The reason you have trouble waking up is because you feel as though you deserve more sleep. You don't. There's nothing in the Constitution about lounging around in bed, and the snooze button is not your birthright. In my line of work an alarm is an alarm; it rings and I get up no matter how much sleep I've had so far that night. And you need to do the same thing. No more fooling yourself, no more bemoaning your sleepy fate. Maybe you only got four hours of sleep last night, but that's a problem you need to deal with on the nighttime end of things, not in the morning.

I know this might come across as harsh, so I'm going to give you some concrete strategies to make it feel less like boot camp and more like tough love.

Wake up your mind: When you're tired it's easy to be mentally lazy, to nurse a glass of orange juice and allow yourself to go numb for thirty minutes. But the truth is that if you can afford thirty minutes of a.m. stupidity, then you probably could have afforded another half hour of sleep. As soon as that alarm rings, put yourself though some quick mental gymnastics. Count to one thousand by seventeens. Try to remember the exact wording and placement of yesterday's newspaper headlines. Spell your street name backwards. The specifics don't matter–just do something different, new, and mentally challenging. It will get your brain churning and, more importantly, distract you from the self-pity you feel at being awake.

Wake up your body: The physical specimen you wake up with is the same one that you put to bed last night, so don't cut it any slack just because the light is different. Your muscles are just as strong, your bones are the same size, and you didn't get that much older and more infirm overnight. Get your body doing something immediately in order to escape the early morning doldrums. This isn't hard; we're not talking sumo wrestling here. Put away the dishes, take out the garbage, water the plants. It doesn't really matter what you do; just get your body working in order to reinforce the fact that you and your bed have just gotten a quicky divorce.

All of those things that you think of as your "morning routine" are ruses you concoct to pretend that you're still asleep. The couch is just an extension of the bed, the shower is just another dream, and the time you spend staring at the glowing coils of the toaster is a few minutes that you'll never get back. So take your shower the night before, lay out your clothes, pack your briefcase before you go to sleep. You don't need anything external in order to wake up. Coffee is counterfeit alertness, morning sun salutations are ridiculous; you already have everything you need in order to wake up fast.

The best part about learning to wake up quickly is that you no longer need to waste all that time in the morning moping around the house. You can use that time for whatever you want, but I suggest using it for sleep. If you get nine hours of sleep, then learning how to wake up quickly is like a ten foot tall man figuring out how to dunk a basketball.

So use the tricks above, but more than anything else, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get out of bed! When the alarm rings, that's it your night is over. Feet on the floor, ass in your pants, bagel in your face, and out the door you go.