I have a 30 minute drive every morning. I wake up approximately 33 minutes before my classes start. There is a whirlwind of activity consisting of getting dressed, teeth brushing, getting whatever shit I need together for the day, and finally grabbing something to eat before I fly out the door. Within about 3 minutes of my alarm clock killing my dreams I'm barreling down the road, still half asleep, to get to class on time. No hitting the snooze either. I also did this for 4 years with a job that had me starting at 6am every day. I know some people like to wake up even earlier and have their coffee or a real breakfast or whatever but that's not for me. FOCUS: What does your morning[or mourning for you eh holes?] routine consist of?
I think the eh-holes still spell it morning, but you never can tell. It takes me precisely 45 minutes to get ready between my foot hitting the ground and walking out the door in the morning. If I pick out clothes the night before I can shave 5 minutes off that time. If I hustle I can get it down to 25 but I will be grumpy and not-fully awake when I leave the house.
My ex gets up at 5:45am to be at work for 8am. It's only a 7-15 minute drive. In other news, he also pees sitting down.
This may not be a "morning ritual" per se, given the frequency with which I wake up after noon, but it's certainly a quirk: no matter what time of day I eat for the first time, I will make every effort to eat breakfast food. Even if it's like, 4 PM. For some reason, everything seems off if I start out with a hamburger.
While the time that I wake up is completely haphazard due to the inherently unstable schedule of a student, my ritual is very firm. Immediately I walk to the bathroom and run the water while I take a piss and check my email on my phone. Usually, by the time I'm done pissing, the water is warm and I have my shower; absolutely cannot leave the house without a shower. After the shower, gotta brush the teeth. I have a strange habit of reciting things I have to do that day while I brush m teeth. To anyone listening it probably would sound like I'm having a stroke but I feel it sets me up for the day. Getting dressed is a cinch since I wear a white or black t-shirt and jeans every day with optional zip-up hoodie on top. For breakfast I usually have some fruits, usually oranges or bananas or apples, or some combination which I stuff in my backpack before heading out. My commute is only like 7-8 mins so not much to do then. Get to the office, connect my laptop, and make a pot of coffee while going through my RSS feeds. Then continuing the RSS feeds and usually hitting up facebook as well while eating my fruit and having the coffee. The hardest thing is that for the past 4 years this routine included a cigarette while I was taking a piss and checking my e-mail, and another during the commute. Cutting that out has been extremely difficult so I've been keeping bananas around more often as they are something I can eat while driving and they keep my left hand occupied.
If an alarm is set and I have to be somewhere in the morning, I can get out of the door in 15-20 minutes, which I think is pretty speedy for a girl. I pee, brush my teeth, check my email, get dressed (I usually pick out my outfit the night before, either physically or mentally), put on makeup, pack my lunch and/or breakfast if I need it, and then I'm done. However, if I don't have anywhere to be (which is most days) my little "morning" routine takes about an hour and a half. I add eating and checking all the sites: email, Facebook, my Google reader and, yes, this place. It's nice. It feels like the new equivalent of reading the paper with your coffee.
Approximately 33 minutes? Really? How - odd. Not 35, or 30? How very Christian of you. Focus: I get up approximately 27.356 minutes before I would like to. On a typical morning I then pee; toss on some clothes; get the Missanthropic downstairs; feed the fish; feed the cat; make lunch for me, the Missanthropic and Mrsanthropic; make breakfast for the Missanthropic; tend to my morning toilet (shit, shower, and shave), dress for work, bring in the newspaper, then hit the road. I'd like to thank the TiB for the inspiration to add the morning beer occasionally to break the monotony.
