Ask HN: How can I get up early in the morning?

If you’re able, you should do what comes naturally. Are you a night-owl or a morning person? If you’re asking about how to wake up earlier, I’d guess the former.

I’m simply more productive and creative in the AM, so I rise each day at 5:30. For me, knowing when I'm the most please with my own production is my motivation. But, by the time 2 or 3 rolls around in the afternoon I’m all out of juice. And truth be told if I wasn’t in a corporate environment I would likely take a nap at this time to recharge.

I'd recommend sleeping in a room that gets sunlight as early as possible. As the room warms up (and gets brighter), you'll naturally wake up less groggily.

If your schedule can handle it, try just going to sleep when you are tired and seeing when you wake up (ie. don't use an alarm at all).

I tried this for about six months, and the following happened.

The first week or two I slept upwards of 10-11 hours a night, and woke up in the afternoon.

The next couple months, my schedule kind of rotated around the clock (I'd wake up about 30-45 mins later each day), but I only slept 8-9 hours.

By month four, I was only sleeping 7-7.5 hours at a time, and my schedule rotation had slowed to where it was only shifting about 15 mins a day.

The best part was that I always woke up extremely fresh and ready to go. I never felt like the walking dead, and generally was happier.

Before I tried this, I thought I was a night person, just because I always seem to stay up too late and dislike waking up... but I realized what I really liked was the quiet, and found that early morning quiet time (4-7am) was actually more productive, just because I wasn't worn out from a whole day of being awake.

Sadly I had to return to a day job for a bit before grad school, so now I survive mostly on coffee, but it was fun to try when I had the chance.

That was a joke...

Go to bed earlier at night.

Drink lots of water a few hours before you go to bed, and use an alarm clock. I often find that I'm up before it goes off, but if for some reason that doesn't happen, the alarm clock wakes me up.