Day 24

Still getting up on time without any major issues. Just came on to say Happy Hallowe'en! I will be posting about the final design of the process, and the lessons learned etc during the week.

Day 21

Morning all! Thought I'd leave an early post today just to highlight the progress I have made. I have gotten up early every day this week so far, and I actually seem to have more energy than ever. It is a paradox, but I can vouch for it, too much sleep can wear you out!

Only a few days left now, so I'm hoping this new routine doesn't wear off like some of my other solutions have.

Day 18

It is early days yet, but things have improved! Got up on Saturday and was in the gym on time. It was one of the longer Saturday's I have had in recent times (as regular readers will know, Saturdays have proved to be my Achilles heel so far), but I felt I was much more productive, and got more out of the weekend as a whole. I did have my lie-in on Sunday, but at least it was guilt-free. This morning I met a friend for breakfast at 9-30, which again ensured I was up on time.

There is not much more than a week left in my "Evaluation and Improvement" period, but I am beginning to feel as though I have made some progress. Two things have become apparent to me: The habit of getting up late every day simply stemmed from laziness, and if I want to overcome this, I need to motivate myself to create a productive & workable routine.

I will try to continue to develop this routine and will let everyone know how I am getting on towards the end of this week.

Day 15

I have decided to move on from the dual-clock set-up. It worked again this morning, but only because I didn't want two failure in a row! I tried to examine it objectively, and came to the conclusion that realistically, setting two alarms and hiding one of them is not going to be a permanent approach to the problem. It is quite hard to imagine someone doing such a thing for any length of time, and I feel as though it was only really working (until yesterday anyway!) because it was somewhat novel.

I had a good look through my house of quality yesterday, and obviously two strong options emerge from that, i.e. Getting someone to make me get up (parent, girlfriend etc) and filling my mornings with appointments/plans so I simply have to get up.

I know I had originally planned to try wake up calls, and then if they failed, to move on to having a busier schedule, but I think I will change this. The house of Quality shows 2 negatives and 2 positives for enlisting someone's help. On the other hand, it shows 2 positive and just one negative for having a busy morning schedule. For this reason, I'm going to try the schedule tactic starting tomorrow. I have signed up for a class in the gym at 10am tomorrow, so hopefully this new tactic will get off to a good start!

Will report back.

Day 14

Didn't have a good morning today. Everything was set up as planned, but when the first alarm woke me up today, that gave me some time to anticipate the second alarm, and make excuses in my head as to why I didn't need to get up. When the second alarm went off, I got out of bed and turned it off, and was back in bed before I knew it.

A flaw in the system has been identified in that the 20 minutes left alarm gives you time to plan the disabling of the main alarm.

After this morning's failure (the third I think), I decided to make a QFD House of Quality. A House of Quality is a visual way of trying to transform specific needs into tangible characteristics a product/process needs to deliver on those needs. Click in below to take a look:

Day 12

Just a quick update - this is going well. I like having the notice 20 minutes before, and it is definitely easier to stay up once you have actually gotten out of bed. It will probably be difficult to find very many innovative hiding places, but I'll do my best!

If I had the money, I would invest in this. It is an alarm clock that launches a small helicopter in your bedroom, and the alarm can only be turned off when the helicopter has been retrieved.

Day 9

Almost a perfect week - but again Saturday is my downfall. Quite annoyed, wish I had just got up, but I knew those messages on the alarm were going to be ignored sooner or later.

I am going to move on to my next idea, though I have learned something from this week. I think I am going to merge the idea of having 2 alarm clocks with the idea of hiding an alarm clock. So the plan now is:

1. Have my phone beside my bed, alarm goes off at 8-40 with a gentle reminder that I must rise in 20 minutes.

2. At 9-00am, another alarm hidden somewhere reasonably difficult to access in the room will go off. In theory, I get up, spend a minute looking for the alarm, then say "well sure I'm up now anyway".

Great.....in theory.

Day 7

The dual alarm system is still working fine, though I can't help but feel the need to admit that the 'messages' I set for myself with these alarms don't have quite the same motivational kick that they did the first couple of times! I am beginning to become quite apathetic towards them.

Will keep you posted!

Day 4

Back on track. Enjoyed my lie in yesterday as planned, but today saw the first run of the dual alarm clock system. I found the 8-40 alarm gave me a bit of notice, which made getting up at 9am easier. I wouldn't say the system is exactly watertight yet, but its better than before

I included a picture of what I woke up to so readers can visualise it!

Day 2

Bad news folks. Alarm went off as planned, but it's Saturday and I made all sorts of excuses to stay in bed a bit longer. Ended up staying an extra hour or so. Still, to only last a day is disappointing. The problem was that because it was the weekend, I didn't feel under too much pressure to get up. Maybe I need to include some sort of incentive/motivation in the process. I am going to move on to my second idea (2 alarm clocks), but I have modified the idea since in light of today's events:

One alarm set on my phone at 8-40, with the message "Maximum 20 Minutes Left"

Then another at 9-00am with the message "You should already be up, get up NOW".

I will report back on Monday after the first use of the new system.

Day 1

Thought I would come on and prove that I was up on time today! Alarm went off and I was up pretty quickly. Problem solved?!

Onwards and Upwards

At this stage, I need to ask what I hope to achieve over the next month. Realistically, if I could do what most people do and reserve lie-ins exclusively for Sunday, I would be looking at a big productivity gain, while at the same time having a bit of extra sleep to look forward to each weekend. I don't think there is any risk of goal-confusion here!

I am motivated to do this, but its fair to say that summoning that motivation every morning at 9am will be challenge.

I have come up with several ideas which will encourage me to get up in the mornings. I have listed them below, and intend to start at the top of the list, moving on if a particular method is failing.

Here are my concepts:

1. Set alarm

2. Set two alarms

3. Set an alarm, but hide it - forcing me to get out of bed

4. Arrange for a wake up phone call

5. Arrange to be physically woken up by someone

6. Make lots of early morning plans, which should mean I have to get up

I will start at number 1 tomorrow.

First Post!

Welcome to my blog, where I will be recording my progress over the next 4 weeks in my attempts to apply supply chain principles to improving a certain aspect of my life!

The aspect I have in mind might seem trivial to some, but is a real issue for me - I sleep too much! A lie-in has now become standard for me; I would estimate that I get up after 12 noon more than I do before it. In what is supposed to be my final year, when I have a job, and when I should be apply to big firms, I am simply wasting too much time in bed. Consider the following:

I usually go to bed around 1am. Add on the standard 8 recommended hours of sleep, and I should be getting up at 9am. I estimate I average at least 3.5 hours over this however.

3.5 x 7 (days) = 24.5 hours per week lost to "gratuitous sleeping"

24.5 x 52 (weeks) = 1274 hours per year.

1274 / 24 (hours) = 53.03

What these calculations show are quite shocking! I am losing the equivalent of 53 days worth of hours-awake each year just because of my lie-ins. A simple way of summarising it is by noting that 15% of my life is spent sleeping for the sake of sleeping.

Something needs to change.