Slowly
I have a watch that literally shocks me. Zap zap, time to wake up
Cat vomiting somewhere in the room.
My elderly pug getting up with a frantic look on his face that means we have under a minute to get him outside. Aging is not easy in a dog.
I drink a decent amount of water before bed. It’s hard to oversleep when you have to piss
İt’s easy to oversleep when you wake up at 4 am instead of 7 though
Panic.
Panic that I’ve overslept; that I’ll be late and this will be the first and last straw; that I’ve lost my job; lost my house; that I’ve relegated my family to an existence at the fringes of society subsisting on canned beans, dandelions, and wild greens; that losing every shred of self-respect and all prospects of any improvement in my life.
Yep, panic is a pretty solid motivator.
Panic creates adrenaline and that shit will remove any sleepiness fast.
Alarm clock. The trick is to put it somewhere where you have to get up in order to turn it off.
Looked after a friend’s cat one time and was woken by it licking my eyelids. Very effective but not recommended.
Reaching the end of the working day in my dreams.
😟
The work chat notification sound. Aka panic.
Gotta take a shit. Works 10 times out of 10.
Cat.
Lately it’s been whenever the temperature drops.
Lifestyle changes to where my weekend schedule looks like my weekday schedule, just with different activities.
I am at home and relaxing by 11pm. I am in bed by 12am. Then I wake up at 7:30am. That’s 7 and a half hours of sleep every night, at the same time every day, 7 days a week.
And that’s not just lifestyle changes around not going out as late on weekends. It’s also a lifestyle change where I started steering my career and work towards never needing to have any meetings or be at any specific place before 10am.
I’m not a morning person so I got a job where I don’t have to be a morning person. My whole routine on weekday mornings is designed to make it so that nobody at work can touch my morning until I’ve had a chance to settle into my day.
My dog
