No More Snooze
by Clark Hibbs
If I could update everyone’s iPhone instantly, the first update would be to get rid of the snooze function on the alarm.
——————————-
A piece of advice I find myself giving to a lot of people these days: set one alarm, and don’t hit snooze.
The whole not-hitting-snooze thing originally came out of necessity for my life, because I’m pretty sure if I hit snooze one more time Rachel was going to murder me… but it ended up becoming one of the best habits I’ve ever developed.
I haven’t hit snooze in 3+ years. I’lll never hit it again.
There’s a few reasons why not hitting snooze is one of the best ways to start your day.
1) It immediately creates positive momentum.
Hitting snooze and fighting for those last few minutes of sleep might sound good at first, but subconsciously you’re fighting the start of your day. If you begin each day with a fight and a struggle, how do you think the rest of the day will go? Not to mention the whole “sleep inertia” phenomenon… where your body stays in a confused state as to rather you should be awake or trying to go back to sleep… not cool.
Instead of fighting for sleep, just wake up. Get up and get going. If you really want/need more sleep, you need to go to bed earlier.
2) No panic to the morning. You control the pace.
How many times have you hit snooze once, twice, maybe even three times just to be jolted awake after you look at the clock one more time and realize, “HOLY CRAP. I’M GOING TO BE LATE.”
Breakfast, thy name is PANIC.
Not good.
Going back to the positive momentum… what would you rather have to start your day? A planned, organized, and calm wake up and routine? Or a bat-shit crazy panic trying to get all of your day sorted, your kids sorted, your significant others sorted, all while trying to get out the door on time so you can hopefully get through traffic quickly enough to be in the office on time?
Starting the day in panic and chaos is no way to live.
That panic and frustration will zap you of energy that could have been spent in other places being more productive and working towards something.
All that panic and frustration could be avoided if you simply wake up with the first alarm (or even better… set the alarm for 10 minutes earlier).
Control the pace of your mornings, and you’ll control your days.
3) You can get ahead of the world.
We’re all busy. We’re all pulled different directions. We’re all distracted by people trying to get at us each and every hour of the day, be that family, clients, bosses, etc.
But nobody is getting after you early in the morning (unless you have a sick kid, or something… but that’s not everyday).
Between the jobs that I work, my phone goes off every 10 minutes like clockwork. Some notification, some text, a call from Yelp trying to tell us that if we don’t spend $1,000 a month with them our business will never be successful (Dear Yelp, please PLEASE stop calling me).
Not earlier in the morning, though. My phone doesn’t make a sound. I get to sip coffee on my couch and get things done while nobody calls, texts, or distracts me.
On the flip side, I get to plan out my day, send some emails, and just enjoy some time to myself.
Already winning the day.
Don’t hit snooze. Get ahead of the world.
———————————
Obviously you’re already awake and will be going about your business as usual… but if your business as usual is hitting snooze once or twice, I want to challenge you to change up your business this week.
From tomorrow on –> No Snooze.
There’s not a single objectively positive reason for you to hit snooze, but there are a plethora of reasons not to.
Let’s all take control of our mornings first thing so you can take control of your day.
———————————-
Also, just so you don’t think I’m a hypocrite, I wrote this blog about starting your day with a win over a year ago. While a few of the routines ebb and flow depending on what stage of life I’m in (mindful practice/weighing myself), I never hit snooze, and I always kiss the wife goodbye!
https://www.crossfityellowrose.com/start-day-win/
Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help. We’d be happy to!
-Clark Hibbs
