How I Kicked My Worst Habit By Changing the Default Settings
I spent years trying and failing to wake up early.
“Early” was very reasonably somewhere between 7 and 8am.
Which was challenging for several reasons.
At that time, I was in grad school. I didn’t have regular meetings or obligations in the morning. I also typically had bursts of energy late at night and tended to work late into the evening.
Waking up early was a vague personal goal, not something I needed to do.
The Bad Habit Trap
Regardless, I would set my alarm everyday for 7am.
And when it rang, I would feel a wave of regret. The excuses would start echoing in my mind:
- “I don’t need to wake up, I deserve more sleep,”
- “If I don’t get more sleep, I’m going to be tired all day”
- “Setting the alarm this early was wrong, I don’t know why I set myself up for this”
On and on the thoughts would go. I’d press snooze, then press it again 9 minutes later. I’d press it again and again, sometimes for over an hour.
The Realization of Wasted Time
I allowed this pattern to persist for over a year.
One morning, I was lying in bed after having just snoozed the alarm twice, the same thoughts running through my brain.
“Just 9 more minutes,” I thought.
And for the first time, a counter-thought popped into my head.
“You know, pressing snooze doesn’t actually get you more sleep or more energy during the day. It’s actually not doing much for you.”
“Well… except for wasting time.”
For the first time, two facts sunk in deeply:
- I often don’t fall asleep between snoozes. All I do is lie groggily trying to fall back asleep. Even when I do, the sleep is so brief that it doesn’t refresh me. Ergo, snoozing doesn’t help my energy for the day at all.
- For something that doesn’t help, it wastes a ton of time that I could be spending awake!
The Solution: Changing the Default Alarm
I needed to force a change.
It would be painful, but necessary.
I looked for a solution that would leave me no choice but to get out of bed. I downloaded an app called Alarmy, which is one of a few apps that will not stop ringing unless you do something effortful, like answer a math problem or take a picture of a certain object.
I snapped a picture of a barcode from a box of crackers, cut the barcode out, and taped it on my kitchen wall.
That would be my answer.
To turn off the alarm in the morning, I needed to get up, go to the kitchen, turn the light on, and take a picture of that barcode.
For extra assurance, I chose an excruciating sound for the alarm. I found one that mimicked a fire truck and set it to the loudest setting.
When it sounded the next morning, I was actually so panicked by the blaring alarm that I snapped out of bed. I had to orient myself to remember to take the picture to turn it off.
I couldn’t believe how well it had worked.
And even though it wasn’t that easy everyday, I can truly say that every day I used that app, I didn’t touch the snooze button. I still use the app to this day.
Conquering Bad Habits Puts You In Control
The shift I felt in my life when I made this change truly felt massive.
Not only did I have more time in the morning, which was a huge motivator, but I also gained control over my life.
I’ve trained my brain to listen to me instead of ignoring my wishes.
Instead of “I don’t want to wake up” my brain says “When I say go, we go.”
It taught me how discipline in one area of life spreads to the others.
My Take Away: The Power of Changing the Default Settings
Snoozing my alarm is one small habit I easily fell into.
But many of our habits are dictated by the default settings in the environment around us.
Most phone alarms come with the “Snooze” option by default. I wonder if we’d be better at waking up on time if we didn’t have “snooze” to fall back on?
What if the sound of our alarm changed at random so we could never habituate to its tone?
Technology’s default settings shape our habits in many little ways, from the average length of a meeting (the default on Google calendar is one hour), to subscriptions that auto-renew if we leave them alone, and notifications that demand our immediate attention.
Just the fact of having our phone in our field of vision while we’re working is enough to distract us.
Running the occasional audit on our defaults can help untangle us from behaviours and habits that are harmful.
Thankfully, I was able to dump the default snooze button and get control back of my mornings.
