My elderly pug getting up with a frantic look on his face that means we have under a minute to get him outside. Aging is not easy in a dog.

Reaching the end of the working day in my dreams.

😟

Good poo

Lifestyle changes to where my weekend schedule looks like my weekday schedule, just with different activities.

I am at home and relaxing by 11pm. I am in bed by 12am. Then I wake up at 7:30am. That’s 7 and a half hours of sleep every night, at the same time every day, 7 days a week.

And that’s not just lifestyle changes around not going out as late on weekends. It’s also a lifestyle change where I started steering my career and work towards never needing to have any meetings or be at any specific place before 10am.

I’m not a morning person so I got a job where I don’t have to be a morning person. My whole routine on weekday mornings is designed to make it so that nobody at work can touch my morning until I’ve had a chance to settle into my day.

My cats. They want things and as soon as they know I am awake they will come get me up. Unlike an alarm clock they have zero snooze.

Cat vomiting somewhere in the room.

Looked after a friend’s cat one time and was woken by it licking my eyelids. Very effective but not recommended.

Gotta take a shit. Works 10 times out of 10.

Cat.

The work chat notification sound. Aka panic.

You’re not going to like this, but keeping a consistent and healthy sleep schedule is highly effective. Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time, and getting a consistent 8 hours at minimum is key.

I drink a decent amount of water before bed. It’s hard to oversleep when you have to piss

Panic.

Panic that I’ve overslept; that I’ll be late and this will be the first and last straw; that I’ve lost my job; lost my house; that I’ve relegated my family to an existence at the fringes of society subsisting on canned beans, dandelions, and wild greens; that losing every shred of self-respect and all prospects of any improvement in my life.

Yep, panic is a pretty solid motivator.

Alarm clock. The trick is to put it somewhere where you have to get up in order to turn it off.

My internal clock wakes me up a little before 6am but if not, then it’s the vibration of my phone prior to the alarm going off.