get up when my alarm clock goes off

When I don’t, I usually have a good reason. So, off the list it goes! I’m happy. It’s been here a long time.

When my alarm is actually set, that is. Having an appointment with myself to exercise is helping immensely, as is the routine of waking up at the same time every day.

Not doing a very good job of tracking this, though, so I’m not sure when I can mark it as done. Soon, probably.

What has helped most is that I got rid of my alarm clock and now use the alarm on my cell phone. I still hit snooze a few times, but the snooze time is 5 minutes instead of 10. 5 minutes isn’t really enough time for me to get back to sleep, so after a few snoozes I just give up and get up. And in half the time!

Not ready to mark this done until I quit hitting snooze, but I’m getting much closer! I wish I could be more reasonable when I first wake up.

5:30 a.m. I woke up because I smelled something burning/melting in my bedroom, or at least I thought so. Scary! Now I’m not so sure; I can’t figure out what it is/was, where it is/was coming from, and whether it REALLY smells like burning/melting. I have a sensitive sniffer in that I pick up faint smells, but I think I also have an “olfactory processing disorder”, in that I’m not very good at identifying said smells.

Of course, after being woken up like that, I couldn’t very well go back to sleep for fear I’d be burned alive. But my smoke detector is not going off and nothing is visibly on fire, so I’m going to quit worrying for now. And enjoy the morning.

Hey, are there smell-o-alarm clocks? If so, I think I need to get one. And wake up to a more pleasant odor than this morning’s.

Edited to say, this sniffer was right! It WAS a fire – just not a fire in THIS house. A house one block over burned very early this morning; no one was hurt, but the 2nd and 3rd floors are pretty destroyed. And the neighborhood still smells like burning. Hilariously (I think), I was not awoken by the EIGHT fire engine sirens nor my roommate coming and going to gape at the spectacle…but the smell.

...I got up BEFORE my alarm today. Sweet.

I got up today too! Not quite immediately – I stayed in bed for 15 minutes or so after my alarm, but didn’t go back to sleep and got up eventually. I’m glad that I did. I can’t believe it’s only noon! Not that I’ve been that productive yet today (I haven’t), but it was lovely to have the whole morning to putz around, eating a special tasty breakfast (bagel w/ schmear and lox and onion and capers, and some strawberries and pineapple – yumyumyum!), listening to Weekend Edition, taking a leisurely shower…nice.

For some reason it’s infinitely easier to do this when I have the apartment to myself. Not quite sure why this is yet. My roommate is gone for a few days, so I hope to get a running start on this while she is away.

Unfortunately, I’ve been “snoozing” my alarm clock something fierce lately. 1.5 hours of snooze at a time sometimes! If I were my roommate, I would have clubbed me by now – or maybe clubbed my alarm clock – I’ve listened to a chronic snoozer and it is maddening.

I need to remember how nice and productive it is to get up at a reasonable hour. I have 5 hours in my morning rather than 3. The difference is substantial.

This seemed to work. Although I was still half-asleep (or more) when hitting snooze, I did have an awareness that across the room, another much more annoying alarm would soon be going off. The result was that I got out of bed a minute or two BEFORE my cell rang and turned it off immediately. Laid in bed for a few minutes more, but I was officially awake, so I got up.

Not bad.

Now I just have to make sure that I do NOT get back into bed after I get up to turn off the cell. This morning was just a fluke, right?

...with very little progress. So, I’m going to try a new tactic. Instead of going cold turkey on the snooze button, I’m going to work up to this.

I’ll start by allowing myself three snoozes at first (for a week), then 2, then one, then none. I’ll set a second alarm (my cell) for 30 minutes after, then 20, then 10, then simultaneously.

Also, I’m going to do my best to get up at the very same time every day (or at least to have my initial alarm go off at the same time).

...about 30 minutes, and of course got up when it finally went off. I think I’m getting back onto some kind of schedule, slowly. It appears to have nothing to do with when I get to bed, because I went to sleep fairly late last night. I’m confused, but feel quite well-rested, considering.