My idea is to have an alarm clock with a voice recording (dictaphone) feature. Recorded mesages would be all or part of the alarm sound which goes off to wake the user up. The message the user records before turning in would be reminders of what needs to be done upon waking up.

This would also work well with common features including alarm at soft volume at the beginning and increasing volume over time until the snooze button is hit. All of this would gently steer a person's thoughts toward what the new day requires during the transition from sleep to wakefulness. This would also improve punctuality for important obligations.

The whole idea was born out of my experience of having a hard time getting myself mentally awake first thing upon rising and sometimes forgetting what obligations I had set up.