Get Up or Get Fat

So Anne makes fun of me because sometimes when I need a little more motivation to wake up in the mornings...I record a message on my phone and set that as an alarm.  Sometimes it works, sometimes I just get annoyed at my own voice.

Well...I need motivation right now.  I don't know what my problem is, but for the past few weeks, I feel like all I've been doing is sleeping and going to work.  I have a HUGE to-do list, and it just keeps growing longer and longer because I'm not waking up early enough to work on any of them.  Here's the thing...lately, I've been doing more 2-10pm shifts for work.  I've been waking up around noon.  This means I have just enough time to eat "breakfast", take a shower, and spend like 30 minutes doing random activity (trying to catch up on my to-do list, or just staring at the to-do list making a new mini list on completing the to-do list, catching up on my email, etc).  The only days I've woken up earlier than the lunch hour, is to meet Sasha for tennis, or to work on the random days I picked up a 6am shift.  Okay, in reality...this has only been going on for like one week.  But it feels like forever, because I haven't been doing anything other than sleep and work.

For those of you who know me...I don't like to get up.  Don't get me wrong...I actually LIKE waking up early and being able to get things done, having a longer day, etc.  But it's so hard for me to wake up...so it rarely happens.  This is why I don't consider myself a morning person.  I'd love to be a morning person though, because I like the way I feel when I start the day earlier.  I feel accomplished.  I feel like a mature adult.  I feel like I'm in a tv commercial featuring coffee or a delicious high-fiber cereal.  But repeat: I don't wake up early.  However, if I AM successful and I wake up earlier...I'm up.  All it takes is for me to brush my teeth and I'm awake and I can start the day.

So...back to the needing motivation story...

I need to wake up earlier than noon.  I can function off of 7 hours of sleep (unlike the 12 hours I've been getting this week), so I'd like to try to go to bed by midnight.  That gives me about 1.5-2 hours to dily-daly after I get home from work.  Ideally, I'd like to wake up around 7-8am to start the day.  But knowing myself, I should be more realistic and shoot for 9-10am.  Maybe in the future, I can move it up earlier!  For now, I use my alarm clock/radio and/or my cell phone alarm.  They both have snoozes on them, which I think is a problem.  In the near future, I think I'd like to find a non-snooze alarm clock.  Yes, this can be dangerous, but for important days, I could set my phone alarm as a backup.  I also need to get in the habit of brushing my teeth right away.  I often get up to go to the bathroom around the 8-9am hour.  (SEE!  It's already a natural time to wake up!)  But I pee, then go lay back down, thinking about how I shouldn't do what I'm doing.  So I need to brush my teeth.

In conclusion, I need to wake up earlier so I can get in more physical activity (to help me lose weight) and to give me more time to get things done in my life (which will help my mental state).  I recorded a new alarm sound where I say, "Get up or get fat.  Go start the day."