How to Get Out of Bed Easily
The Kings Letter
The alarm goes off, you snooze it and go back to sleep, it goes off in 5 minutes, you snooze it again a couple of times before picking your body up in a sloth-like manner. You then drag yourself to the bathroom, brush your teeth (or don’t) and start dressing up to go to what ever place you need to go feeling like shit.
Sounds a little bit familiar?
This doesn’t have to be you.
You don’t need to put your head below the pillow while your alarm goes off.
You don’t need to feel tired getting out of bed.
You don’t need “just a few more minutes”.
All it takes to jump from bed well rested and happy is a bit of planning and some discipline.
You can read more on discipline in my last letter.
I’ll be breaking down the steps you can take to feel your best self in the morning and grab the day by the balls.
I. Alarm Clock
Don’t have 17 alarm clocks set up on your phone going off every 2 minutes.
Have only one with the snooze option turned off (you can set that up in settings).
If your snooze button is available, you will tap on that button basically prolonging your wake up time, not your sleep time.
Does extra 5 minutes play such a big role? Actually it doesn’t.
That snooze button is even ruining your chance of having a good morning.
Place your phone (or a physical alarm clock if you are using those) far away from your bed.
So far in fact, that you have to actually stand up and walk to it to turn it off.
Don’t place it so far away that you wouldn’t hear it though.
Placing your phone far away will by default get you out of the bed so you can put your clothes on and move to another room.
You can even choose a very annoying alarm that you wouldn’t stand letting it ring.
So annoying that you simply had to turn it off.
This method is great at the beginning but once you actually get better at leaving the bed immediately after the alarm goes off, I would suggest choosing a more pleasant alarm that gets you feeling positive.
Putting clothes on immediately after shutting the alarm will signalize to your brain that you are in another mode now.
It is not sleepy-dreamy-time anymore but get-your-ass-to-create-a-better-life-for-yourself-and-people-around-you kind of mode.
To recap:
Have only one alarm clock set up with the snooze option turned off.
Place your alarm clock so far away that you have to stand up to get to it.
Immediately put your clothes on and walk out of the room.
II. Screens
Don’t scroll into the abyss with your brightness fully on while in bed.
Blue light tricks the brain into thinking it’s daytime and when that happens, the body stops releasing a sleep hormone called melatonin.
Instead, you have 2 options:
One: You change the color temperature of the display towards the warmer part of the color spectrum which will reduce the blue light from the screen and in return won’t stop your body from getting ready for sleep.
You can automate that in your smartphone’s settings so that it happens every day at the same time.
Two: Before you go to bed you get rid of your device altogether and take a book instead.
If you successfully implemented the first lesson - leaving your phone far away from the bed - you basically solved this problem too.
Unless you conveniently have a tablet waiting for you on your bed side in which case, take that tablet or laptop or any other screen you have left and leave it in another room.
Science also shows that using a phone or a similar device before going to sleep makes the brain release cortisol which is a stress hormone.
You don’t want to be stressed before drifting away into the dreamland because that’s how nightmares are created.
(I don’t know if that last part is true, so don’t take my word for it.)
To recap:
Shift the colors of your display to the warm end of the color spectrum.
Leave your devices in another room or out of reach (far enough so that you can’t grab them from the bed).
III. Sleep Routine
Don’t go to sleep at odd hours every night and wake up at a different time.
As much as you might hate routine, your body needs it.
It doesn’t matter if you go to sleep at 9 pm or midnight as long as you go to sleep at the same time every day.
A sleep schedule allows you to maintain the timing of your internal clock which is helping you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake easier.
This takes some time to get used to but you should get there in about a week.
If your goal is to wake up earlier every day, instead of moving your alarm clock one full hour earlier and feeling tired the next day, you could introduce that time shift gradually.
Set your alarm 5 minutes earlier every morning than it was the day before.
This will make it so that you barely feel a change and yet in two weeks of doing that you will be waking up more than one hour earlier.
To recap:
Go to sleep a the same time every day.
Wake up at the same time every day (even on weekends).
IV. The Reason
This one is very powerful.
It can be hard to stand up from bed not knowing why you are awake anyway or what are you supposed to do.
To solve this write down the main objective of the day.
Ask yourself - what is the most important thing I must do today?
This is not a list of 27 different tasks you must do like grocery shopping or washing your socks.
This is an important objective that will over time propel you into the new heights of your life.
Vision is what makes a life worth living.
A vision of a better future for yourself and your loved ones.
Without a vision you are just a caged monkey dancing to the tunes created by others slowly being moved towards the cliff called death.
Once you have your grand vision - the reason to stand up in the morning - you break that off into goals which can then be broken off into objectives with each objective having tasks and those tasks having subtasks.
Every day you work towards one objective.
You do that on a consistent basis and you’ll be surprised with how much energy and willpower you can wake up in the morning.
To recap:
Think about your grand vision, write about it, say it out loud, watch at it.
Divide the vision into smaller achievable goals and objectives.
Work towards one objective a day.
V. The Plan
Now that you have a reason to get out of the bed, it’s time to create a plan.
You wouldn’t go to a grocery store without a list of things you need to buy so why do you go about your day without a list of actions you need to take in order to get to where you want to be?
Makes no sense, right?
Instead, plan all of your activities an evening before or early morning on the day.
By planing your activities ahead you are saying to yourself that you have already decided what are you going to do so you are more likely to stick with it.
You don’t need an expensive app or a beautiful physical planner that you can’t bother to open.
You don’t need to write your tasks onto a list on a piece of paper that you will most likely loose.
You can just use the default calendar on your phone.
It makes sense because the phone is a calendar that is in your pocket or close by nearly all of the time and if the tasks are in your calendar with allocated time you need to finish them it’s very clear what you should be doing and for how long.
This method also prevents you to schedule more tasks than you can actually fit into a one days work.
It also shows you how much time you have in a day if you are one of those people who think they do much more than they actually do.
To recap:
Plan the execution of your objectives the evening before.
Allocate time for every task that is important enough to be in the calendar.
VI. Preparation
Don’t you hate it when you start doing something important and five minutes in you realize that you are thirsty and you will need some water so you stand up and get some.
As another fifteen minutes go by, you start panicking about not being able to figure stuff out so you want little something to snack.
But oh, oh. You don’t have a snack on hand so now might as well be a good time for an excuse to take a little break to go and make one.
An hour or two goes by and all you’ve done is running around the place fetching drinks and food and going to the toilet playing Angry Birds or whatever.
To maximize the probability of you not wasting the time and actually doing the work, prepare for it a day in advance.
This means that you will fill out your jug of water and place it on your work station.
You will get the snacks ready as well as find your stress ball and keep in the table drawer.
You will set the right temperature, remove the unnecessary things from the table or any other distractions within the area.
Prepare for wanted success and be ready when it comes.
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Push further,
Mislav Brajković
KingsString
