Tip #17: No Snooze Ever!

This advice on how to get up early comes from Ralph Jean-Paul as found on his Potential2Success blog.

“One of the rules I put into place for my experiment was the rule that I could not use the snooze button, ever! When you hit the snooze on your alarm you are allowing your mind to wake up gradually. This may slow down your productivity and energy…”

I have adapted this advice for a slightly different reason, but it still works for me just fine.

Why Snoozing Doesn’t Work

First, when you’re snoozing you’re stealing valuable moments of quality sleep. You neither get up nor get good sleep, so you don’t get much out of it.

Second, if you hit the snooze button once, there is a big temptation to do it twice, three times and so on. I remember a few times being late simply because I “oversnoozed.”

If you get used to snoozing, you may even start pressing it automatically without completely getting out of sleep. The result is that once you wake up you may not even remember when or how many times you hit that snooze button.

My Multiple Alarms Mistake

I remember I used several alarm clocks on my iPhone which worked just like snooze – I would set them at 5-10 minute intervals and, oh my, I would never get up after the first alarm! Because I knew there would be another one coming soon and I had five more minutes to stay in my warm bed.

Not anymore!

The No Snooze Rule

Now, knowing there is no “backup” and no snooze, I wake up and get off the bed immediately. The key insight is simple: when there’s no safety net, you take the first alarm seriously. Another trick that helps is putting your alarm clock far from your bed — if you have to get up to turn it off, there’s no snooze possible.

The moment you’re tempted to snooze, outrun your thoughts — don’t let your mind rationalize one more round.

So try it – No Snooze, Ever!

P.S. Head to Ralph’s site to read more about his interesting sleeping experiments.