I have to teach at 8 AM this semester, which, at the beginning, sucked for everyone involved, believe me. But I think I’ve successfully made the transition to “morning person.” Or at least I no longer say that I’m not a morning person.
On the days that you don’t have to get up early:
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Set your clock radio, with the volume failry low, so that something that you hate. One of the THREE Christian stations broadcasting in my area works well for me. Tell yourself you don’t have to get up right when the radio comes on . . . but you can’t turn off either. There’s only so much snoozing I can do when somebody’s whisperin’ in my ear about blah blah blah LIVING MINISTRY blah blah blah GOSPEL blah blah LORD JESUS CHRIST blah blah blah. . .
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Come up with something nice to do just for yourself, something you ordinarily wouldn’t have the time to do, or something that it’s really nice to do early, before most of the world is up. I make myself a nice cup of tea and curl up on the couch with my book. (It seems like I hardly have any time to just read these days.) It’s bonus happy you-time. Make it something you want to get up for. I used to get up early and exercise, but it’s a lot easier to motivate myself to get up early and do something unambitious.
But it’s really key to go to bed at a reasonable time, every night, and get up every morning at a consistent time. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but if you want to be alert, happy, and productive on the weekends, you just really gotta get into the habit.
I accidentally didn’t set my alarm last night, and ended up sleeping until nine. (Which is now “sleeping late.” If you’d told me that a year ago, when I’d regularly sleep until 1 PM on the weekends, I’d have laughed at you.) I am now grumpy, and I’m sure I’m not going to be able to get to sleep tonight. kvetch kvetch kvetch