This one alarm clock setting is the best way to get you up in the morning

I've tried practically everything to help me wake up. I've put my phone across the room; I've used a setting that made me solve geometric puzzles before the alarm turned off; I snoozed incessantly.

In every case, I've found myself back in bed.

But then I found it, the one alarm app setting that was guaranteed to force me to start my day: scanning a QR code.

First, let me re-introduce you to the QR code.

You may remember QR codes (short for Quick Response) from 2011, when appmakers tried to make them popular. In essence, a QR code is a thing your phone's camera can scan in real life that triggers something on your phone. Scanning one, for example, can take you to a link or activate a download.

QR codes look like this:

QR codes never really caught on. It feels embarrassing to scan a QR code in public - I did so exactly once, to get a coupon from an advertisement at a train station. Holding my phone up and scanning a poster felt weird. In the past few years, they've declined in popularity.

But I found that some alarm clock apps have a setting that requires the scanning of a QR code to stop the alarm.

So here's what I did: I generated a QR code using one of the many free online QR code generators online, like QR Codify. Then I printed it out, taped it to my bathroom mirror, and adjusted the settings on my alarm app to cease only when that QR code is scanned.

That way, I need to walk to my bathroom to turn off my alarm. And if I'm already in the bathroom, why saunter back into my bed? I'm already up! As soon as my alarm is off, I start my morning routine.

The alarm clock app I use with the QR code setting is Sleep as Android. For iPhones, it looks like there's an app called QR Alarm that can do it. Here's how it works with Sleep as Android: