I Conquered My Snooze Button. And It Changed My Life.
By: Michelle Loucadoux
Tags: Self Improvement, Productivity, Pragmatic Productivity, Personal Development, Morning Routines

I Conquered My Snooze Button. And It Changed My Life.

Stacking habits to begin—and end—my day became the key to breaking the cycle that used to derail my mornings Michelle Loucadoux, MBA Jun 30·9 min read

Raise your virtual hand if you are a snooze button presser. If you are, I have news for you. I believe that refraining from pressing that oh-so-tempting button has made a significant difference in my life.

Three years ago, I realized that the choice to wake up, hit snooze, or turn off my alarm was the first choice I made in the day. And that choice was setting me up for either success or failure. So, I made a hard and fast decision to stop pressing the snooze button. And I haven’t gone back since.

It may be just me, but waking up when I planned to wake up changed the way I see my days. When my first decision of the day was to fail to deliver on my intention to wake up at a certain time, I started my day with a teeny tiny failure. With every time I pressed the snooze button or turned off my alarm, I chipped away at my confidence in my ability to deliver on the promises I make to myself.

When I get out of bed instead of pressing snooze, I start the day with a win. I prove to myself that I can deliver on my intentions and I solidify my identity as a person who does what she says she will do.

It took me a while, though, before I realized how to set myself up for success in waking up at the time I intended. I’m not a weirdo — I love sleeping. I love staying in bed just as much as the next person. And on Sundays, I do just that. However, during the rest of the week, I have a very specific set of tactics that help me stay on course.

Whether you set your alarm at 5 a.m. or 9 a.m., I believe delivering on your promise to yourself to get out of bed is important. So, if you’re a snooze button presser, here are the four ways I set myself up for morning wake-up success.

Set a Nighttime Intention

You have likely heard that your brain processes ideas for decision-making while you sleep. Our brain takes the complex web of information that it gathers during our day, sifts through it for relevance, and unconsciously unravels that web while we’re snoozing.

I have found that if I put an idea in my head before I go to sleep, it takes root and I remember it in the morning as a fact. For instance, before I go to sleep, I tell myself, “I am going to keep the promise I made to myself to wake up with my alarm because I am a person who does what I say I am going to do.”

When it’s time to wake up and I look at that bright orange snooze button, I involuntarily repeat my previous night’s intention. Not only does this remind me that I want to keep the promise to myself to wake up, but it also raises the stakes for waking up. If I get up, I keep my promise. If I press snooze, I become incongruent with the piece of my identity that includes being a woman of my word. And, not for nothing, I always want to keep my word.

It took me a little while to solidify this idea in my head. And it also took me a few mornings of sleeping in to realize that waking up is always preferable to the way I feel when I don’t live up to my own expectations of myself.

Find the Perfect Type of Alarm…and Make It Hard to Reach

If you’re like me, you can roll over, find your snooze button, and press it while comfortably in a half-asleep stupor. Yes, I believe it’s possible, even with a resolute night-before intention, to accidentally sleep in. That’s why I got serious about the type and placement of my alarm.

First of all, I wake up with an alarm from my phone. I use the “Alarm” setting under the “Clock” portion of my iPhone. Here’s the important part — I wake up to a song that inspires me. And I change that song often so I don’t get used to it. Right now, I love waking up to Alicia Keys’ song Good Job. Remember that you’ll likely be hearing only the first few lyrics of this song, so choose something that makes you smile.

You’re the engine that makes all things go; And you’re always in disguise, my hero, is a great way for me to wake up. I have recently enjoyed Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy, and Bubbly by Colbie Caillat. Your morning, your song, but I have found that sometimes louder songs can be a little jarring. So, I choose easier listening for my morning tunes.

A second very important aspect of my morning alarm is the fact that it goes off clear across the room from my bed. You’ve probably heard this advice before. For good reason. It works. If you physically must stand up and walk to your alarm, you are significantly less likely to go back to bed after turning it off.

A third way I trick out my morning alarm is that I add a positive phrase to label my alarm. If you’re using an iPhone, when you click to edit the alarm, you can change the label (right under “repeat”). I use this as an opportunity to set myself up for gratitude. Right now, my label is, “You have a beautiful, healthy family.” In the past, I have used “Wake up and slay today,” “Today is a new opportunity,” and “You are awesome, powerful, and worthy.”

