> It's too hard to wake up at say 7:00 a.m. The reason it's hard it because I forget to set an alarm clark. That's only true if waking up at 7am is the excepti

> It's too hard to wake up at say 7:00 a.m. The reason it's hard it because I forget to set an alarm clark. That's only true if waking up at 7am is the exception rather than the rule. I've found that morning is by FAR my most productive hours, so I need to wake up early. I bought a cheap, battery powered alarm clock[1]. Opened it up and cut the part of plastic pieces of the snooze buttons (on top) so they can't push the actual button underneath. Set alarm for 7am while it's open (the minute and hour buttons double as snooze, so we need to disable them, too). This provides the three essentials of a functional alarm clock: 1. It's hard to change the time. It's hard to enforce an early bedtime if you know you can always push back your alarm a bit. And it's hard to resist doing that when you know how tired you'll be in the morning. Enforcing a wake-up time puts the right incentives in place. When I don't get enough sleep, my thought becomes "Why did I stay up so late, again?" instead of "Why didn't I let myself sleep in?". Making it a pain to change the time of the alarm provides enough time delay to ask yourself whether this is really what you want to be doing. 2. It can't be snoozed Snoozing is terrible. It makes your body temperature drop back to sleeping levels, which makes it even harder to get out of bed next time. It also lets you waste away the morning with the assurance that you won't fall asleep and miss the time sensitive thing in a few hours. No snooze forces you to start your day immediately. 3. It's not on your phone[2] Charge your phone away from your bed to avoid mindless browsing when you wake up. Better to start your day thinking about what you will actually do. A proactive start sets you up for fewer reactive distractions. --- [1] It's a generic model that can be purchased through many brands. I did a quick Amazon search to find the model; this was the first result I found: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B015MDVZI0/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B015MDVZI0/ [2] If you insist on a phone alarm, Talalarmo for android is the next best thing: https://f-droid.org/app/trikita.talalarmo https://f-droid.org/app/trikita.talalarmo