Ask HN: What gets you out of bed?

I don't use an alarm clock, I just go to bed early and wake up in time...<p>But in periods when I've really had trouble with getting up, the core problem hasn't been physically awakening my brain, it's been that as soon as I woke up I knew there was just boring miserable shit all day to look forward to, so I was likely to just snooze.<p>In those periods, I discovered that the only effective way to get my brain going enough to understand the rational course of action (getting up &#38; showered), was to have something fun within reach -- my computer, usually.<p>So I'd wake up at the first ring of my phone alarm, then flip up my laptop and read some Reddit or whatever.<p>If I really needed an exceptionally effective alarm clock, I'd want something that maybe starts talking for five minutes about something interesting, or prompts me with some captivating question, or shows me a gallery of cool pictures, or something.

The neighborhood squirrel serenades the sunrise each morning as a sort of mammalian metronome for about an hour, filling me with questions about rhythmic chanting and the mammal brain. It's like a 60 decibel woodblock, only three octaves higher. That wakes me up. I don't recommend it for your alarm clock app.<p>Money, glory, and fun actually get me out of bed.

Getting to the office before everyone else, for two reasons:<p>- It is quiet. Most of my coworkers get in between 9:30 and 10:00, so if I'm here at 8:30, I get a solid hour to handle the administrivia part of my job - emails, daily task sorting, etc.<p>- I get to leave earlier. I like to have my afternoons, so if I'm in early, I get to take off early. This is not set in stone solid, and I can always take off if I absolutely have to (or work from home), but for the day to day, if I'm in at 8:30, I'm out at 4:30, and that lets me have time to handle my personal stuff, beat traffic, run errands, anything.

My secret to getting out of bed: I sleep with socks on!<p>I find it's also much easier to get out of bed when you know what you need to accomplish and what's on your agenda for the day. A sense of urgency is a great motivator.

Usually my wife.<p>She uses some sort of fitness wrist-thing to wake up - maybe a Jawbone? I love it, because there's no more harsh alarm noise - no noise at all, usually, although sometimes I can hear it buzz a wee bit.

Early Morning Meetings. If I know I HAVE to get out of bed I will get up. If not I will snooze for longer than I would like.<p>Additional motivators:<p>1. Light - Before bed I open all the curtains<p>2. Tasks - I lay out all my tasks the night before. Less stress thinking about all the things I have to do. Wunderlist everything and then stop stressing.<p>3. Fun First - I try to put a fun task at the top of the list each morning. Makes it fun to get up.<p>4. Alarm not near bed - Having the alarm away from the bed I have to get up to turn it off. Once I'm up and moving I rarely feel the need to get back into bed.

I park my car on a parking spot that isn't free. If I don't get up before 9 I usually get fined.

My son (nearly three), usually around 6am. If I don't bounce out of need the instant he opens our bedroom door, he'll wake the baby and her mother, and both will be grumpy for the rest of the day! I love it because then we get to build something with Lego's for an hour before we have to get ready for kindergarten.

Nicotine and caffeine craving gets me up.

I've been doing web businesses since I was about 16, circa 1996. I didn't particularly like computers growing up, but when I got introduced to the web, it struck me like a bolt of lightning. I saw the web as an unlimited global canvas that I could build anything on. Webchat Broadcasting! AltaVista and HotBot! Netscape! Yahoo! Geocities! Quake online! Porn! It was all so exciting to a teenager. If I had an idea, I could immediately go to work on it. That's what I still love about the web today, and that's what gets me out of bed in the morning (so to speak). I usually have a lot of things I want to work on when I go to sleep, and so inevitably I wake up with my brain on fire, eager to build.

Body clock. I am up at 6 everyday and go to bed at around 10pm or so. I then proceed to my favorite activity - bug the wife till she wakes up :p.<p>It's interesting now that I think about it because I used to be totally a night person not too long ago.

