On early mornings

Early mornings, especially on your days off can be hard. It’s cold, your bed beckons, and there isn’t really anyone (except past/future you) to judge present you for hitting snooze on your day for a few hours. However, you must not let this happen as you’ll still need to accomplish everything you are putting off, but now you’ll be starting hours later, and potentially staying up later, starting a viscous cycle of sleep deprivation and burning the midnight and early morning oil.

However, despite all the best intentions in the world, sometimes it doesn’t work out so I like to build in daily redundancies to help me get up and start doing things, especially on my days off.

Musical Alarms

One way I ensure that my alarm works is by switching up the sounds every few months. I take part in a family spotify account which I’m able to link to my alarms. For the last few months I’ve linked up my alarm to a Best of Enya soundtrack so I’ve woken up to a new song each day. However, I’m planning on switching to a Best of Beethoven Symphonies soon.

Sunset Clocks

Sunset alarm clocks. I don’t use my sunset clock, I have this one. I found it bothers me when it goes off because I typically wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off naturally, and the moment it turns on, even at it’s dimmest, it wakes me up and makes it hard to fall back asleep for those precious final 25 minutes. Now, after years of just dealing with it, I only use it to tell the time. Also, other sunset clocks might be better but I wouldn’t recommend one at this point.

Automatic Coffee

I put out a mug and set up my coffee machine each night, delaying a brew until the time I want to get up the next morning. It’s a bean to brew machine and can make a lot of noise when it starts, which signals that it’s time to get up. However, even if I sleep through it slightly, when I get up, it’s still usually warm. Although I’m not a huge coffee drinker, I make 6oz cups and drink 3 oz of it, getting up to a hot cup of coffee really helps start my day in a slow and quiet way.

Cats

One of the best tips however is getting cats. They will not let you oversleep their breakfast time, on any day. My cats will come and wake me up each morning, despite their automatic feeder, and they’re more reliable than my alarm. In fact, I almost never use my alarm now, despite the music that they play.

Roomba

I love my roomba, but I hate hearing it. It’s so loud. So on my days when I’m supposed to get up, I’ll schedule an early start to my roomba where it cleans everything. I haven’t been able to sleep through it once. Also, this ensures that any cleaning is done when I’m supposed to be out and about so I’m not having to hear it when I’m home.

Exercise day

Another option for ensuring you get up on your days off is scheduling an early exercise class. This works for me because it forces me to get up, get dressed, and get going. Often I can plan to do several errands on my way back from the gym so that by the time I’m back home it’s the afternoon and I just keep on working.

Planning in lapses and grace

Finally, one of my best pieces of advice for ensuring you get up early is to give yourself a day to lounge around in bed until you need to be somewhere, but only one day. I do all my errands and chores and I go to Bar on Friday, and this is also the day when the yardwork is done so there’s mowers and blowers making a lot of noise. Because all my tasks are done on Saturday, I can sleep in on for as long as I want, after getting up to feed my cats. I’ll often have social plans in the afternoon but I don’t care if I only get up an hour before we’re supposed to meet. Finally, Sunday. This is a reset day for me. I’ll get up early and later in the day go to the gym, but once that’s done, I don’t mind becoming one with my couch.

It’s important to build in redundant ways to ensure you are held accountable, even if it’s just because you can’t sleep because the roomba is vacuuming under your bed. However, it’s also important to build in times to sleep and rest.

My weeks are relatively repreatable and I like it this way. If I didn’t do my errands, chores, and meal prepping on Friday, I’d have to rush around on Saturday or put it off until Sunday. Although it doesn’t seem like it, starting your week well, with essentially a complete day off, can do wonders.