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Morning routines and getting ready for the day
Users of Tildes, what are your morning routines like? What do you do when you first open your eyes and get out of bed? What things do you think are beneficial and help you start your day? What improvements do you think you could make?
I initially tried to find an existing thread, but my Google Fu was not up to the task. My apologies if this has been asked before.
For me, my usual morning goes like this:
- Get woken up before the alarm by my dog
- Take her out while doing the daily Wordle
- Feed my dog while drinking my morning coffee and reading a chapter from one of the books I’m currently reading
- Get dressed and tidied up
- (If it’s a work day) I prep my things/lunch
- (if it’s the weekend) I’ll typically read a couple more chapters or go directly to the next step
- I’ll catch up on news/Tildes/Instagram
- And then I continue my day (either by going to work or planning out what needs done around the house)
I think the only improvements I could really think of is possibly adding a block of 10-15 minutes to journal. I think a bit of self reflection would be beneficial. I usually do some journaling in the evening, but having both my pre and post day thoughts catalogued could be beneficial.
What about you guys? What do your mornings look like?
Workdays:
-Coffee and hotpocket while reading tildes, lemmy, Hnews, or my rss feed.
-Second cup of coffee while I head upstairs to get dressed
-teeth, hair, out the door.
Weekend:
-sweatpants unless my wife wants to go somewhere.
More recently:
1 month old newborn (who meets the criteria for colic) at home and time is an illusion. I am occasionally stirred back to consciousness by an alarm or reminder I don't remember setting so that I can complete a task I don't feel like doing. Still pretty awesome having a kid though.
Yeah, I’ve heard from many friends and family that the first few months are pretty draining with a newborn, haha. Hoping things calm down over the coming months! Being sleep deprived is never fun.
Regarding your RSS feeds, what do you personally have setup? I’ve contemplated multiple times setting one up for myself, but have found that I only really check 2-3 sites (outside of Tildes), and one of them doesn’t even have a public RSS feed to pull.
I use the feeder app.
I subscribe to a couple of blogs that personally interest me (like the blog section under Marginalia.nu)
But a good place to start with RSS feeds is here.
https://www.youneedfeeds.com/starter-packs
This way you can subscribe to multiple feeds based on category. For example, if you like science you can grab the science download pack and add it to your feed. Then you'll instantly have 10 or so science-related sources for your feed.
It's a good start. I found some websites post way too often, too much garbage, so I just added all of them and then deleted the ones I wasn't finding valuable.
Does tildes have a rss feed?
Here you go: https://tildes.net/topics.rss
Right now I wake up, shower, and drag myself into work. Pre-covid I went to the gym every morning and, looking back, I felt so much better when I did that. I really need to get myself back into a regular workout routine every weekday morning.
No kids and I live close to my workplace, so I have it pretty easy. I pack my lunch and lay out clothes for the next day the night before. In the morning, my first alarm goes off at 7:15am and I usually lay in bed groggy or mess around on my phone until my 'time to get up' alarm at 7:45am. First thing I do is make myself drink a big glass of water. Then I shower, dress, tame my hair, grab my bag and go by 8:45am (although I try to leave earlier in the winter to defrost the car). When I get to work I check email/open mail first thing, then make a pot of coffee for the office and enjoy a cup at my desk. With seasonal changes this time of year I find myself struggling to get out of bed before 8am, but Daylight savings in a couple weeks should help.
Weekends I sleep in until 9ish unless I have plans. Once I'm up, I like to make an espresso and curl up in my chair so I can just stare out the window while I wake up. When I visit my folks I like to sit outside on their porch instead. Coffee on the porch is one of the best little pleasures in life
Mine is less structured.
I feel like you yada yada yadad this step...
Which step? I assume you mean the breakfast step but that isn't really the case. I make ahead and freeze all kinds of breakfast foods (and other meals) so it is literally just turning on the oven and putting stuff in.
Sorry yes, the oven step, was curious how you made the entire breakfast in the oven, sounds useful.
Improvements would be getting up earlier. But I do a lot better on the high end of sleep 8-9 hours, 10 when I can get it. But that's difficult because I'm a night owl, so I force myself to go to bed between 9-10. I usually get home about 6 so that leaves 3-4 hours to take care of responsibilities before I have to be in bed in order to get up and repeat.
My weekday looks like this:
It's pretty standard. Weekends are a bit different:
Saturday: sleep in, often until 10:30 or 11. Wake up, coffee, lunch, chores.
Sunday: up when 9yo wakes up (usually 7:30), coffee, then cartoons or some multiplayer computer game like Satisfactory for an hour or so.
I'm waiting for the day when I can do this with my kids :)
It is great! My kids are also generally up for board games, or for karaoke, or any other number of fun activities. It's also leads to heart-melting interactions like the other day my son was telling me about how he made friends over the last year since we've moved, and talking about all these kids in the neighbourhood, and then he hit me, "but I'm lucky because my best friend moved at the same time!" I asked him who he meant (thinking it was his big sister), and he said, "dad it's you, of course!"
