Ask HN: What is your morning routine? What does your morning look like from the time you wake up to the time you get to work? How do you transition your mental mode from personal/family obligations to work? What do you do in the first 30 minutes of getting to work? |
That usually happens between 9am and 10.30am.
Lunch at 11.30am :-)
Once I'm in, I log onto here for a half hour, check reddit, and try to force myself to "feel motivated". I hop onto Lync, and the underlings tell me about drama from their mid 20s lives. I get jealous of them and all the experiences they could be having, but they're locked up in the same corporation I am. We do fake smiles and get lots of coffee. I do agile meetings and track my own progress in a little web app. Once per week, a chart is mailed based off metrics I self assigned, to my manager and the director.
By 11am I start to decide if I am going to write any code for that day. If I haven't started, I get overwhelmed. Lately I have panic attacks, but I have a new doctor who tells me to stop eating carbs and drinking coffee. I lie to her and tell her I am, and then get those items on the way back from the appointment as a reward.
Tell me I'm not as alone as that felt
I don't have to write my actual morning routine because you captured its essence perfectly.
The initial boost in energy and mild euphoria is not worth an evening full of anxiety and irritability for me personally.
Yes, that's my experience in the evening even if I have coffee at 8am.
Anyway just sharing in case anyone is struggling and looking for something to tweak.
But, at the docs the other day because I'm slightly depressed, and my blood tests come back with elevated liver enzymes so from Monday I'm back to walking in (only 2 miles / 30 mins) that will also block my mcd's addiction. Hopefully.
06:05 - got out of bed
06:10 - dragged a comb across my head
06:15 - Found my way downstairs
06:20 - drank a cup
06:30 - looking up, I noticed I was late
06:32 - found my coat, and grabbed my hat
06:33 - made the bus in seconds flat
...
16:30 - Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
16:50 - Somebody spoke and I went into a dream
'Cause it takes me sho long Just to figure out what I'm gonna wear Blame it on the train But the boss is already there
PS, I read the news today, oh boy.
06:05 - Coffee. Check email/slack/rollbar/etc for anything urgent.
06:15 - Local news for weather/traffic, HN and national/world news check.
06:30 - Shave, shower
06:55 - Eat breakfast with my wife.
07:10 - We leave for work and I drop my wife off at her office.
I listen to my daily podcasts in the car. My drive to the local office is 15 minutes so on those days I finish my podcasts at my desk. The head office is 1 hour away, so I can finish them all on the drive.
I try to finish all communication tasks and all error/task/planning triage at the start of the day. The rest of the day is for coding and whatever meetings I have to attend. I try to break my coding into 1-1.5 hour chunks so that meetings don't hurt my flow as much. My calendar is pretty free since we are a small team and try to respect each other's time.
Lunch time (other than time spent eating) is spent either in meetings or in meditation/on a walk.
Back home at 5:30 after picking my wife up and we fix and eat dinner together. We'll both do some work in the evenings if we need to, but not every night. Usually just enough to finish off what was in progress at the end of the day.
We are in bed by 9:00, reading until lights out at 10.
For me the set schedule helps me transition my mental mode between work and family times. And since we usually commute together, my wife and I are on the same schedule. It helps keep us from being in 2 different modes at the same time.
- Take my dog out, hit the restroom, have breakfast
- Train on my bike for 1-1.5 hours
- Try real hard to catch my bus at 735. I usually miss nowadays, So I hitch a ride with my wife at 845 to the bus stop.
- reach by 915 or so. Coffee and coding. I try to get some coding done in one block in the morning and one more in evening.
- lunch at 1130 - HN at this time, and when am waiting for meetings etc.
- ride back home by 630 or so. I reach by 730 or so.
