Alarmy

If any of you know me, you know that I love sleep more than anything in the world. Even growing up, I would cry if I knew something was going to interfere with my minimum eight hours of sleep needed. We’d be at my grandparents’ house and I’d beg us to leave so I could get home because if we didn’t leave right then, I would only get less than 10 hours of sleep.

I was a peach of a child, I’m sure. My poor mother.

Things have not changed. I can still easily sleep 12-14 hours a night if I was allowed to. If stupid things like work didn’t get in the way.

Not surprisingly, I am NOT a morning person. I cannot get up when the alarm goes off to save my life. I am the queen of the snooze button. I am pretty sure one year for Lent, I gave up the snooze button. I don’t think that lasted too long.

Winter is especially hard because it’s so dark in the morning and my bed is oh so comfortable and warm. Needless to say, I have been having a hard time getting into work on time these days, since I hit snooze like 10 times a morning.

I started turning on the TV when the alarm went off, thinking that it would force me to wake up. Nope, I just fell asleep to the dulcet tones of George Stephanopoulos’ voice, while pretending that the news he was reporting on wasn’t real and it was all a dream.

Years ago I went to find an old digital alarm clock that I could put in the living room, thinking that something that would get me out of bed would make it easier. I ended up finding one at Walgreens and put it in the living room and…it didn’t work. I can easily get up, turn off an alarm and crawl right back into bed and fall asleep.

I even invested in one of those sunrise alarm clocks that is supposed to mimic the sun coming up and wake you up naturally. You know what those things can’t account for? Rolling over so you don’t SEE the light. And then it’s still dark and lovely and there I am, back asleep.

I figured there had to be something better. There are those crazy expensive mats that you have to step on to shut off the alarm. But look, putting my legs over the side of the bed and standing up isn’t going to get me out of bed.

I don’t know if I had an ad for this app, or if I just searched in the app store, but I found this alarm app that has been a game changer. It is called Alarmy. This is not an ad, I’m literally just amazed that I have finally found something that works.

This app makes you do something once the alarm goes off. It could be math problems, or scan a code, or play a memory game or take a photo. I decided to use the photo option and take a photo of something far, far from my bed. I chose my coffee pot.

So the alarm goes off and I can’t snooze. It will just keep going off until I get up and take that photo. And once I’m up, with my glasses on, since I have to take the right photo (it has to be the same one as the one I took when I set up the alarm), I’m up. And I’m right by the coffee pot so I might as well turn it on and then do the rest of my morning routine.

I’ve only been using it for a few days, but I’m really hooked. I have yet to find a loophole, and I don’t want to, because I need to start being a grown up and getting up on time in the morning. Whatever works!