There’s a special place in hell for the person who invented the snooze button. It’s a terrible invention and if there’s one within arms length when an alarm goes off, I will surely hit it.

However, as devious as the snooze button may seem, it’s not the main reason why I’ve always struggled with getting up in the mornings. The challenge with waking up early, despite all its obvious benefits, is a topic I keep returning to time and again. Every now and then I employ new tricks or habits, but the fact remains that almost always when the alarm goes off at 6am, a strange gravitational force encapsulates my bed and my wake-up motivation level (WUML) barely registers 1.

The WUML is a measure invented by Hal Elrod, which he describes in his great book The Miracle Morning. You can rate your level of motivation for how you feel about waking up on a scale of 1-10, where 10 is “being ready to wake up and embrace the day” and 1 is “wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep”. Many of us will have to go back to childhood to remember what a level 10 morning felt like (e.g. on Christmas morning).

Despite the cheesy name, The Miracle Morning contains a lot of other interesting and useful ideas as well. A key insight was that maybe we should just embrace the fact that our WUML is very low when we’re abruptly awakened. Instead, we should focus on making sure that our WUML increases to 4 or 5 within minutes from waking up, so that we don’t hit the snooze button and keep on sleeping.

How can you do that? In the book, Elrod describes five simple steps that make waking up a whole lot easier. Based on those five steps, I’ve developed my own snooze proof wake-up strategy:

1. Set your intentions before bed. This one is directly from Elrod and I think it’s the most powerful step in his five-step strategy. The point is that your first thought in the morning is typically of your last thought before you fell asleep. So, decide every night to create a positive expectation for when you wake up in the morning – even in situations when you know you won’t get more than five or six hours of sleep.

2. Use home automation to turn on the lights. With systems like Philips Hue it’s easy to set wake-up routines, for example so that lights gradually fade in before the alarm goes off. Alternatively, you could buy a sunrise alarm clock. This “dawn simulation” works nicely for me and there seems to be some science showing that when light enters through the eyelids, it triggers the body’s wake-up cycle, making it a bit easier to wake up.

3. Keep your alarm clock(s) across the room. This one is also from Elrod, but in my version there are multiple alarm clocks going off within minutes from each other. They will force you to get out of bed and engage your body in movement. As you get up and move around, energy is created and that works as an antidote to sleepiness.

4. Wash your face, brush your teeth, and drink water. Once you’ve washed your face and brushed your teeth, it’s going to be difficult for you to crawl back into bed. Also, drink a glass of water in order to rehydrate your body and mind.

5. Exercise and shower. I try to have my exercise clothes ready and laid out so that I can quickly jump into them and do 25 minutes of HIIT or yoga. This is of course the ultimate WUML booster and after the shower you will feel fresh, ready and energized.

When I follow this wake-up strategy, I’m more or less guaranteed to reach WUML 5 or 6 within 30 minutes from the alarm going off. I can’t remember ever having gone back to bed after step 4, and definitely not after step 5. But the most important step is number 1. When going to bed, you need to tell yourself that the morning is going to be awesome, and you need to find a way to believe it too.

It’s easy to agree with Elrod that “nobody likes waking up early, but everyone loves the feeling of having woken up early”. It gives you a sense of achievement early on and lays the foundation for a good day. Without a snooze proof wake-up strategy, I wouldn’t be able to do it.