Something that has worked for me is to have an alarm that I actually like waking up to. Shitty alarms make for the most annoying things in the world when you're trying to sleep. But something nice... we all have our preferences... I like wind chimes, or progressive music - stuff that picks up, rather than starting off with a bang.
Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
101–110 of 121 posts
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I put my alarm clock across the room so that I have to get up out of bed to shut it off. Negative reinforcement works!
I tried this too, but then I started getting up while I was still mostly asleep , walking across the room to turn off the alarm, and then going back to bed again. I even tried putting the alarm in a closet, but I'd still get up and turn it off. What worked for me was (1) going to bed at a reasonable hour and being sure I got 8 full hours of sleep, (2) giving up coffee, and (3) going running every morning (I lived nex…
This sometimes happened to me when I was in uni. I'd leave my alarm (my phone usually) on my desk on the other side of the room. Some days I'd wake up and see my phone on the pillow beside me.. when this happened there was always an "OH SHIT WHAT TIME IS IT" panic since it meant that I got up, turned off the alarm and went back to sleep.
I also used my computer as an alarm clock for a little while. I wrote a program that would set the windows volume to whatever value (0 to 100) was passed as a commandline argument and then I set up the task scheduler to run it in the morning. This way, I could play music quietly at night and in the morning the volume got cranked up to 100% to wake me. Worked well until one morning there must have been a power outage and my computer was off...
Solving puzzles to turn off an alarm doesn't work for me either - my still asleep self is quite clever at pulling plugs, taking out batteries or simply just smashing a persistent alarm.
Luckily, unless I'm really tired (eg go to bed at 6am, get up at 8am), I normally wake up before I need to get up. Actually getting up is a lot harder than waking up tough.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#103The 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…
My still asleep self would simply take out the battery, turn down the volume, or throw the phone into another room or out of the window.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#104I successfully hacked my sleep schedule around 5 years ago. I used to think I was a night owl basically working till 3 in the morning and waking up at noon, then, I realized I was basically not being productive enough doing that. I used a combination of two things:
1. Sleep exactly 7 hours a night at the exact same time (+/- delta) and wake up at the same time.
2. Use the same awful alarm that wakes me up. The alarm doesn't sound alarming, its just that when I hear it, I have to wake up because it is tied with so many memories of waking up in the morning for exams. In fact after switching to an iPhone which doesn't have the same alarm, I have found it (slightly) difficult to wake up.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#105The 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...
I am a bad person. Even with an important meeting I have / will sleep in.
Later, I would invent crazy excuses, or just tell about my monstrous condition.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#106It took me a month of living with withdrawal symptoms and headaches to get over the addiction. Let me just point out that this is totally not normal. I drink 10-15 (20-oz) cups of coffee a week, in addition to caffeinated sodas, and when I'd go off caffeine for a few weeks (as I used to do regularly), I'd have 2-3 days of feeling depressed from normal, and a very mild but persistent headache over the first 1-2 days o…
I take issue with his "coffee = bad" assertion as well. Maybe he was just drinking too much coffee. I know I was getting chest pains when I used to drink way too much, so I quit for a couple of years. Now I'm back to one french pressed cup everyday, although I don't need it, and I finish it well before noon. A little bit of good coffee goes a long way, and although no definitive link to good health has been found yet…
Actually it has been found to battle Alzheimer's disease. http://epicentre.massey.ac.nz/EJC/Stuff/PastPapers/Papers_20...
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#107Why is waking up early even a desirable goal?
The problem with doing it consistently is that it works great until that one Friday night when you stay up till 3 AM, which screws up your schedule for the next week.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#108My Jedi mind hack is to smile.
You may have to force yourself at first. :)
It's become a habit, and it changes my mood so that I want to get up and about.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
This math doesn't work - you're gonna wake up early to have more productive hours, but you'll waste the gain by exercising.
Presumably, if you exercise then you'll have more days total in which to be productive (that is, you'll live longer)!
Plus, you might find yourself more productive on days when you have exercised. I certainly do.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#110The problem I have with a lot of "self-improvement" (?) tips like these is that I find it hard to believe that they are necessary. You need to start getting up earlier? Go to bed early enough to get the sleep you need and when your alarm goes off the next day, just get out of bed. No tricks, special techniques needed. Don't hit snooze. Don't delude yourself into "I'll just rest my eyes for a minute." Don't justify st…
"... when your alarm goes off the next day, just get out of bed ... Just get the hell out of bed ... It's just self discipline." http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2003/10/07/just_is_a_fourletter... http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JustIsaDangerousWord http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2003/08/cant_you_just_... Or, for a more specific counterpoint, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3828794
Um, yeah. Whatever.
We're talking about getting out of bed without procrastinating. If it's difficult, you either haven't had enough sleep or you're being lazy. Getting enough sleep may be difficult, but it's typically not an insurmountable problem. Being lazy is even easier to fix.