Wake Me Up Gently

Inspiration

I've been using my Amazon Echo as an alarm clock for a while. I use the Routines function to set my Flash Briefings to start playing at 6:30 am on weekdays. The problem is that because the news is so terrible right now, waking up to the news ended up stressing me out. I wished there was a way for me to build good mental habits into my mornings without having to think too hard. And that's where Wake Me Up Gently was born!

What it does

At it's most basic level, Wake Me Up Gently is an alarm clock. More specifically, it's a five-minute long Flash Briefing featuring some calm music and my own voice encouraging users to take deep breaths, stretch, and practice gratitude. During the onboarding process, I instruct users to place WMUG at the top of their Flash Briefing rotation and then create a Routine that flips on the briefings at the time when they want to wake up. The best part? No snooze button.

How I built it

I wrote out a variety of scripts for 7 briefings and recorded them myself. After editing and mixing the audio, I uploaded it as a Flash Briefing through an external host.

Challenges I ran into

The main challenge was figuring out what I wanted to say in the briefing! I scoured my notebooks for snippets of inspirational quotations, poems, and essays that I try to keep present in my mind.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

On a whim, I decided to create a form for users to submit their own content to be read on the briefing. People loved it! I was super surprised about that.

What I learned

Everyone is stressed out and looking for a way to take a break from the news cycle and social media.

What's next for Wake Me Up Gently

I'm going to continue producing more briefings to drop into the rotation!