### My Weird Sleep Schedule and How I Track It with Alexa

My sleep schedule is unbelievably strange. I typically go to bed sometime between 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. in the afternoon. When I wake up 3–5 hours later, I almost never remember exactly when I fell asleep, so I have no idea how long I actually slept.

To solve this, I created two simple Alexa routines that use a stopwatch to track my sleep duration automatically.

#### The Routines

1. “Going to Sleep”  

   - Trigger phrase: “Alexa, Going to Sleep”  

   - Action: Starts a stopwatch (using Alexa’s built-in stopwatch feature)  

2. “I am Awake”  

   - Trigger phrase: “Alexa, I am Awake”  

   - Actions:  

     - Stops the stopwatch  

     - Announces how long I slept (e.g., “You slept for 4 hours and 23 minutes”)  

Now every time I go to bed, I just say “Alexa, Going to Sleep,” and when I wake up, “Alexa, I am Awake.” It’s been a total game-changer for understanding my bizarre sleep patterns!

#### Want to set this up yourself?

Just open your Alexa App and follow the snapshots in the two carousels below (one for each)

Going to Sleep

I am Awake

### Why Create Two Separate Routines When One Command Seems Enough?

At this point, you might be wondering:  

“Why go through the trouble of creating two separate routines just to start and stop a stopwatch? Couldn’t I have simply said:  

‘Alexa, start a stopwatch’ and later ‘Alexa, stop the stopwatch’?”

The real power comes from the fact that **now you have two fully customizable routines** that you can expand with as many additional actions as you want.

#### Example: “I’m Going to Sleep” Routine

Trigger phrase: “Alexa, I’m going to sleep”  

This routine starts the stopwatch **and** can also:

- Turn off all the lights in the house

- Set the porch lights to blue (like I do at home)

It instantly signals to the household (or even neighbors) that it’s quiet time.

#### Example: “I’m Awake” Routine

Trigger phrase: “Alexa I’m awake”  

This routine stops the stopwatch **and** can also:

- Turn on your bedroom or kitchen lights

- Set the porch lights to green (letting everyone know you’re up and available)

- Read the daily weather forecast

- Brew your coffee, unlock the front door, or anything else you dream up

My neighbors quickly learned what the blue and green porch lights meant—especially helpful with my rather… unconventional sleeping schedule!

### The Possibilities Are Endless

Once the two core routines exist, you can keep piling on new actions whenever inspiration strikes:

- Play relaxing music when you go to sleep

- Announce “Good morning!” and read your calendar when you wake up

- Adjust the thermostat

- Send a notification to your phone

The initial stopwatch was just the seed. Now you’ve built a flexible foundation for dozens of personalized automations.

Go wild—add every action you can think of!

Examples