Sleep discipline

The biggest thing that has helped my sleep is reading every night before bed, no compromises. Even if it’s just for two minutes, or up to an hour. It helps my brain unwind and naturally drift towards sleep. Having a kindle has helped me with this too so I can have the lights pretty dim or even completely off while I read. I used to take melatonin every night, but now I’ve been able to stop doing that

I make bed time a thing that I want to do by having a strict routine that involves something I really like doing, and ends with falling asleep in bed.

First shower
Brush teeth
Get in bed
Nature documentaries (the thing I want to do)

I cannot watch the nature documentaries without doing all the tasks first, it is the rules, so I’m motivated to do the self care tasks so I can do the thing I want to do.

One thing that has helped me with (some) good-habit discipline is note taking/record keeping. Ex:

Monday: productive day (details if desired)
Sleep at 1 am
Tuesday: hard day (details) sleep at 11 pm
Wednesday: mid-range day sleep at 12 am

I like to color code it, or have a 1-10 scale of bad to good or something that I can glance at and take in quickly and notice patterns with. So if I have a lot of red (bad) days and they correspond to a lot of red (late) bedtimes, it helps me "connect" to those things in a way that's more meaningful to me. It helps because I have terrible emotional permanence (I feel like there's a better qualifier than "emotional" for this, but that's the easily-searchable phrase for "intellectually I remember that thing was a thing, but it's almost like it happened to someone else and has no bearing on current situation." No idea if this is the issue for you, but I figured it was worth mentioning because it's not a typical response to a question like this.

Also worth mentioning is: don't be too hard on yourself about good-habit-forming. Missed a few days of recording? That's ok, you're doing it now. Went to bed 10 minutes earlier than yesterday? Great! 10 minutes later? That's ok too, better than 20 minutes later, etc.

Figuring out exactly why you're struggling also helps. Are you dreading the next day? Enjoying activity too much? Too warm/cold/uncomfortable to sleep? You get the idea.

Do you have a strict wake-up time? If not, then it will always be a fight to go to bed at a consistent time.

What helped me more than any alarm clock (or combination of clocks) was putting bedroom lights on a timer to turn on 30 minutes before my alarm. With smart bulbs, you can have them gradually get brighter and simulate sunrise, which will naturally cause you to go into lighter stages of sleep and wake up.

Just make sure you continue this even on the weekends, and that you don't turn the lights off and go back to sleep; starting the day with less than a full charge is what will make getting to bed at your target time easier.

Once you're waking up at the same time consistently, it will be significantly easier to go to bed consistently.

A gamified sleep tracker might help. I'm currently struggling to fix my own sleep schedule because I am quasi-nocturnal and tend to fall asleep after 4 am. One thing that's currently helping me is using Pokémon Sleep because the day rolls over at 4 in that app, so I have incentive to start tracking sleep due to the game aspects...

And more importantly, my phone does not like me opening other apps while Pokémon Sleep runs. Switching to another app runs the risk of it crashing. And given my sleep schedule is currently right at the rollover point, I'd have to start a new session on the new day which is bad from the game perspective. So once I start sleep tracking, I try to avoid switching to other apps.

I don't know if all sleep trackers act like that, or if this behavior is unique to my phone. But at bare minimum, the game aspect does give me incentive to try to go to bed, so that might help you too.

I have some other tips that might help, but it depends. What exactly are you doing on your phone? Do you just compulsively check apps? If so, which apps and why? Or is it your brain refusing to shut up and your mind is too awake? Do you have a blue light filter on your phone?

Do you have a hang out and chill couch? One idea is you can use your phone there, but not in the bedroom. Bed is for sleep only and has no charger near it = need to plug in out of reach.

Perhaps not exactly what you’re looking for: hydroxizine and melatonin. The former makes you drowsy and the latter should help you stay asleep. Probably the easiest way to force yourself to go to sleep earlier. I personally don’t wake up groggy but your mileage may vary.

Just don't take the phone (or any computer) to the bedroom, ever. Define a strict time when you put it down in another room and stick to it. Use the bedroom for sleeping exclusively with the sprinkle of occasional sex or reading if that's your thing.

I wear a whoop tracker and it helped me with my sleep anxiety by illustrating how sleeping long doesn’t necessarily mean sleeping well. So I have some 5 hour nights after which I feel well rested (and have great HR, HRV and breathing stats) and I can have 9 hour nights after which I feel awful and have bad stats.

It made me a lot less anxious about getting enough hours, which makes me feel more relaxed about sleep and helps me sleep better.

Try this out for a few nights

1. set an alarm for 1hr before you want to sleep
2. eat a piece of cheese, wash your face, brush your teeth etc
3. a little box breathing is great here -- in through your nose for a four count, hold for seven, exhale through your mouth with a whooooosh for eight. do this a dozen times until you feel comfortable with it. I do this sitting up in bed, but you can lay down if that is more comfortable. focus on the breath more than the timing.
4. in bed, no screens at all. Lay flat with your arms at your sides:

• close eyes but look to your toes
• visualize yourself going somewhere you know well -- like the mall. follow your typical route into the space to an escalator
• in your mind, talk yourself through the steps to get there... 'park on the third floor, enter the mall, pass the photobooth...' -- truly boring stuff
• once at the escalator, count your way up from 1 - 20
• at the top, walk around to the escalator going down and go from 20 - 1

you can modify this and also use the second part to start yourself into a lucid dreaming state if you want to go down that path. I've done a version of this almost my entire life. I don't often do the second half, but the box breathing alone is typically enough to bring me to a state resembling death.