- couple of hours with the fam
RE transition: I have tried many 'methods' and clocks etc. but nothing beats intrinsic motivation: I try to work towards that. (Having goals that matter, finding real work that I love etc). I ride and train hard on my bike because I want to. I work because I want to. There are days / weeks when I get into a slump when there is lower productivity, but C'est la vie. Trying hard to be productive is usually a drain / anxiety inducing thing for me anyway - so I have just come to accept the cycles in my life :)
That is by far the largest thing keeping me from the "early to bed, early to rise" lifestyle. I like going out with people, or generally engaging with others at night.
07:10 - iPhone alarm goes off
07:12 - Bedside alarm goes off to make sure I actually got up
07:14 - Shave, long, hot shower
07:40 - Leave for work (either walk to the train station or drive), eat a Banana on the way
08:15 - Arrive at work, make a coffee and fill water bottle
08:20 - Team lead of a small ops / systems engineers, some management style work, lots of puppet coding, keeping an eye on monitoring and tickets, assist my team and developers with any peer review / issues / discussions
10:00 - Sometimes get a morning snack / coffee
12:00 - Lunch, avoid carbs and try to stick to high protein, low sugar foods when possible.
12:15 - Back to work any time between 12:15 and 13:00
Any time between 15:00 and 18:00 - leave work
Any time between 17:00 and 20:30 - Order dinner from UberEats, maybe have a wine or two
Most evenings - Catch up on comedy shows, read books
Some evenings - Perform out of hours scheduled work or finish things I was on a roll with remotely from home, go to gigs, catch up with friends over dinner etc...
In other words, filling my head with too much different data and information. That was exhausting me and 99% of the time, it was not worth it.
I believe it is important for me to start the day by focusing on one thing, whatever it is, whether it's a project, a dream or learning new things. Usually, I take advantage of this time to read great books to reflect upon.
I wake up roughly 10 minutes before start-time at work. I roll out of bed, put on some clothes, and use the bathroom before I stagger out to the living room.
Out there I pour myself a drink and typically move my laptop to my recliner instead of my desk. I find it warmer and far more comfortable in the mornings.
My first 30 minutes at work varies based on things like whether or not anyone has requested something from me (we work from a few time zones), how defined my current task is, and what state I left things in the night before. I usually start in on a development task within a few minutes.
I wake up at 5:30 and I meditate for 5-10 minutes. After that I eat, I check the Slack to see if I have any important request from the team during the day (we are in three different timezones, Spain, Japan, SF). I prioritize and add to the calendar my day tasks (if I have to do a task, it means that is important and it has to be schedule in a proper time to put focus on it).
After that I do sport from 7 to 8. Sometimes I go to the gym for some cardio exercise and another times just for a 30-45min run.
I arrive to the office at 08:15.
I work for one of the FANG. Workload is 60 hrs per week.
8:30 am- get up and get ready
9-30 am- start for office
10 am- in office
12-15 pm- lunch. No eating at desk
1-15 pm- tea
5-30 pm - leave office
6- 7-30 pm- go to a coffee shop and see any girl is worth talking.lol. I am single.
8 pm - Gym
9-30 - Dinner
9-30 pm to 11 pm - again work
11 pm - midnight - reddit/hn
Midnight - 2 am - Can't sleep.
Looks like I am forever single and no women likes me.
That's life.
Then, focus on having fun, interesting hobbies and going out and meeting people. Build an interesting life first and it will be easier to find someone to share it with.
Once I've showered, I usually get the kids to school then either head back to the home office or head to work.
My morning is infested with quick email/slack replies to urgent issues on my iPhone to answer questions, coordinate and get meetings setup for when my day actually starts.
I block out my calendar from 7-8AM and only accept the most urgent calls/meetings begrudgingly.
I can often join a meeting in co-pilot mode (someone else is driving and just needs my inputs) while on my commute.
All of this is powered by wrapup activity the night before (30m @ 9 or 10PM) so I've set expectations for the next day - if that doesn't happen, I'm a bit more stressed in the morning.
