If your wake-up period is longer than most (like me), the alarm-clock-across-the-room might not work, it might not be a long enough period of time out of bed to fully wake you up. I sleep in a loft bed so every morning I would get up, climb down a ladder, walk across the room, turn off the alarm, walk back across the room, climb back up the ladder and get under the covers, all without leaving that groggy morning period.

Water on my face has been the best thing for me in the morning, it wakes me up and it doubles as being nice and refreshing. Right now I have a water bottle with a big brim on the end of my bed and when I wake up I'm just barely functional enough to open the bottle, dip my fingers in, and wipe it on my face. That usually gets me in the morning.

Really, the most successful thing I've ever used to wake me up consistently is getting a friend (who's already good at waking up) to come in at 7:30AM to make sure I get up and splash some water on my face in the bathroom. I'm thinking it's like exercise, having somebody else there is a lifesaver because you're not just relying on your own willpower to get it done. Once water's on my face and I'm talking to someone else, even for just a few seconds, I'm up.

Consistent time, water on my face, friend to make sure. That's my best combo.

I have a problem waking up early too when I'm warm and cozy in my bed. If I need to get up early I usually set up more than one alarm. Space each alarm fifteen minutes. Like for example if I need to wake up at 6:30 to get ready i will set up an alarm at 6:00,15, and 30. Then head to take either a really hot shower or cold one.

Someone I know that struggles waking up in the morning sets up 5 alarm clocks to go off at the same time, and has them lying around the place scattered.

I use my iPhone as my alarm clock, which does several things for me:

1. People sometimes call me in the morning, so I feel obligated to check the phone when the alarm goes off because someone might be trying to contact me.
2. I can set a bunch of alarms to go off at 5-minute intervals--6:00, 6:05, 6:10, 6:15--and have a lock on my iPhone, so getting the alarms to stop requires me to pick up the phone and type in my password.
3. I set the ringer volume on high and vibrate, then put it next to my head.
4. My alarms alternate between the Diggnation, TRS, and Numb3rs theme songs, so I always wake up in a relatively happy mood.

I use an iPod dock with an alarm function on it. I bought a cord with a 3.5mm male adapter on one end and two male RCA adapters on the other end awhile back. Using this, I hooked up my iPod dock to my reciever which controls my speaker system for my TV. The way the alarm on my dock works is that it plays music quietly at first and gradually builds in volume. Because it is hooked up to powerful speakers, when it reaches it's peak volume after about 20 seconds, it's quite loud. Knowing that if I don't get up and turn off my alarm soon, it may wake up my neighbors, I have much more incentive to get up. I also have an alarm that goes off one minute before hand on my cell phone, so that I'm given a warning and more time to turn off my alarm.

Like others have said, try multiple alarms. However, if you're living with roommates, you may just end up with a bunch of pissed off roommates. Another option I would suggest would be to have the alarm close enough to the bed so that you can clearly hear it, but far away enough so that you actually have to get up if you want to hit snooze. Finally, try using songs or sounds of your choosing for your alarms; for example, I use a rather high energy song from an anime opening theme I like. If you choose to go this route, try to switch around the song/sound every so often so that you don't just get used to the sound over time.

If you find your sleep schedule erratic and inconsistent, you might want to look into some form of sleep aids. Melatonin supplements, a chemical your brain produces to help put you to sleep and is also safe and not addictive, have worked wonders for me by assisting my brain in shutting down for the day and not staying up so late reading countless articles on the web. I get a full 8 hours sleep and am able to get right out of bed with a normal alarm.

I'm not a morning person, my trick is to nap a lot. I'm also not a nap person, but napsounds.com makes it all possible!

Consistency is key. I know it sucks to wake up at 7 a.m. even on Saturday, but it will make waking up on Monday morning SO much easier.

But if you'd prefer to have a gadget solve all your problems instead, let me introduce you to Clocky.

Clocky will beep a few times, and if you don't get up in a satisfactory amount of time, Clock will roll off your table and in circles on the floor. While beeping. So you have to catch it. AND it has a cute name. I'm sold.

For more info, check out: http://www.geeksugar.com/89786

Don't hit snooze. I know, that's difficult, but it works for me. I have a radio alarm clock, and I never looked at where the snooze button is, so I'm not tempted to hit it.

