Waking up early is a great way to jumpstart your day. Next to the early birds, there are lots of people that do their best work at night. I guess I’m a bit of both worlds, but personally, starting early is so good because you also have the evening at your disposal if you feel like it. Also nice: when I’m getting out of bed while everyone else is still asleep, this marks my first achievement of the day and this makes me feel really good.

Just resetting your alarm for tomorrow probably isn’t going to cut it. You have to help you body adjust to your new schedule. A couple of ideas and things that work for me:

• Go to bed earlier. The key to waking up earlier is to resist the urge to keep working and just go to sleep an hour earlier. Honestly, I find this even more difficult than waking up early, but it is the way to go.
• Keep your digital devices out of the bedroom. I purchased a really cheap physical alarm clock (which makes an absolutely annoying sound) so I’m not able to keep checking Twitter and I’m not woken up by notifications.
• Have a plan for your morning. This makes it way easier to get out of bed and get started. The first minutes will be the hardest, so the more stuff you can do the night before to make it easier, the better.
• Get into a routine. Your body is really good at adjusting to a new schedule, as long as there is repetition. This means I’m mostly getting up early in the weekends as well.

I definitely don’t want to persuade you to turn yourself into a morning person, but seriously consider if you have a conscious schedule to work at night and wake up late, or if that this is something you could experiment with.