4:45 - alarm goes off, start getting ready
5:05 - go down to garage and prep bike
5:10 - meet those that I am riding with
5:15 to 7.15 - Ride and then coffee(s)
7:30 get home and shower and take already prepared bag
8:00 take train to work
===
On the days where I do not ride it is essentially the same but replaced with gym.
Cycling changed my life; would not be the person I am today without it.
No time for breakfast, throw intra and post-workout shakes into the bag and head to the gym with SO.
After training, we may sit down to eat something in a bakery depending on the time.
Go to work. Upon arriving fetch some decaff and prepare that stupid daily meeting. Middle manager crack.
Lunch break. Walk in the park for one hour while drinking a litre of milk, phoning relatives and listening to podcasts.
I get paid for browsing HN.
After work it's all me and SO time. We love cooking elaborated dinners and gossiping about our colleagues.
Videogames and technical books are the only computer related things I still do. I despise them so much I had to buy a PlayStation for gaming as touching a keyboard makes me anxious.
GitHub is your resume now.
- Then I pull out my phone and check out my emails + news. It's usually 7am so the west coast is still sleeping.
- Then the food routine kicks off. Shower, breakfast, water, coffee then more water.
- Check out my emails again, it's about 8:30am. Now the day really starts.
-Alarm goes off at 5:35. Depending on how sleepy I am I may lay in bed for 1-10 minutes, usually petting the cat.
-Put on clothes in dark.
-Get out of bed, fill up a large jar of water and sit in living room. One pillow behind back, one pillow on lap, laptop on lap pillow.
-Put computer on airplane mode, open word doc of current novel manuscript.
-Write at least 500 words in manuscript (generally finish by 6:15).
-Get back in bed until partner's alarm goes off at 6:35.
-Get up, put on hot water. Eat cereal and read Harper's.
-Off to work at 7am.
-Spend first 30-45 minutes at work reading HN, ArsTechnica.
06:30-06:45 - Alarm goes off + max 1 snooze. After that I prepare a cup of tea and sometimes a breakfast
06:45-07:45 - I look into my personal projects and todo list, try to sort out as much stuff as possible.
06:45-08:00 - Prepare for work and take a shower
08:00-08:15 - Leave home
Shower and think about the work days problems.
Drive to work, picking breakfast up on way. In the summer, I bike to work a few days a week.
Work on mentally challenging stuff and try to ignore email until lunch.
Eat lunch in my office (takeout) or go out to lunch with a friend.
After lunch, read email, write clients back, sometimes take a nap.
Then work until dinner time and go home.
(I'm a software developer, consultant/contractor.)
I usually fizzle out by 3pm, so I like to tackle my most complex tasks before then!
Sometimes I'm impatiently waiting for the sun to rise so I can get up.
Been doing a quick 5 minute meditation, then go to brush my teeth. If I'm lazy, I might browse online on my smartphone.
Eat breakfast at 8, send my daughter to nursery if needed, and then head to work by 9 AM.
Now up at 5:30am gym, home, job search, read and write.
- Grab my bag (prepared the night before) and cycle to the gym for 630
- Gym 630 -> 730
- Cycle to work for 815
- Drink loads of water and eat breakfast
- Shower and get to my desk for 9
- Work, read, and tick off things on my todo list until my colleagues arrive (anytime until 10am)
I find if I skip the gym I can be in a terrible mood. Seems like I don't even consider riding my bike exercise anymore, just transport!
Always in bed by 10-11pm.
EDIT: Formatting.
Dragged a comb across my head.
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup.
And looking up I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat.
Made the bus in seconds flat.
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke.
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.
That said, it's nice not relying on coffee everyday for a boost, though there are at least a couple days a week where I could really use it, esp after a night of unpleasant sleep.
I guess I expected it to show up in the final step, like Chekhov's Gun.
It's not that we don't do these things after 30 or even 40, it's how we do them (hint: more means, wiser/less stupid about it 'cause been there, done that).