What works for me is to make the radio my alarm. I have the volume turned up all the way on 98.7 (a great rock station in LA). When that goes off, it wakes me up. Even if it's a good song, the volume level will wake you up, and you'll be motivated to turn it off. And I keep it on the other side of my bedroom, so I'm forced to get out of bed to turn it off. The end result is being awake.

Place your alarm clock on the other side of the room, and put tape over the snooze button so you can't hit it. This way, when your alarm goes off, you have to walk across the room to shut it off, and you're less likely to go back to bed, because you know that your alarm isn't going to go off again to wake you up.

Set a specific time to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning. Stick to it.

A few other things that can help are:

• Avoiding caffeine after about 2pm
• Keeping your wake up time consistent, but not necessarily your bed time. Just go to sleep when you feel tired.

What works for me:

• Set multiple alarms, Ex. If you need to be in class at 8am, set 4-5 alarms for 6:45, 6:55, 7:05, 7:15....
• I use the alarm on my iPhone, set to Digital ring...it's the most annoying in the morning.

Get a loud alarm and put it out of reach so you have to get out of your bed to get to it. Make sure it will go on long enough to annoy the living shit out of you if you dont get up and turn it off. If you have a roomate and he is getting mad about this, all the more reason to get up and turn off the alarm before he attempts to beat you.

I set my alarm clock on the other side of the room. Once I'm out of bed...I can't get back to sleep. So try that.

Personally, I use 3 alarms, 1 is my desktop, 1 is my phone, 1 is my alarm clock.

My desktop has a decent set of speakers, i have it play a song i know will wake me up (Master of Puppets FYI). My phone I have it set to a blaring/annoying alarm. And my alarm clock itself, well, default. I have them all set at the same time personally, cause goin back to sleep will make me feel more groggy to hit the next alarm.

I put my alarm on the other side of the room, and the night before I fill my electric teapot with water so I can make a cup of tea right away. I also try to get dressed right away, I'm less likely to sneak back to bed that way...

I'm one of the worst people I know for getting up in the morning. I usually use the alarm on my Blackberry and I have it set to the shrillest ringer possible and place it next to my bed. When I first started using it I was having major problems because the snooze and dismiss buttons are right next to each other so I would often hit dismiss instead of snooze! Oops! But this forced me to actually pay attention so now I've trained myself in my half-awake state to successfully press the right button.

Also, most days I leave my door to my room open a little bit so I can hear my roommates. Every morning like clockwork my one roommate gets up for the day at 8 and I can hear his door squeaking and I can hear him stumble into the shower. It usually wakes me up and even though I'm disoriented I try to figure out what I'm hearing which wakes me up a little bit more. And by that time I know that I only have an hour until class and if I want to have time to shower etc. I need to get up NOW!

Not the best tips but the second one is a little bit out of the ordinary.

Set a phone and another alarm clock 5 minutes apart both across the room from the bed and across the room from each other. wake up turn the first one off, turn on the lights, lay back down but keep reminding yourself that your getting up in 5 minutes get up to turn the second one off and jump into the shower. Also be sure to have the same wake up time every day and routine.

EDIT: I'm going to go in to more detail to answer this question:

Set goals for each day, one day ahead of time, that way you know exactly what you need to do that next morning. Why, because then you don't lay in bed in the morning moaning about waking up, get up get your crap done and enjoy your day. People waste an unbelievable amount of time waking up. Follow through have a list of things to get done within one hour of waking up, do it, mine is usually X pages of a book within one hour of waking up. Get rid of the extra 10 minutes I have physically removed my snooze button, use an alarm clock without a snooze button, so that if you don't get up the first time, your S.O.L. and miss what ever you had to wake up for (use conditioning). Read before you knock out don't go to bed right after facebooking, or tweeting, get off the monitor, the light inhibits your melatonin production, read a book. Get up quickly my policy is to get up and in the shower within 45 seconds of my alarm clock going off, I actually timed myself until it became habit. Make it a habit you want to have a constant routine in the morning. don't let yourself sleep in schedule 8 AM classes or what ever, so that you know the consequences of being late. MAKE WAKING UP ON TIME A HABIT

I have used the same alarm song for almost a year now: "Get Up" by R.E.M. After I got into the habit of hearing it every morning, my body seemed to respond to it. I can go from the middle of a dream to wide awake after the first note. Sometimes I even listen to it during the day if I'm tired, as it instantly gives me a jolt.