As I walk to my alarm and turn it off, I repeat my intention from the night before. I will create a win for myself first thing in the morning. I will begin my day right now. I will keep my promise to myself. Then, I read my alarm’s label, take a breath, and take it in. It usually works like a charm. And, in my opinion, waking up to Alicia Keys never put anybody in a bad mood.

Set Three Bedtime Alarms

If you’re one of the 2.5 people in the world who actually goes to sleep when your go-to-bed alarm goes off, then good for you. I’m not one of those people. In order to wake up in the morning when I want to, I have to put myself to bed at a decent time. If I’m not careful, I will spend an hour scrolling Instagram and reading articles online, so I set three, count ’em, three turn-off-the-light-already-Michelle alarms.

There are four reasons I believe my bedtime alarms have been successful:

My Monday through Saturday wake-up and bedtime alarms never change. They go off at 5:30 am and 9:45, 9:55, and 10:00 pm. If your wake-up time doesn’t change, your go-to-bed alarms shouldn’t change either. Getting ample sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your body. Choosing to stay up an extra hour but getting up at the same time should not be a choice you make often.

Unlike wake-up alarms, bedtime alarms are most effective if they’re annoying. If I set lovely tunes for my bedtime alarms, I’ll just let them play and enjoy the music. Your bedtime alarms should jolt you out of your nighttime chillaxin’ reverie so you can turn off the light and get your well-deserved Z’s.

I have three bedtime alarms that mean different things. Much like warning my three-year-old about his impending bedtime, my first alarm is a warning, my second alarm is a “get in bed right now” alarm, and my third alarm is a “turn off the light” alarm.

It’s so, so, so easy to ignore bedtime alarms, but they are imperative for good sleep and setting yourself up for wake-up success in the morning. It took me a few weeks to get used to setting and obeying my bedtime alarms (and getting my husband to comply as well), but like any habit, after a few weeks, it became almost automatic.

Our bodies are super smart and they are very good at repeating behaviors we have set up for them. I found that after a week or so of setting my bedtime alarm, I began to get just a little bit sleepier when it went off. Like some Pavlovian response, when 10 p.m. rolls around, my eyelids start to droop.

Incentivize the Morning

We all love an incentive. For many of us, the promise of a warm cup of wonderful coffee is enough to get us going. I am one of those people.

After reading my positive morning alarm label and mentally restating my intention to refrain from pressing the snooze button, the next thing I think of is what I will get if I get started with my day. In my case, it’s a cup of Starbucks French Roast after my morning run (yes, I’m back to morning runs until it gets too dark pre-6:30 a.m.).

Incentives aren’t just successful in the workplace. They can work for pretty much anything anywhere — including waking up. Over the years, I have created numerous incentives for myself to get my day started, including fancy coffee, decadent breakfast choices, purchasing audiobooks to listen to during my morning workouts, and saving some of my favorite episodes of reality television for morning treadmill viewing.

A study conducted in 2018 by Genesis Associates found that “85% of the workers surveyed felt more motivated to do their best when they had an incentive.” Why would our mornings be any different? I have found that if I have a fun activity or a yummy treat to look forward to, I am significantly more likely to be less grumpy about starting my day.

If you feel like combining two of these suggestions, you can even make your morning incentive your alarm label. I don’t know about you, but, “Go watch your favorite television show” or “Go have a great cup of fancy imported French press coffee,” is usually enough to keep me from crawling back under the covers.

The Takeaway

This may seem like a simple concept and these may be familiar ideas, but I cannot stress to you all how much keeping my morning wake-up promise to myself over the past three years has impacted my life. Again, I am not advocating for depriving yourself of sleep or not caring for your own wellbeing. I am, though, advocating for setting a simple goal for yourself that can get your day started in a positive way.

Waking up in the morning is tough for pretty much everyone. We all want to lay in bed and procrastinate on starting our days. And yes, there is absolutely a place for that (I do it every Sunday), but there are also times you want to wake up and get things done.

Since conquering my snooze button, I completed my master’s degree in business, had a child, wrote a traditionally published book, was promoted to associate dean of a university, quit that job to write full time, regained my physical health, started a company, and, most importantly, began to see myself as someone who does what she sets out to do.

We don’t see the power of the erosion of our resolve when we mentally clock the times we don’t keep the small promises we make to ourselves. One of the easiest ways to be accountable to yourself and to begin to build confidence in your ability to accomplish things is to simply get out of bed when you say you are going to get up. Hopefully, these little tips will help make it just a little bit easier for you to conquer your resolve…and the rest of your day.