How to become a morning person (and have fun while you’re at it)
From a lifelong night owl
1 | Promise your friends SnapChats timed to when you intend to wake up.
2 | Plan breakfasts that you’re really excited to wake up to eat.
3 | Go to sleep with your curtains drawn wide, so you wake up to the sun.
4 | Set your alarm to a ringtone that gradually picks up in volume and intensity, so it feels like being nuzzled awake by a pet. (Jolting awake to a blaring alarm annoys me to the point of making me determined to go back to sleep.)
5 | Set different ringtones for different alarms, so your groggy self won’t sleep through them all thinking there will be another one.
6 | Set up a morning routine with things that you need—or at least really want—to get done, so that when you do successfully get up early, you feel really productive and want to do it again.
7 | Write that routine down, so that you can check things off as you go along. Actually, while you’re at it, write it down several times, so that you get several mini endorphin boosts per completed to do item. (I track my morning routine in no less than 3 places: Clear for a list of what needs to get done in what order [even “shower” goes on here], Evernote for counting up my workout days [I’m working my way through a 90-day schedule], and Google Cal for tracking what workout I’m doing on which day.)
8 | Ask a friend who wakes up before you to give you wake up texts or calls.
9 | Buy an alarm that releases the scent of bacon into the air.
10 | And if all else fails, get a puppy that needs to be walked at 6am every morning.
