To the shock of no one, it can be hard to get out of bed in the morning. There are probably multiple reasons: your groggy brain convincing you to press snooze, your warm blankets coaxing you back to sleep or the existential dread of starting another day on Zoom.  Sadly, though, you eventually do have to get out of bed to start the day, no matter how much you’d rather snooze. Here are some ways to make that gargantuan task easier.

Put your alarm out of reach

An alarm isn’t super effective if you just immediately snooze it and fall right back asleep. The best way to combat this is to force yourself to get up to snooze or turn off your alarm. That way, you’ll already be out of bed, and the hardest part of the morning will be over with quickly. There’s an added benefit if your alarm is your phone: If your phone is out of reach from your bed, then you won’t spend time after you wake up laying in bed with your phone. It also forces you to go to bed without your phone, so then you won’t be tempted to stay up late scrolling.

Kick off the covers

Being all snuggled in blankets in the morning is rather nice. However, it also keeps you in bed longer. The way to avoid this is to kick off your covers as you hear your alarm. That way the bed won’t be a nice warm place to lay in. If you do that, there’ll be far less reason to spend more time in bed.

Have a regular sleep schedule

Waking up tired in the morning may be one of the reasons you stay in bed longer than you mean to. Your body doesn’t want to move and is probably trying to get you to fall back asleep. To combat this feeling, you should try setting up a regular sleep schedule that you can stick to. It’s your best chance at waking up refreshed and ready to start the day. Not only will you be getting enough sleep, but you’ll train your mind to wake up at a certain time, so it won’t feel as uncomfortably early anymore. 

Start the process earlier

Chances are, you get out of bed every single day. So clearly, you have a strategy that works. You probably shouldn’t completely abandon it just because a listicle gave you some other options. Instead, you should try some of these strategies if they work and then use what works to get you out of bed. If you still feel as though you’re using up too much of your morning in bed, then just shift your wake-up schedule earlier. That way, you can spend the same amount of time in bed but also reap the benefits of an earlier start to your day.

Hopefully, some of these tips will help you spend more of your morning time doing things you want to do — or things you have to do, such as classes — and less time stuck in bed.