I'm Paul Muldoon, a poet who over the past several years has had the good fortune to record

ours of conversations with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul McCartney.

The result is our new podcast, McCartney, A Life in lyrics.

Listen to McCartney, A Life in lyrics on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart radio.

Good morning.

This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is about what to do if you wake before you're alarmed.

This can be a great thing and it's nice to treat it like the found time that it is.

Many of us wake most days to an alarm clock of one sort or another.

We have to get up for work or to get kids off to school.

Even on weekends, there might be activities or worship services to attend.

We don't want to sleep through these things, or at least we decide it would be better if

we didn't sleep through these things, so we set an alarm.

But if you have good sleep habits, you might not wind up using the alarm.

The goal is to get enough sleep each night that you are not constantly working to erase

a debt.

This means getting to bed at a time each night that allows for your daily sleep requirement

before you need to wake up.

So, for instance, if you need seven and a half hours of sleep and you need to wake up

...