How Deleting The Snooze Button Changed Everything

It started near the end of 2018 when I decided I wanted to read more. Rather than mindlessly drift into that world of TV and Instagram scrolling every night after dinner I decided to replace TV with reading - I read 5 books my first month and of those books was The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. See some of my favorite reads here on my Instagram Highlight.

While reading this book and learning about the concept of the habit loop and keystone habits, around the same time I watched Mel Robbins' video about Sleep Inertia and pressing the snooze button. Did you know that nearly 60% of people living in North America press snooze at least once every morning. I used to set my alarm an hour early every morning just so I could press snooze for that entire hour before actually getting up. I know it sounds insane, but I'm sure many of you can relate.

And so the idea is that your brain sleeps in cycles of 90 to 110 minutes, and the moment you wake up your brain and body goes into 'wake up mode' to start the day. However, if you hear your alarm, your brain awakens and by hitting Snooze, you've now restarted your sleep cycle which can take 3 to 4 hours to exit, ultimately leaving you unfocused, scatter brained and groggy for the first 4 hours of your morning! I was not cool with that.

So my first morning of not pressing snooze actually started the night before, telling myself "no matter what happens tomorrow morning, when you hear the alarm, don't think more than 2 seconds or I'm toast. Hear it, sit up, plant my feet on the ground and the battle will be half over." And so I did and it worked! Was it easy? Hell no. I felt like an ancient mummy zombie rising from the grave for the first time in centuries. It was cold, dark, snowing out and and I hated it, but I did it. Day 1 was done.

From there I printed a calendar, posted it in my kitchen, and every morning I would mark an X for each time I would not press snooze. I felt more productive in the mornings and alive at work. Placebo or not, it was working. I was starting to turn it in to a habit loop with a Cue, Routine, Reward. Cue being my alarm, routine being sitting up and putting my feet on the ground, and reward being more focused and awake all morning.

Then the crazier part happened: Everything else in my life that required any sort of discipline became a lot simpler.

1. Focusing At Work Became Simple - Sleep Inertia was gone, but also if I could find the self discipline not to press the snooze button at 6AM, certainly I could find enough self discipline to focus on the work I love doing during the day.
2. Eating Healthier Became Enjoyable - If I find the self control to not to press the snooze button at 6AM, certainly I could find enough self control to choose healthy food over junk.
3. Working Out Became Effortless - If I can find the self order to not to press the snooze button at 6AM, certainly I could find enough self order to step in to the gym for 30 minutes each night.
4. Reading Books over Watching TV at Nights Became Entertaining - If I could find the self power not to press the snooze button at 6AM, certainly I could find enough self power to sit and read a book that betters myself rather than watch TV and scroll through Instagram.

It's like while each of these aspects individually seemed like good habits, self discipline and work ethic as a trait was the larger habit forming. I had this going for about 2 months until I took a trip out to Miami for 10 days. Some days I got up early, some I didn't. Some days I pressed snooze and some I didn't, but there was no consistency.

Once I got home I started pressing snooze again! I couldn't believe I worked so hard to create this habit and now it was slipping away. And to make it worse, I started eating out more, skipping gym days and my mornings at work seemed groggy and scattered. This is when I realized waking up before the sun and the act of not pressing snooze was my keystone habit. All my other disciplines seemed to anchor to this one ritual.

According to Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit", some habits are more important than others — they have the power to transform your life. Duhigg calls these "keystone habits." They are correlated with and trigger other habits.

Since then I realized that having that physical calendar really helped me stay on track, so I printed out another and have it posted in my kitchen. I'm now nearly 3 weeks straight again of not pressing snooze. My mornings at work are feeling focused again, I'm sticking to my healthy eating habits and going to the gym and it's all stemming from my keystone habit of not pressing snooze in the morning.

Everything you do is a choice. The time you wake up, how you wake up, the food you eat, the content you consume. And you can turn these choices into habits by applying discipline, consistency and the habit loop. Do you have the control, will power and the self discipline to make the right choices over and over to be the best version of you? Why would you want to be anything other than the best version of yourself?

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