5:29am. You’re asleep. Dead to the world. Just a few short seconds later, all of a sudden, a piercing, painful, high-pitched devil scream invades your ears, your brain … even your eyes feel it. Some evil little box by your bed says it’s time to get up! Who does it think it is, ordering you around? You smack it in the snooze button. Yeah, you’re asserting your authority. A vague memory of a promise made to yourself the day before to go for a jog this morning flashes through your mind. Bah, what does yesterday-you know? Yesterday-you had no idea how horrific the world would be at this point in time. Just 9 more minutes, then it’ll be ok. Just 9 more minutes ….. zzzZZZZZzzzzz

There is something … awesome about the early morning. That feeling you get when, in the early morning, you look at your watch and realise that usually you’d only be getting up at this point but that today … awesome today … you’ve actually achieved something already … it’s one of the best feelings there is.

And yet, when it comes to that moment at 5:30am when your alarm starts screaming at you, in that split second when you make your decision to rise or hit snooze, the memory of that feeling is utterly overwhelmed by the single thought - “Bugger that, this duvet is awesome”.

Getting up early is a skill. It’s an easily learned one, too. As a geek though, you might be more used to the opposite - staying up late, coding deep into the night. Getting up early might well mean a change in working patterns, eating patterns and, worst of all, nights-out-on-the-beer patterns.

The first thing to do is to start sleeping well. You have zero chance of getting up early, or without fighting with yourself, if you’re not well rested. That means aiming for 8 hours. No screens (either TV or PC) for an hour before bedtime. No alcohol in the evening. Eating at least a couple of hours before bedtime. Clean sheets once in a while. A cool room (your body needs to cool a little before you’ll be able to get to sleep). All the usual things associated with having a good night’s sleep.

For me, this particular part of the process took the longest. In many ways it isn’t over. I still go out for a few beers once in a while, watch TV late, stay up late writing code, stay up late writing about going to bed early - but the majority of the time I pay attention to my sleeping habits and so now sleep better than I used to. I also value my evenings more - I go out for a casual beer less often, and read and relax a bit more.

While sleeping well is a good start, and will help you rise earlier and with less argument from your sleepy-brain, it’s still some way from there to being capable of leaping out of bed first thing. The next step is to introduce consistency.

I used to have three alarms a day for weekdays, and none for weekends. I had an application that controlled all of this on my phone. There was a theory behind this madness. The first alarm would be quiet and early, so that on the off chance I was well rested, it would wake me up early. The second was louder and later, at the time I wanted to get up every day. The third was the last ditch “Get up or you’ll be late for work” alarm: loud, persistent and annoying.

Of course, that didn’t work. When I didn’t sleep through the first alarm, I’d just turn it off, well aware I’d be woken properly later. That effectively ruined my last half hour of sleep for no good reason. The second alarm would usually wake me … temporarily. And then I’d turn that one off too, and half the time would just roll over and go back to sleep. And here it gets tricky - by the time the third alarm goes off, I’ve completely lost track of which alarms have gone off and, additionally, hate the world. So sometimes I’d go back to sleep (oops) and sometimes I’d get up - in a bad mood. All round, I slept for more hours, but far worse, and was late for work more often. Nice!

Now, I have one alarm. It’s not loud, and it’s not quiet. It’s loud enough (it actually gets louder as it plays, which is good). It goes off at the same time. Every. Single. Day. All 7 of them in the week. All 365 of them in the year. All of them. No sleeping in on the weekends. It goes off at 5:30am. Yes, a - not p - m.

This means I’m consistent. I go to sleep when I’m tired. I avoid TV late in the evenings and read instead. A bonus I’ve found by avoiding late night TV is that I’m actually able to tell when I’m tired and should go to sleep. Some nights I get 8 hours, some nights 6. I feel ok when I wake up though. That’s a big help.

Next, I have conditioned myself to - as soon as my alarm goes off - sit up. No thinking time, no rationalising another half an hour in bed, and no slow awakening. I just sit up and swing my legs out of bed. It’s a shock some morning, especially when it’s cold. But by then I’m awake. Having tried to get back to sleep from then, I can confirm it’s actually not easy at all. I don’t give myself a chance to hit the snooze button or to do anything but get up.

I shake out the cobwebs with a cup of tea or coffee some mornings, if needed, but usually I just get on with things. Within a half hour or an hour I’m set for the day. I’m dressed and fed. I’ve checked the stats on my personal and professional sites. I’ve checked my email. And I don’t have to go to work for an hour. I can go to work early and buy myself an extra hour in the evening. I can spend a few minutes on the exercise bike, or go for a run (note: “can”, but at the moment, “don’t”). On the weekends I can catch up with cleaning the flat before the missus is even complaining I haven’t brought her breakfast.

I’ve not gained extra hours, really. I am awake for roughly the same amount of time everyone else is. But my day is different - I always seem to get a lot done in the morning when I decide to spend the morning doing. Sometimes, I get stuff out of the way where before I’d have got home in the evening with that stuff hanging over my head, still to do -that’s an awesome feeling, having nothing to feel guilty about not doing.

There are days when I spend the “extra” time going for a walk (and when it was warmer, going for a run), or sitting outside enjoying the peace and quiet, or even, once in a while, sorting myself out a nice unhealthy cooked breakfast. On wednesdays I play racketball ridiculously early. I think the biggest benefit - the very best reason to get up a bit earlier - is just to have an hour to myself, to do with as I like.

By the way, if you were wondering why the snooze button gives you 9 minutes rather than, say, 10, or 12, or 14 minutes, Cecil Adams has The Straight Dope on this one.

If you have any tips that work for you, please share them below!

Image Credits

Snooze Button by seanmcgrath
Sunrise by Eye of Einstein