8 creative alarm clocks to rouse you earlier
A recent post on PR Daily offered some great insight into everything you can gain by waking up earlier. You automatically give yourself more time for just about anything — breakfast, reading, exercising, an easier commute.
I used to be an early riser—rise at 4 a.m., get to work by 5 a.m. — and experienced all of these benefits. But today I could no more get up that early than I could stop using the serial comma. Getting out of bed to go to work is excruciating.
I’ve tried going to bed earlier. I’ve tried not reading before I go to sleep. I’ve tried drinking water first thing in the morning. But none of this seems to make a difference. The alarm goes off and it starts. I snooze, where I never snoozed before. I lie to myself so I can stay in bed longer. “Traffic won’t really be so bad today. It’s Thursday and I’ll bet a lot of people are taking off to get an early start to the weekend,” or, “I’ll sleep 10 minutes longer and just drive 80 miles per hour to work.”
So now, it’s time to try some gimmicks. Apparently, there is an entire industry built around getting people out of bed in the morning.
Here are some noteworthy products:
1. Moving alarm clock. At the allotted time, this alarm clock “shrieks annoyingly” and then rolls away. You have to chase it to turn it off. (A simpler solution may be to put your alarm clock across the room so that you have to get up to turn it off.)
2. Puzzle Alarm Clock. When your alarm goes off, this clock launches three puzzle pieces into the air. You must return all three pieces to their holes before the alarm turns off.
3. Carpet Alarm Clock. You have to stand on it to turn the alarm off.
4. Throw alarm clock. You have to bounce or throw this alarm clock to turn it off. Great for those who have always wanted throw their alarm clock across the room.
5. Silent alarm clock. The product description states: “Each person wears a wireless rubber ring with an integrated vibration device that generates a tactile alarm. The snooze function is engaged by shaking your hand. However, each successive time you want to snooze, more movement is required.”
6. Natural light alarm clock. The Light Sleeper alarm clock is a pillow and duvet cover made with “electroluminescent threads” that light up as it approaches your set waking time. It simulates a natural sunrise so you wake up spontaneously.
7. Bacon alarm clock. That’s right; you can wake up to the smell of cooking bacon with the Wakn’ Bacon alarm clock. It’s a wooden box with a pig face and a digital clock. You place a piece of frozen bacon in the clock before you go to bed. You set your alarm and it starts cooking the bacon 10 minutes before wake time. It uses a halogen bulb for cooking and shuts off after 10 minutes.
8. A bed that kicks you out. OK, so this one is fiction. But perhaps Wallace from “Wallace and Gromit” has the right idea. Attach his contraption to an alarm clock and problem solved!
PR Daily readers, care to share your tips for getting up in the morning?
This article was first published on Ragan Communication’s PR Daily.
