You go to bed at night and set big plans to get up early the next morning and crush the day. Only when your alarm goes off, you press snooze each time. Or worse, you just turn your alarm off and sleep in for another hour or so.
I’ve done this plenty of times so you’re definitely not alone. While it’s one thing to take the morning off and catch up on rest, hitting snooze on your alarm daily can consistently put you behind schedule and negatively affect your productivity for that entire day.
Imagine if you did manage to wake up an hour or two earlier each weekday. This could result in adding an extra 5-10 hours back into your schedule per week. What if you could hit some major milestones in that time? If you want to start waking up at your desired time and feeling good about it here are some easy tips to help you stop hitting snooze on your alarm each morning.
1. Give Yourself Something to Look Forward To
Too often, we view waking up early (or even waking up in general) as a chore. When your alarm suddenly goes off, perhaps you feel annoyed or even disgust as you dread having to leave your warm and cozy bed.
I challenge you to change your mindset around waking up and focus on what you can look forward to. For starters, the fact that you wake up whenever your alarm goes off is a blessing seeing as how many people around the world may not even wake up to see another day.
Another thing to think about is the fact that a new day presents fresh new opportunities and experiences. Determine something specific that you can look forward to as soon as you get out of bed. Put off tasks like checking email and making breakfast for your family if you can. Instead, make yourself a delicious warm cup of coffee or tea. Go for a walk around the block or read something you love for 10 minutes.
2. Go To Bed at a Reasonable Time
This should go without saying, but it’s important to make sure you’re getting at least 7 hours of sleep each night. Sometimes I feel tempted to stay up late but I know that when I do this, I’m more likely to snooze my alarm the following morning.
Figure out how much sleep you feel comfortable with getting each night then just count backward to know what time you should go to bed.
I like to get up between 6 am and 6:30 am. I find that when I go to bed around 9:30 pm or 10 pm, I usually wake up naturally by 6:30 am even without an alarm.
3. Set Your Alarm Across the Room
This is a good strategy if you’re one of those people who just can’t stand the sound of an alarm. Odds are if you place your phone or clock across the room, you will at least get out of bed to turn it off.
Why stop there? Once you’re up and out of bed, just walk around the house and begin your morning routine to fully wake up.
4. Get Dressed as Soon as You Wake Up
If you work from home or have a flexible schedule, it may be tempting to just stay in your pajamas for half the day. However, doing this can make it hard to stop hitting snoozer on your alarm each morning.
Start showering and getting dressed for the day as soon as you get up. That way, you can’t go back to bed even if you feel tempted in the moment. You can pick out what you’re going to wear the night before or even line up outfits for the entire week. Numerous studies have shown that certain clothes can set your mood and improve your confidence. But you probably don’t need a study to know that wearing pajamas all day is not going to motivate you to get up and out of bed.
5. Plan an Early Morning Meeting
While there are plenty of reasons to not plan a meeting first thing in the morning, there are a few key benefits. For starters, having an early morning meeting means you can get it out of the day. Plus, a morning meeting can easily help you stop hitting snooze on your alarm. If you know you have to get up and be ready for a morning meeting whether it’s via video chat or by phone, you won’t have the option to snooze and sleep later.
While you probably can’t plan a meeting every morning, you can practice doing this regularly to help you get into the habit of waking up as soon as your alarm goes off.
6. Understand How Sleep Cycles Work
How many hours you sleep is not nearly as important as REM sleep. During normal sleep cycles, we progress through stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Then, your sleep stage eventually progresses to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep is when dreaming can occur but it’s the best type of sleep you can get.
Experts suggest that waking up during a REM sleep cycle can leave you drowsy. Your natural sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes. This is why when you try to take a nap for 30-60 minutes during the day it probably made you even more tired or irritable. Try to be mindful of your sleep cycles and set your alarm to wake you up when you’re not expected to be in REM sleep. This sleep calculator can tell you when you should go to sleep each night depending on the time you get up.
Summary
It can be a challenge to stop hitting snooze each morning if you’ve been doing it for as long as you can remember. Start implementing some of these tips and strategies. Then challenge yourself to wake up at your desired time each morning for at least 3 days. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be almost halfway done with the week and can just continue the habit for the next several days.
Realize, it takes a good 21 days to break a habit and replace it with a better one but you also have to be consistent in maintaining the new habit.
Do you struggle with snoozing your alarm each day as well and losing precious time in the morning? Which strategies are you looking forward to trying to help with this?
Choncé Maddox
Choncé Maddox is a professional writer who recently left her job in the web design industry to produce killer content and manage her own writing business full time. She is passionate about helping entrepreneurs be more productive and create a life they love by doing fulfilling work. On the side, she runs a podcast and blogs about getting out of debt at MyDebtEpiphany.com.