Why I hit snooze ten times every morning

Syel · 4 October 2026

6:40. You reach out without opening your eyes, you press, you fall back for nine minutes. Then again. By the tenth, you're late and you haven't really slept.

Those nine minutes aren't sleep. They're the only part of the day when nobody wants anything from you, when nothing has started yet. You already know it the night before, setting three alarms twenty minutes apart: you're not getting ready to get up, you're getting ready to negotiate. And honestly, I understand holding on to that.

What you're putting off isn't the ringing. It's the first thing waiting outside: the commute, the meeting, the conversation you've been carrying since yesterday. The day starts anyway, except now it starts at a run, coffee drunk standing up, with that small debt: you've already lost against yourself before your feet hit the floor.