What an absolutely beautiful moment with your son! That’s just so special.
Thank you, I'm going to remember it forever as a high point in life. He is a very dear little man and we enjoy each other's company a lot, and when he says something like this I feel like I'm doin ok at this fatherhood business. We also had a sweet moment today; my sister got married this afternoon, and during my speech, he wanted to come too the podium with me and just hold my hand and support me. No matter what else I'm doing okay as long as he is with me.
Awwww.. that's so sweet!!
He is a sweet and thoughtful little dude. I'm a lucky guy to have such good kids; his sisters are also good people, as is my wife, so I remember every day to be thankful.
Since I WFH, I usually wake up anywhere from 7:00a-8:45a. I can literally roll out of bed to my computer. I don't really have a set start time, but I try to be online by 9:00am.
My alarms on my phone usually wake me up. And I typically have two phones (one is my old phone) alarming at the same time, probably for the last 30-45min. Just snoozing through most of them.
I usually check my phone first thing through half-awake eyes; mainly for news alerts. I'll scroll my NYT or WaPo apps for a few minutes, before getting up to have a pee. I'll usually have the first hit of my vape around here.
I don't always shower daily, often opting for every other day, but it's usually around this point. Sometimes I'll have the shower running for like 15-30min (thankfully water is flat-rate where I live) as I just sit around trying to wake up, reading news or playing Spelling Bee or Connections or the Mini Crossword in the NYT app.
I don't like working in PJs or house clothes, so I'll often get dressed for work. Nothing crazy: polo or casual untucked button up, with shorts or jeans depending on the weather. Only on Fridays will I typically wear a T-Shirt. "Casual Friday" after all, ha.
Afterwards, I'll start the coffee maker. Depending on when I wake up, it's typically between 8:30a-9:00a about now. It's around here when I'll open up email, Teams, and other work stuff for the day. And then get a cup of coffee. The first.
You'll notice that I haven't brushed my teeth yet. It's usually after my first coffee that I'll brush my teeth. And to really disgust people, sometimes I'll just kinda forget until the evening or even next day. If I leave my place, I will absolutely brush my teeth before hand. But if I don't have plans to leave? Ehh...
I definitely need to do better on the oral hygiene side of things. Also, I should really go to sleep at a set time, or at least wake up at a set time, instead of this nearly 2hr window that I have.
Work from home days:
Office days:
Weekend:
I didn't forget to mention breakfast, I just never have it when working, my first meal is lunch. I don't even turn the light on for the entire procedure, even in winter. I know blindly where everything is, and the light from the street lamps outside are more than enough. I also didn't forget showering or shaving, as I do both in the evenings (except something or someone important shows up of course). At the weekend I usually get up at 7 or 8 latest, it depends more on how long the bird team stays silent, they usually greet the new day happily. My procedure might seem pretty rushed for you. But as I start working at 6, I fight for every minute of sleep, so my procedure is long developed to waste as little time as possible. And somehow I never got into the habit of wearing seperate clothes outside and inside, I'm much too lazy for this. I don't have any "comfy" clothes or so.
5.30-6am I wake up naturally after years of being woken at that time by my husband going to work or children waking. They tend to get up 6-6.30 now they’re a bit older (6 and 4) but my body is set in the old routine
Make breakfast whenever the kids get up. I only have coffee in the morning.
7am start homework (reading and spelling). I only barely have to supervise this so I’ll catch up on my phone stuff - tildes, news, WhatsApp chats etc
8am get dressed. If both kids are in school/daycare I put on my running stuff as I’ll go right after drop off.
8.30am leave the house for the walk to school (15mins). Go for a run immediately (6-11km currently depending on day)
9.30-10am arrive home.
On fridays I head to the school to teach ethics to 10 6-7 year olds as a volunteer. It’s a nice way to give back to the school.
On weekends the kids are allowed to get up and watch tv as long as the lamp is on - we have it on a timer so they don’t get up and watch tv too early. Often they’ll make themselves cereal too so we get “a lie in” - in reality I might get up at 6.30 rather than 5.30 so it’s not much. I don’t love lying in bed doing nothing
I've been funemployed for 3 months. Right now my routine looks like:
8:30 - 9:30 (T): Wake up and poke around at my YouTube subscription feed.
T+10 minutes: Get up and make coffee (I do a pour over using some tasty coffee I buy at a local roaster, natural processed beans, medium roast)
T+15 minutes: Watch the more interesting YouTube videos in my feed on my TV while drinking coffee
T+45 minutes: Brush the ol' teeth. Walk somewhere to buy a pastry
T+90 minutes: Return home and take a shower
Most of the "routine" is about getting the kids up and ready for school, but it is surprisingly pretty much the same thing everyday.
