Alarms that work for me

18 Nov, 2025

I've started experimenting with alarm clocks again after a miserable string of simultaneously sleeping in and feeling sleepless. 

For a few years I've just had 10ish loud alarms blaring from my phone¹ every few minutes. They start when I'd like to wake up ("early") and end when I should be leaving my front door to get to work on time.

This works OK but I would tend to silence most of these without even opening my eyes which sorta defeats the point of alarms... It's also not a pretty way to start your morning. Harsh, rushed, and frankly rude.

To try and mix things up I first bought an analog alarm clock. Y'know, the ones with the spinny arms and the big metal bells?² It's cheap and dumb³ which is perfect for me. I keep it on my dresser opposite my bed. Close enough to still wake me up but far enough to require getting out of bed to turn off.

Problem: I'm still prone to lay back​ in bed after turning it off. This is where the next two steps come in.

T-10 - Before the auditory-bomb goes off I have an alarm on my phone that slowly fades in some stock peaceful music. This wakes me up much more gradually, just enough to turn my bedside lamp on and wiggle my toes.⁴ But I'm not necessarily out of bed yet.

T-5 - Another phone alarm. This one, however, plays some higher energy music for a few minutes.⁵ I'm still not trying to will myself out of bed yet. Just getting my eyes open and adjusted to the light in my room for a few minutes.

T-0 - RING RING RING. The big boy. This thing is loud​ and makes you want to get up immediately, before you even register what you're hearing, and turn it off. If I had roomates they'd be pissed. My neighbor might be able to hear it. The very thought of this dinky $10 dual-bell clock is 110% likely to get you out of bed in seconds. 

So far with these 3 steps I've been able to wake up at 5:30 for about a week straight. I wake up earlier with more energy and am somewhat excited to start each day. Doing things before rushing to work is an amazing feeling and worth it's own inspection in another post later.

That includes the weekends, too. Previously I would wobble out of bed at the last minute to avoid being late to work M-F then sleep in anywhere from 10am to 3pm on the weekends. Now I am only sleeping in if I want to, not every day.

In short, I'm happy.

We'll see if this routine still works in another week, a month, a year, etc. But I was too excited to avoid writing about it for more than 7 or 8 days while testing. If you're "not a morning person" like me maybe give it a shot.

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