Set up an alarm in your bedroom where you sleep. As well as this, set up an alarm that is set to go off exactly 1 minute later in another room. Make sure it’s an alarm that you can’t ignore (for example it’s very loud or it will wake other people up). Once the first alarm goes off in the morning, you will have to jump up and get out of bed to stop the other alarm from going off. Once you’re out of bed, it’s easier to stay up.

2. Get Into A Pre-Sleep Routine

Every night, before you go to bed, practice what you will do the next morning. That means get into your sleeping gear, turn off the lights, set the alarm (for 1 minute from now) and pretend you are asleep. When the alarm goes off, jump up straight away and practice what exactly how you want to react when the alarm goes off in the morning. Do this religiously 3 times in a row before you go to bed each night.

3. Allow Yourself To Go Back To Bed (Eventually)

Give yourself a time that you must stay out of bed for in the morning once you have risen. Keep it short to start with if you need. After this time has passed, you are allowed to go back to bed if you really want to. For example, you could set yourself a 30 minute period that you have to get up and stay awake for, after which you may go back to bed. You can’t go back to bed any earlier. After a few weeks raise the time period and then do away with the back to bed clause altogether.

4. Get An Early Rising Buddy

Ask a like minded friend to be your early rising buddy. Agree on a rising time and every day at that time you must ring each other. If one of you fails to answer, that person must do something as a penalty (such as give the other person money)

4. Go To Bed Earlier

This is the obvious one, but it’s still important. If you are disciplined with getting up every morning at a certain time and you don’t then sleep during the day, your body clock will adjust and you will begin feeling the need to go to bed earlier each night.

5. Me Time

Allocate a certain amount of time every morning at a prussic time that you get to have all to yourself. It should be the first thing you do (perhaps after shower and breakfast) and it should involve you doing something that you love and makes you feel good, such as setting goals for the day, or praying, or going for a walk. Anything that makes you feel great. You will look forward to this every day and it will motivate you to get up early for it.

6. Shock Treatment

Keep a moist towel next to you and as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning, wipe your face with it. Water on the face is a great way of shocking you out of sleep. A bucket over the head is probably a bit much (not including when in the shower) but a wet towel should do the trick.

7. Exercise

Make exercise the very first thing you do. The exercising gets the heart rate up and warms up the body. Doing this every day at the exact time conditions the body to warming up and waking up becomes much easier. It doesn’t have to be intense exercise, it could just be a walk around the block.

8. Set Targets

If you think you will struggle to keep up the routine, set yourself a small target, for example 1 week. All you have to do is get up at a certain time each morning for a week and then you’re allowed to go back to getting up whenever you want. If you fail, the week must start again. Once you’ve succeeded, start again, but with a longer target and so on and so on.

9. Get In The Right Frame Of Mind

Realize that the accomplishment lies in the discipline of getting up at the time you have set for yourself. It’s great to have things to do once you are up, but if you place to much importance on those things, you can easily get put off based on how you feel about those things on any given day. Place the importance on the act of simply getting up at your desired time. Also, if you falter and fail to get up. Don’t let that stop you from getting back on the horse and starting again the next day. Try to learn something from it.

10. Keep A Diary

A great way to empower yourself to get up early is to keep a diary or write a blog about your early rising goals. Every day, you must write something about your progress and how you felt getting up on that day. Record your successes, failures and opinions on the whole process. This can be very liberating, rewarding and motivating.

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Think of an object or activity that their name sounds like. For example, if you meet a “Denise”, think of “tennis”. Now imagine Denise hitting a tennis ball with a tennis racquet repeatedly. Next time you see her, you will associate her with ‘tennis’ and will think of the name “Denise”

2. Repetition

Picture the person’s face in your mind and say their name 30 times in a row. Then have a break, think about something else and do it again. Repeat this process 3 times. Simple, yet effective.

3. Who’s Their Double?

Do you know someone else with the same name? If so, imagine the two of them doing something stupid together, like mud wrestling or playing chess. If you associate the new person with the familiar person, their name will come to mind whenever you see them.

4. First Letter

Concentrate on the first letter of their name. Once you have acknowledged their name to yourself, concentrate on remembering the first letter. Picture them and think of that letter. Letters often are recalled much more naturally and from that first letter, the rest of the name will flow.

5. Rhyme It

Think of a word that rhymes with their name and then use them together. For example “Fred lives in a shed”, or “Sally has a big belly”.

6. Sing It

Can you think of a song that features the name of this person? If so, sing it to yourself and picture the person as you do so. Rock out.

7. Spell It

Spell the person’s name either out loud or in your head. Do it a few times. Analyse the spelling and contemplate how else it might be spelt.

8. Uniqueness

This method isn’t fool proof but it can give you that little clue that is often all that is required for full memory of a name. Does the person have a big name or small name? A foreign name or a common name. An unusual one or boring one? Analyse a characteristic of the name in question and dwell on it for a while

9. Introductions

In your head, imagine introducing this person to a few different people. Imagine they have just won a Grammy and you are announcing them as the winner. Imagine they are your long lost cousin and you are introducing them to your friends.

10. Use It Straight Away

This only works if when you meet this person, you have the opportunity to speak with them straight away for long enough to at least hold a short conversation. Use their name when talking to them. “oh, that’s great Jim”… “so tell me Jim”… “nice to meet you Jim”.

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