Every night at 8:30PM, my alarm goes off.
Not to wake me up. To tell me it’s time to wrap up my day.
Go to bed. Now. Before the evening bleeds into another hour of doing or thinking or “just one more thing.”
The alarm is a system that exists because my brain — left to its own devices — will absolutely forget what matters to me by 9pm - what my intentions are for a better life or better health, how I want to feel fresh every morning to seize the day before the world wakes up.
You’d think your own goals, your own values, your own desire to do your best work — those would stick in your mind. You’d think you wouldn’t need a phone alarm to remind you that sleep is important.
But that’s not how the brain works.
There’s a concept in behavioral science called motivational salience — the idea that what drives your behavior in any given moment has to become a center of your attention first.
Hunger wins because your body makes it loud.
Your intention to wake up at 4:30am and do your best work? That signal is quiet. It needs a nudge from the outside world to remind you it’s important.
My 8:30PM alarm is that nudge.
It reminds me that I do my best thinking early. That I feel more alive, more useful, more me when I’m up before the rest of the world (some call it creator’s hour). That if I go to bed now, tomorrow morning becomes a gift instead of a dread or regret.
Before the alarm, my sleep time was all over the place.
After?
Surprisingly consistent and easy, from day one.
Someone asked me recently: “How do I start waking up earlier? I accomplish and feel so much more when I do.”
Stop trying to win the morning. Start managing the night before.
Set an alarm to go to bed.
Put your meditation mat next to your bed as a reminder that you wanted to work on your mindfulness and presence - so you literally step onto your intention when you wake up, instead of asking for more motivation.
Block reading or learning time in your calendar like you’d block a meeting.
Put your writing time in your planner before the day tries to fill that slot.
These aren’t hacks. They’re reminders to the future you of what’s important.
They’re the system doing the remembering so your willpower doesn’t have to.
Most of the time, the gap between what you want to do and what you actually do isn’t closed by motivation. But by making sure you pay attention to the right thing at the right time.
Reminders will help you do that.
You don’t always need more discipline. You don’t need the world to change.
You just need the right alarm, at the right time, to bring your own priorities back into focus.
What’s one reminder you could put in place this week, today — an alarm, a cue, a ritual — that closes the gap between who you want to be and what you actually do today?