The more I have to do, the more motivated I am. If I know I have a few tasks to do, but no actual appointments or deadlines, it's pretty hard to get out of the bed. I need stress to be productive.

I love the mornings and embracing the day. I try to imagine Rafael Nadal's bull run from the net to the baseline at the beginning of his matches, and try to match that energy and excitement for the day. Usually springing out of bed.<p>I like challenges, like workouts, in the morning as well. If I overcome stuff in the morning, before I start my day, chances are I will have a productive day.

my cat pats my face meowing for food.

A few things that get me out of bed in the morning:<p>* Looking forward to spending time with my children ( post work, or all day on weekends )<p>* Known exactly what I have to accomplish that day ( task breakdown )<p>* Exercise, I really enjoy known that I'll have time to workout, this goes with having a schedule.<p>* Interesting problems to solve at work ( related to task breakdown I suppose )

I'm using Sleep Cycle on my iPhone and it works like a charm actually. Downside is that you should keep it in bed so it can measure your sleep, but the vibration of my phone and alarm sounds are always on the right time. It's my only alarm, in stead of the 7 alarms I used before (at the same time!)

Girlfriend and child - wakes me right up.

Throughout winter, a light+radio alarm clock, something like: Philips-Hf3470<p>Since recently, a recorded motivational message: <a href="http://blog.wojt.eu/post/51792538207/get-your-custom-motivational-alarm-clock-on" rel="nofollow">http://blog.wojt.eu/post/51792538207/get-your-custom-motivat...</a>

That I will return from work eventually back to my personal projects, reading and writing.

For the past couple months I've made it a point to read the news when I get up to get the gears turning.<p>On one level it's great, but at the same time it's often distracting relative to sitting down and being productive.

I wish my project management system (currently getblimp.com) had a way for you to sync the alarm clock with it. So I would get daily alarms on important things. Why don't you give your app an api?

Wake up Glass of luke warm water with a splash of lemon juice in it. 20 slow pushups Shower. Coffee. Wake up daughter and chat to her about the dreams she had last night :)

If you go to bed before midnight, you're actually <i>ready</i> to get up in the morning.<p>I haven't used an alarm in five years, ever since I stopped staying up late on weeknights.

Working on a product for developers that they love to use.

I have to work 9 hours/day. So if I get out of the bed late I will have to come from office late in the night which I definitely not want.

100mg of caffeine (half a nodoz) taken 30 minutes before I need to get up. I set alarms for both events, but rarely need the second one.

sleep as android + qr code in kitchen ( Not affiliated, I am just a happy user, now having two hours more in the morning to do something I want to/need to.)<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid.sleep&#38;hl=no" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...</a>

1 kids. 2 dog. If you can make your alarm clock jump up and down on my bed and/or lick my face, it's a winner.

I lay in bed thinking about the day's tasks until I feel motivated to get up &#38; start on one of them.

Usually a stretch and a phone check followed by another stretch does the job.

Alarm --&#62; email and google reader check. GR soon to be Feedly =/

Coffee &#38; cigarettes

(Mistakenly) thinking that I've overslept.

The fire alarm in my dorm, today...

BLACK METAL

My stomach ...

a quote of jim rohn

I had serious trouble getting up in college. Someone had given me a bizarre stereo that had an alarm clock that would set off the turntable. I would put Back in Black on vinyl set very loud as the alarm. Once I heard the crackle and high hat count in I knew if I did not get up before the first bar chord I would aggravate quite a few people. Needless to say it never got to the bar chord. :)

5-hour energy.<p>I'm not joking. Slam one of those right after you wake up and you'll have a really productive first few hours of your day and over time will start to look forward to getting out of bed because of the near-instant high it gives you.

If I have too much money in the bank, I will not get out of bed. So being poor would help.<p>Once I hit a certain savings threshold, I quit my job because I know the whole (my bank account) is greater than the sum of its parts (putting up with horrible software shops)<p>Then...I do it all over again.