And THIS is what I was missing for years! I have always loved waking up early and motivated myself too, but I am a totally different version of me when I wake up, one on whom no amount of will power ever seemed to work.
I couldn’t wake up no matter how hard I tried. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I am a particularly resistant sleeper, and well known techniques like putting your phone on the other side of the room, or using an alarm app, never worked long enough for me to form a habit.
Finally last month I SOMEHOW managed to convince myself to get up early (ranging from 5:45–6:30). Although I haven’t been 100% successful yet, I am doing much better this time around.
My motivations for getting up early are similar to yours: so that I can have a lot of time to myself (say, 2 hours) and start the day in a relaxed way instead of being stressed to get going.
In addition to the ideas you mentioned, one of the things that helped me was a little change in perspective:
I was worried that I will not get enough sleep if I wake up early. This cannot be helped initally by going to bed earlier, as I couldn’t fall asleep till my usual time.
Also, I would feel pretty sleepy for half the day and it felt like the purpose of waking early was lost.
My solution to this has been a) to be okay with feeling crappy while I start, b) scheduling the more focused work for evenings, so that I don’t have to worry about slacking on important tasks, and c) knowing that a few days of less sleep won’t harm me significantly ;)
