5 Non-Helpful Tips for Aspiring Morning People

Dear Morning People,

Your tips suck!

For quite a while now I've been trying to be better about getting waking up early in the morning. I have a variety of reasons and motivations. I often end up running late because I oversleep. I'd like to have time in the morning to exercise and/or work on chores and activities around the house. By the time I get home after battling the traffic it's usually between 6:30 and 7, leaving me roughly 3 hours until my target bedtime. By the time I exercise, make, eat and clean up dinner, pack my lunch for the next day and give some sort of cursory effort to bringing order to the chaos of my home not only is it almost bedtime, but I'm whipped into a frantic frenzy. And that doesn't even factor in evening social activities.

I've done a lot of looking around for ideas, and frankly the so-called "tips" range from patronizing to stating the intended outcome/objective as a method to achieve itself. Here's what I mean.

5 Non-Helpful Tips for Aspiring Morning People

1. Get enough sleep. In my best-case scenario I'm tucking in around 9:30 (10 on most nights). That is a consistent 8 hours before my alarm goes off at 6 a.m. Should I really set my bedtime for 8 p.m.? Should I change straight into my pajamas from my work clothes? 
2. Skip the snooze button. If I actually jumped right out of bed when my alarm went off I could comfortably complete my morning routine with some fudge time for life fulfillment. But as soon as I hear sound from my alarm clock or phone my hand instinctively snaps out for a temporary reprieve. I know this is bad and a key cause of my problems, but telling me to stop doing something is not the same as telling me how to stop. I'll get up, walk across the room, hit snooze and climb right back into bed. That's a me problem, I understand, but nowhere in any tips I've seen about skipping snooze is there any information or advice about how to stop. It's kind of like telling someone with depression, "have you tried being happier?"
3. Exercise/be active as soon as you wake up: Again, that is the goal. But HOW DO I DO THIS? The entire reason I am trying to wake up at 5 a.m. and stop pressing the snooze button is precisely because I want to be active in the morning! What is the bridge between my eyes opening and being up, dressed and running around the neighborhood? Do I need an alarm that sets my bed on fire? 
4. Have a reward or special reason to wake up: In addition to setting goals to run and be active in the morning I've tried tempting myself with things like "if you are up and ready by ____ time you can stop for coffee on the way in." I've also started watching my favorite tv shows only on-demand. This means if I get up early the day after they air I can watch them in the morning. None of this seems to be effective. Maybe the biggest reward to my mind (and body) is sleep itself and my subconscious is unwilling to trade it for anything else. 
5. Eat/Drink effectively: Don't even get me started on this. I cut off my caffeine consumption by 3 p.m. For about six months I've been taking melatonin every night and for the last two I've been adding a cup of chamomile tea (yes, TEA! UGH!) 45 minutes to an hour before bed. According to my Fitbit I typically fall asleep in less than 15 minutes, and generally stay blissfully unconscious throughout the night. Yet morning is still zonk city. 

If you're hoping to Google your way to carpe-ing your diem forget about it. It's nothing but a bunch of morning people giving you reasons why you should want to wake up earlier and telling you things you already know. Maybe these bright rays of sunshine could use some tips just for them.

Three Tips for Morning People Writing Better 'Becoming a Morning Person' Tips.

1. Don't tell us what getting more sleep and waking up earlier is (going to bed earlier, getting X hours of sleep, getting out of bed right when the alarm goes off) tell us HOW TO DO THIS!
2. Stop mistaking descriptions of behavior (go for a run in the morning) with advice or tactics on how to develop said behavior. 
3. Tell us how to wake up our minds. Most "tips" revolve around making conscious decisions the moment you wake up. That requires consciousness.