I used to be a girl with low self-control. I neither went to bed before 3 am nor got up before 11 am at college. I spent a lot of time playing online games or watching movies. Even after I started to work, I got to sleep at 2 o’clock sometimes.

Everything changed from a little habit: I forced myself to get up at 6 in the morning. It was hard at the beginning. But eventually, I became used to that.

I think I am a good person with good self-control now, at least better than most of the people I know. Even then, I will lose control sometimes. It’s needed to use some tools and methods.

The simplest and most common one is an alarm clock. I set the time to 5:30 am to prevent me from oversleeping and I never stay in bed since the bell rings.

I have been fond of the Tomato Working Method for several years. Sky gave me a simple Tomato Clock last year. I always use it when I study and work at home. As a developer, it’s important to have a rest on time after a period of working.

It would be really easy to lose control when immersed in a video game. There is a mild way to control that: just stop playing anymore. But I don’t want to do that because life needs moderate enjoyment. I can use Tomato Clock to control the time for playing. But the easiest way is to make use of the built-in app which is often used by parents to control the playing time of their children.

However, the more important tools are responsive but definite rules and plans. For example:

• Get up at 5:30 am and go to bed at 9:30 pm.
• Be concentrate when at the office and use the tomato time to work and rest.
• I can only read books at home after dinner in a workday.
• Exercise three times every week.
• I can play video games with my PSV for only two hours every week on Saturday.
• Saturday is the day for enjoying and resting.
• Sunday is the day for my side projects.

Those are my rules and daily plans above, which may be adjusted for some unexpected reasons. It would be better if your plans are responsive.

Even if you have set up your plans and found some tools to help with you, it’s quite easy for you to break the rules. You can always turn off the alarm clock and continue sleeping. The most important is still the control of yourself.

I read the book The Willpower Instinct last year. I used some of the methods it provides to keep concentrated and release pressure. A friend said that she had read this book too but she forgot what it said.

There are a lot of similar books and relative methods. Whether they would work is totally depended on you.