Despite having to do it every single day, most people find waking up is hard to do. There are no shortages of remedies for ways to ensure that at the sound of your alarm clock, you will pop up. Most notably, from a great mind at MIT, a mobile alarm clock that at that fateful hour turns itself loose forcing you get out of bed to chase it down, thereby reducing the likelihood of crawling back under the covers. My favorite example of the resilience to wake-up gimmicks was an ex-girlfriend, who put her alarm clock near her feet, such that she'd have to get up to turn it off. It was only a matter of weeks before she had trained her toes to peek out from the blanket to reset the snooze for another 15 minutes, this was a multiple button operation mind you, which she could do with her toes all without shifting position.
It is the moments after your alarm rings that makes it so easy to snooze and forget about the day ahead. Typically you wake up in a dark environment that takes time to adjust to, its always a little bit colder and your purpose for the day isn't set (if at all) for a while upon rising. What is it again, we're getting out of bed for?
In thinking about design and function, alarm clocks do little to entice us to wake up. While there are many variants, most emit a loud almost irritable sound forcing yourself to make it go away as quickly as possible. There are alarm clocks that will play the radio or selected music, but is random noise the best marker for the brain to start itself off to? Even selected songs become monotonous to our will to get the day started.
In thinking about what to wake up to, wouldn't a list of things you'd have to accomplish by an encouraging voice be ideal. If your life is such that you have nothing to accomplish on a daily basis, well, the reminder in the AM might entice you to to try to do more with your day. Think about how Tony Stark got up, is that that far-fetched?
I'd certainly pay for an iPhone app that synced with my google tasks/calendar (our outlook tasks/calendar) that upon my set time of waking up prompts me with (in a female voice):
"Good Morning Pankaj, It's time to wake up. The weather is going to be sunny with a high of 75 and low of 60. You have a busy day today,
At 8:30 you're scheduled to meet with a client in Palo Alto
At 10:30 you're hosting a WebEx session with John and Sara about Technology
You're having lunch in San Francisco with Mark at Holy Grill
At 2:30 you need to be in Redwood City to be at the Partner office.
If you stay in bed any longer you're not going to have time for a morning run or breakfast"
Of course all of this information is merely pulled from applications where this information is readily available and by prompting you of it, you have a mental map, almost in subconsciousness, of the day, when you're defenses are not as apt.
Everyday would be different, because every day on my schedule is different and every day I'd wake up to knowing what it is I have to do for the day. Who knows, if after a week of listening to what I have to do everyday of my life, I can't believe what my life has become, I'd be that much more compelled to change it. Of course, if I had Tony Stark's garage, chances are I'd never go to sleep in the first place.
This simple app could make a world of difference in productivity. At least for me.
