the morning sunshine to dry up the fields from the overnight dew before they are ready to be worked in again.