If you’re like most people, you’ve slept through your alarm a good amount of times. If you haven’t, you probably at least feel like sleeping through it more often than not. With day after day of early-morning school days, it’s crucial that you wake up and start getting ready for school. Follow these tips to make yourself more productive and have an easier time waking up in the morning.

1.       Don’t use your phone for an alarm.

This is an unpopular opinion, but hear me out. If you use your phone as your alarm currently, you probably wake up and check your notifications right away. This causes you to be very unproductive in your morning routine. When your alarm forces you to interact with your phone, this can be a danger to your morning.

Instead, consider investing in a regular alarm clock. There are more technological ones, like a Google Home alarm, or there are very basic inexpensive alarm clocks. If the only function of the device is for an alarm, you are less likely to get distracted.

2.       Strategically place your alarm clock.

Once you get the alarm clock, don’t make the common mistake of putting it on the nightstand next to your bed. This is just about the worst place you could put it. Instead, put it further away from you so that you have to get up to turn it off. If it’s in reach, you’ll be a lot more tempted to just press snooze and go back to bed, but if you get up, you might as well start getting ready.

In deciding where to put the alarm clock, think about your morning routine and where you go first. If you make a pit stop at your dresser first thing in the morning, put the alarm clock on the top of your dresser. That way you’ll be more likely to start your morning routine after turning off your alarm.

3.       Turn on the lights.

Your brain starts activating itself when you turn on the lights. The best way to get your brain going is to step outside into the natural light; however, this is unreasonable for some morning routines and it is often dark when students have to begin getting ready anyway. When you get ready, turn on the lights right away to get your mind in gear.

4.       Make it worthwhile.

The main reason that most people would rather go back to sleep than stay awake is that they simply have nothing to look forward to. The regular routine of the weekdays and school in general may seem boring, so it makes sense why you’d want to return to your peaceful slumber. So a great way to help yourself wake up in the morning is to make it worth your time and effort. Maybe with your extra time, you could do something different with your hair, read your favorite book, or take a short walk. Doing something you enjoy can not only help you wake up, it can also help you have a positive mindset to start your day and increase the quality of the rest of your day.

5.       Practice your habits.

It’s so easy to lose your sleep habits and your early-rise habits if you don’t keep those habits during breaks. For example, if you have to be somewhere at 10:00am on a Saturday and you turn off your alarm, that can be damaging to the habit of getting up early. Instead, set a later alarm that you can wake up to and start your morning routine the same way. If you repeat your routine enough, the process will become automatic, making your morning routine and getting up early that much easier.

With day after day of getting up early, it is extremely helpful to have a healthy routine that makes your days happier and more productive.