A little confession: I am not a morning person. In fact, I hate getting up before 9 a.m., and I’d probably sleep until 10 a.m. if I could.

I’m not sure whether it was too many late nights during college, or if I’m a night owl by nature, but it’s far too often "late to bed, late to rise" for me. And I’m trying to fix it.

There aren’t enough hours in the day for kids, hobbies, work, etc., and life’s far too short to spend in a sleepy haze. Here are 10 tips for how I get up at 6:30 a.m. every (ok… maybe not every) morning:

1. Go to bed when you’re tired.

You’ve probably heard that you’re supposed to go to bed at the same time every night, right? Yeah, I tried that, and ended up staring at the ceiling for a few hours. Instead, I go to bed when I’m tired.

Usually this means that I do go to bed at roughly the same time every night. Eventually you get into a rhythm and it works out. One caveat, though, is that we geeks tend to get rather caught up in our own hobbies. Don’t stay up later than you should just because you want to finish one more quest in Fallout 3 or because you have a blog article due the next day (ahem).

2. Pick out clothes the night before.

Honest, it really helps. Making decisions, even small ones about which shirt or tie to wear, can be challenging in the wee hours. I’ve even contemplated taking the Neil Gaiman route and just wearing the same damn thing every day. My wife says that’s sad, but she’s never gone an entire day with backwards underwear and an inside-out shirt.

3. Program your coffee maker.

Several folks told me to cut back on my caffeine after I mentioned to them that I was trying to get up earlier.

After I stopped laughing, I went out and bought some really good whole bean coffee (our recent favorite is Ruta Maya