My own personal routine is making a cup of coffee with my Aeropress every morning. I get 500g of freshly roasted beans every month which adds up to pretty much a cup a day with room for two in the weekends.
Fridays and Saturdays I will (if possible) read the paper newspaper I get delivered.
Wake up between 5:05 and 5:30.
I remind myself of what day of the week it is, consider how close it is to the next non-working day, and vaguely consider the amount of work I have to do. This happens within about 3 seconds after waking up.
Make a pot of pour over coffee
Do 15 minutes of exercise
Work on my iPad for 15-30 minutes until wife and kid are awake. Getting my kid out of bed is fun because she’s small and the whole experience is very cute.
We all get breakfast ready and eat it while getting ready to go out the door. These days I have started to eat oatmeal with a can of fish in it or some fruit. The former is better than you would think.
6:50 I shave and take a shower while my wife gets the garbage ready to go out.
7:05 I bring the garbage to the curb on my way to the train.
7:50 Wife packs kid and stuff in car to drop her off at daycare and go to work.
During corona I’d wake up at like 7-7:30 and switch on the computer at about 8:30-9:00. It would be better for my family if I could work from home, but I don’t see how I can do it.
I work from home, so my routine is fairly simple. I wake up, take a shower, get dressed, log in to work to join the daily startup, have breakfast and coffee at my desk and start work. I can browse the internet during the workday when there's some down time (like now).
I don't have any kids yet (not until next year anyways) so I don't have as much going on, but I'll throw in my routine anyways since I've enjoyed how it's recently changed.
I wake up around 5:30am so I can get changed and go to the gym with a friend. I'm trying to get into shape, but the added benefit of running and lifting every morning is that by the time I get back home around 7am, I feel much more ready for my day. It's also a huge plus mentally for me. My wife leaves for work a little after I get back, so we get to enjoy a little bit of time together before she goes. I usually work from home, so I spend the next hour of my morning showering, getting dressed, and eating breakfast. I log into work around 8am. If I'm going into the office, it's about the same since I live about ten minutes from there. On the weekends I will naturally wake up around 7am or so, and I'll typically read a book until my wife wakes up.
Once she has our kid, I'm sure my routine will change, but for now, this is what I do every morning and I really like how it's been going!
I'm interested in hearing from folks with kids too, just to see if there's anything I can adjust. But right now, with having a 2 YO and 21 weeks pregnant, my routine is this -
Wake up to an alarm (usually 30 mins before kid wakes up), browse news for 15 mins, turn off sound machine to wake child up, get myself ready (shower, teeth etc), grab kid from his room and change clothes for him, feed him, and then he's picked up/dropped off for daycare. Then I make my coffee and if I have time, clean a little before starting work. It really helps that I wfh and husband/I alternate getting kid ready.
It'll be interesting when we have our 2nd child thrown into this routine.
I posted about my schedule with kids down below! My kids are a bit older though (17 / 12 / 9), it was quite a bit different when they were young.
I wake up at 8, spend about 30m scrolling through whatever on my phone. Get dressed, make breakfast (oatmeal) and coffee (iced mocha with double shot) and start work at 9. If I'm heading into the office that day, I usually leave around 10:00 or 10:30 to avoid traffic.
I used to work out in the morning, but my doctor actually recommended doing it later in the day. We have a gym at the office, so if I'm there I'll go after work. If I'm home then I'll work out at home.
Workdays:
05:45-ish - Wake up from the alarm. I use Sleep Cycle and it tries to pick a light sleep phase for the alarm in a 30min window.
Then bathroom things, get dressed, and I usually try to drink a big glass of water to help wake up
Feed the cats, clean the litter box, wash hands
Prepare food for the day, get my bag ready - water, other things.
Leave the house at 06:30ish, get to work by 07:00.
Normally there's time to drink a coffee and catch up on some of the reading before we get stuck into it.
Weekends:
No alarm, I tend to lay in bed until biological needs decide I need to get up... I try to skip breakfast on weekends, usually just have a coffee.
Workdays
Freedays
5:00 - Get up, put on some clothes, and walk
5:30 - Back home drinking water or black coffee with vitamin B, and then do my bathroom business
5:45 - Get on the computer check mail, subscriptions, etc. and allocate on calendar what to do with those
6:00 - Space out, play some games, or get some extra nap
7:00 - Off to work and with my day
(Yes, I skip breakfast)
I am absolutely not a morning person (I can stay up late indefinitely but I can't get up after I sleep), so everything from keys to phone to wallet is set out on the desk the night before.
On weekdays, I can then just get up, brush my teeth, get dressed, pick up everything off the table and leave for work on complete autopilot.
On weekends, there is no morning routine as I'm asleep until midday.