This person looks ready for the day, God I wish that were me.

Over the past few months I have been getting up late, I have been almost routinely taking 2 hours to get out of the house making me chronically late to my morning classes. I hate it. Not because I particularly enjoy my morning classes but because I feel like I’m wasting time and throughout the rest of the day I feel like I’m playing catch-up.

So to solve this problem, I have decided to have an intervention for myself and share it with the internet.

The Problem

So what exactly is the problem here? How on Earth does it take me TWO HOURS to get out of bed? I tried to break it down into phases:

Phase 1: The Alarm

In phase 1, my alarm goes off and I hit the snooze button. Repeat for probably an hour. Just like anyone else, I do this because I feel sleepy. The key thought process here is that if I get more sleep, I’ll have more energy to feel more productive throughout the day.

Phase 2: Getting Up

In phase 2, I am awake and have committed to staying awake but instead of starting the day I screw around on my phone for awhile. This is either driven by total apathy towards the things I need to do that day or by an overwhelming anxiety that forces me into anxiety avoidance through the rapid dopamine hits of social media. Either way I get stuck in bed for a while.

Phase 3: Failure to Launch

In Phase 3 I either convince myself the things I need to do that day are important or the fear of the things I have to face that day force me out of bed. So I get up, shower, make breakfast and… lie down in bed again on my phone. Repeat Phase 2. So close.

Summary: After battling with my bed’s gravitational pull and the allure of the internet’s sweet distractions, I finally convince myself to get ready for the day and promptly go back to bed.

This is pretty pathetic, I don’t know if anyone else does this but I really want to change my morning routine.

So What’s Going On Here?

What has happened is I have established pretty horrible habits for myself.

Every habit has three basic parts:

Trigger: A sign that indicates that a certain response or routine should take place. Action: The actual thing that you do in response to the Trigger. Reward: A positive reinforcement that encourages the Action to continue.

I learned about these three phases in Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit which I strongly recommend, it’s a fantastic read.

The three step Habit process for Phase 1

For each one of the phases in my morning routine there is a habit.

Habit 1: Pressing the Snooze Button

Habit 2: F***ing Around on my Phone

Habit 3: Going back to bed

For the first phase where I keep pressing the snooze button, the Trigger is my alarm going off, the Action is pressing the Snooze button and my Reward is getting to sleep more. You can see how it would be easy to develop this habit and I’m sure some of you have already. This same habit pattern can be identified for all three phases.

The Solution

So how am I going fix my life? How am I going to convince myself that starting my day is better than rolling around bed for a few hours?

The answer is simple but hard to execute and it revolves around forming new habits. That is, with the same three Triggers, change my Actions and Reward myself for following new Actions so that I don’t fall back into the same routines.

Habit 1: The Alarm

Habit 1: Get out of my bedroom immediately after my alarm and get a tangerine for a reward!

Habit 2: The Phone

Habit 2: Staying off my phone, not even glancing at it. There isn’t really an “action” here so there is no reward

Habit 3: Back to Bed

Habit 3: Leave the home as fast as possible, reward myself with breakfast but only after I have left

The Results

I have yet to try this out so in reality this is all just wishful thinking. It’s a good idea though! I’m gonna try these new habits over the next few weeks, hopefully it changes the way my morning plays out.

Want to improve your morning? Join me in my quest to take back the first few hours of the day and let me know how it turns out.