Now there's a historic truth to the cliche, but let's not pretend this is 1960 still, not even 1990. As we near the 2020's, socially everybody may work (M+F), everybody may change diapers, everybody may get drunk/high even after 40. It's not frowned upon anymore to just live, so what do you know, people just go on about living their lives, whether in their twenties, thirties, eighties... "Living" includes drama, it's just the nature of it, and there's this kid inside all of us --but as you age you're just so much better at handling said drama, and turn it into no less memorable but much more comfortable stories.
Most incredible nights of my life? Twenties for sure, even late teens. But best nights? On average it's not even funny to compare: at 34 it's so much easier to feel good with oneself and with the world. Which makes me actually much more daring personally, with work (and outside-the-box thinking), with relationships (and quirks), with my very own self.
Just to widen the perspective beyond my own anecdotal experience, I wonder: why this change between 20th century and 21st century societies? You see, when you read people from some 2,000 years ago, you quickly realize that they shared the same thoughts, the same feelings, the same life stories. Funny people back then would probably be funny today, and you could hear Romans complaining about foreigners taking their jobs and changing their culture... The human being part of the equation didn't change.
What changed is organization, and that's a long talk but essentially I feel that as we gained freedom on an individual basis, we need less "general principles" to guide otherwise clueless peoples --and this is currently still changing fast as even the perimeter/mission of the state and governments is very much in question, from corporate/money influence over citizenry, to wiki and other leaks, passing by individual rights. On the other hand, we begin to observe what the human race really is like, how it behaves, when given the freedom to set its own way (at least in the western part of the world, but surely these days "social progress" is happening everywhere regardless of political/economic freedom).
It's 11:30 and I am now going to resume work after this early morning coffee. :}
And I don't mean I didn't do any of the things I mentioned, hell, in just a couple of years of my 30s I've met and befriended more people than in my entire 20s due to an effort I made to go to meetups and become more comfortable in my own skin, and I was going through a phase where I was attending as many performances by stand-up comedians as I could, and I even went to a couple of EDM concerts that didn't even get started until midnight...but there wasn't really any drama.
Most shit that a lot of these guys talked about in the studio that they encountered, that seemed like such a BIG DEAL to them OH MY GOD CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT? A lot of posturing and acting like you're great because you talk about all this crazy shit that happened to you this week.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this stuff can happen to people at any age, it's just that once you hit your 30s it seems less important. You've seen a lot of it before, you're trying less hard to impress everyone, and you're not going to things just to say you went to them (usually).
So you're not as tuned into it, you probably go to less of these things naturally (because you're only doing it if you enjoy it, not so you can have a story to tell), and possibly you have something else in your life that you care about saving up money for instead (like possibly retirement, maybe a much larger trip, maybe starting your own business, maybe finally paying down some of that debt you accumulated throughout your 20s, trying to figure out how the hell you're going to afford a wedding and a honeymoon, how you're going to pay your child's medical bills, etc).
And yeah, 2000 years ago a lot of people had the same thoughts as today, not denying that, I've seen it myself, and I wish more people realized we're not actually all that unique and exceptional in history after all, besides some of the cool toys we get to play with.
I very much agree with you and see what you mean, went through some of these things myself (the post-30 part). Most vividly I came back to university as a student in my late 20s/early 30s (here in France most students are 18-25, and I was with the 18-20 in class). I know what you mean about the posturing and everything. But that's the beauty of age, I could just hang with the 'normal' ones according to my perception, and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the others. Made some very good friends regardless of the decade gap.
Currently at 34 in my phase "starting my own business", reigniting a dream I've sorta had since I was 12.
Totally agree with your last sentence. In fact I find that the best entrepreunarial wisdom/advice may come from the first century AD, or from 1903, 1937, 2016... Because the toys changed (tools, really), but the function (organizing some process involving value for human beings) is ever the same. On a personal level it's equally true, I am personally an adept of Stoicism, which isn't exactly new, yet incredibly suited to our present time imvho.