How to Wake Up Early

I'm a busy person who loses morning time because I don't wake up early. There are a lot of things I'm missing by not starting my day at 5 or 6am -- no traffic, sunrise, lower temperatures, day planning, breakfast, newspapers, and even blogging. I want to become a morning person so I looked up some ideas to change my life's time zone. It takes habit to build a natural rhythm so I need to pick the right pattern for sleep:

1) Sleep early, wake up early -- I can choose to sleep by 10pm everyday to give me 8 hours of sleep and get up at 6am. This does the job but I'm not an NS-5, and a lot of little events can break this pattern.

2) Follow natural sleep pattern -- If I choose to sleep only when I'm tired and feeling sleepy, I'll probably continue to sleep late and wake up late. I have plenty of reserve energy towards the end of the day because I eat heavy meals, so I don't think this works too.

3) Natural pattern + alarm clock in the morning -- ok, but I'm not sure if I'll wake up at the sound of the alarm. I tend to snooze a couple of times until I get annoyed. Sometimes my tolerance goes too far and I spend over an hour snoozing. It also means that I'll have to start sleep at reasonable times, but getting up on time isn't assured.

4) Natural pattern + alarm clock away from bed -- ok, I'll be forced to get up, but what if someone else turns it off?!?!

5) Natural pattern + alarm clock away from bed + message -- Let's say I put a message near the clock to wake me up in case my brother turns off the alarm. If the other person is sleepy, he might ignore the message and get back to sleep. On the other hand I can just tell the folks at home to wake me up when they hear it, the rest is a matter of trust.

6) 6am splash of water alarm -- definitely not good and can cause bacteria growth on the bed. Can also ruin my PC because it's just beside the bed.

7) Imagine/visualize waking up at 6 before sleep -- I heard this technique works for some people. They tell themselves to wake up at a certain time before they sleep and it just happens.

8) Find a 5am TV show or watch DVDs at this time + alarm -- if you set up a reward for getting up early like this, maybe it will work. I still have a couple of series stored at home so maybe this is enough motivation. This way it would cost me up to 60 pesos a day to wake up.

9) Schedule exercise in the morning -- I don't do this. I'm not Manny Pacquiao, and I'm not an old man looking for tai-chi.

After going through the list, what I'm looking for is: a way to sleep anytime I want, get up at the same early time everyday, and have a good reason to get up. It's going to be a combination of #5 and #8 with a little tweak. I'll set up the alarm at 5am, put the clock at least a meter away from my bed, I'll 'align' with the folks at home to wake me up (mom/dad wake up at this time anyway), and I'll plan ahead at night to do something nice at 5am.

I'll write more about it when I become a successful morning person.