I probably shouldn't have been surprised to learn of the existence of the Motiwake Personal Development Alarm Clock (motiwake.com), which awakens you with stirring affirmations such as "I love and care for my body, and it cares for me", thereby combining two of the oldest principles of self-improvement - getting up early and peppy self-talk - in one handy yet curiously annoying package. (You can choose from 240 affirmations, enabling you to "truly mix and match your day with the best thoughts possible" in order to achieve your "goal's" - I can think of at least one goal the author of the instructions should work on.) The manufacturers claim these uplifting messages are far more powerful in the half-conscious state of waking. After a few days of use, I'm undecided, but my real worry concerns the cumulative effect of years spent being woken by Radio 4. Every day, in every way, am I turning into Sarah Montague?

There's a sliver of a legitimate point behind the Motiwake, though: how you spend the first moments of the morning really does seem to condition the rest of the day. "The first hour is the rudder of the day," wrote Henry Ward Beecher, the 19th-century American preacher; ever since, self-help authors have been echoing his insight. So, too, does Nicholson Baker, in his novella A Box Of Matches, set entirely in the silent early hours, before the world crowds in. "If the first thing you do is stump to the computer to check your email, blinking and plucking your proverbs, you're going to be in a hungry electronic funk all morning... If you read the paper first thing, you're going to be full of puns and grievances - put that off." Just make sure you do it eventually, please.

Children, of course, will tend to sabotage a morning routine, which is why so many writers in this field recommend absurdly early starts. "I've made it a habit to wake before most of the world, at about 4.30am, and just enjoy the quiet," writes the blogger behind Zenhabits.net, which makes me tired even reading it.

The deeper issue, though, isn't children or waking times; it's about how we prepare, or fail to prepare, to greet the daily influx of demands on our attention - whether from kids or emails, phone calls or mental to-do lists. The title of Julie Morgenstern's book Never Check Email In The Morning tends to provoke eye-rolling: what planet is she on? But her point isn't to shun your inbox until noon; it's that, by consciously choosing to do something else first, whether relaxing or productive, you put yourself in the driving seat, rather than let events drive you. "By the time I raise the electronic floodgate," writes Merlin Mann at 43folders.com, "I already feel on top of things ... it's your mailbox and you get to decide when and for how long it draws your attention."

By the way, if you can't bear affirmations, you can programme the Motiwake with your own messages. "Get up, loser!" - that sort of thing.

oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com