Unless I have an appointment or an especially busy day, I wake up when I want to. Usually go back to bed for fifteen minutes to two hours, depending on how useless I'm feeling. Wake up, scratch my balls, say good morning to my girlfriends cat who's usually sleeping on the pillow next to me. I always laugh when he meows and stretches, then goes back to sleep because man, that guy has the right idea. Crazy ass cat. Then I go take a piss, change the dressing from my butt surgery, and go make the bed. The cat won't move, and for about thirty seconds I lament the fact that I'm a dog person without a dog, but then I get over it. What are you going to do? Whaaaat are you going to do. He follows me into the kitchen where I usually open the fridge, look at the embarrassment of riches that lay within, close it, lean against the counter, open a cabinet, then the fridge, close it, open it, pour a glass of milk, then go to the couch and turn on the TV. Since I don't wake up at a set time, I don't have something specific to watch. It's usually CNN, Sportscenter, The Dan Patrick Show, or whatever is on Food Network (Unless it's Down Home With The Neeleys, I always feel like I'm watching their foreplay). Once I finish my cow juice, I'll go take a dump and shower, all the while trying to figure out what to do with myself for the day. Usually I just end up napping or grocery shopping or going to the driving range. Then my girlfriend comes home from work (she's a doctor, usually finishes her day around the time I'm beginning mine) and we go do something fun, or lay around in our underwear. It's a sweet life, enjoying it while it lasts.
I set two alarms for 1 hour before my morning class. If I have a class from 11-onward, then I don't bother setting an alarm. Even if I go to bed at 3am I'll be up by 8:30. Breakfast food is a sometimes. Hot tea and showers are a must. I feel oily if I exit my room without standing under a nozzle for a minimum of 10 minutes. On days that I am cramming for exams, I'll usually go to bed around 11:30 and then set an alarm for 2 or 3am. Then I study until 6am, get breakfast, take a 30 minute-1 hour nap, take a shower, and head to class. I am not a morning person and tend to be very grumpy and unapproachable. I also do not get enough sleep. Weekends are my catch up days for that. Strangely enough, I get very twitchy and energetic during the day after sleeping for only a few hours, kind of like I drank a red bull. I have to be careful about napping, because as much as I want to crash around 3 or 4pm, if I do, I'll sleep until 11. And then I'm fucked.
God. Im one of those idiots needs at least 2 and a half hours from time of waking up until I need to be at a given destination. I take long ass showers, mostly because it takes a while for my add mind to boot up. Then I cook myself breakfast while watching the morning news or listening to a podcast and drinking my coffee. I was never able to jump out of bed 15 minutes before class and not be totally groggy and useless the entire time. It's shitty. But it's not as bad as my brother who is one of those people that sets his alarm clock hours and hours beforehand and just hits snooze repeatedly until he needs to get up.
It's currently 4:46 AM. I have been awake for about 46 minutes. This is pretty standard. I get more like my father with every grey whisker. At 5:45 the children will start to complain their way down the stairs. I make breakfast and lunch for the three of them, breakfast and lunch for Mrs. Noland, and then Mrs. Noland finishes doing whatever it is women do in the bathroom in the morning (I am not listening to Jeffrey) and comes to referee the circus. Then I spend 15 minutes to shower and shave and get dressed and all of us are out the door by 7:00.
I generally work nights these days, as I'm writing code. From home. So my morning routine consists of going to bed. Lately it's been after watching the sun come up while sitting down on my dock, communing with the eagles and beavers and shit, while having a bowl of cereal or an herbal tea or something. When I do wake up (sans alarm clock), it's usually mid to late afternoon, and I generally fuck around the house or run errands or whatever else I need to do that's not work while it's still light out, and then eventually grab the laptop, find someplace to sit (office, or den with the fireplace, couch in front of the TV, or the dining room table, or the kitchen island, etc), and start working. I have no routine... I just go to sleep when I'm tired, wake up when I'm rested. I also find that I don't work until I feel like it, and I'm way, WAY more productive like that. Being in a creative headspace goes a long way to getting more shit done way faster. But I do get all the shit done that I need to in order to keep my partners and investors happy. You can all hate me now, it won't bug me a bit.
Current weekday morning routine for when I don't have my son: - Wake up whenever; - Grab dexies on the way to the study; - Check mail and sit still until body starts to loosen up/wake up; - Consider breakfast. Defer consideration due to fucked up appetite; - Consider going to work and mentally saying "fuck it" due to serious lack of motivation at the moment; - Sit at computer and research/fuck around; - Force down some breakfast; and - Somewhere post 10am I push myself into a show and go to the office. Weekday mornings when I do have my son are the same, but involve getting woken up early by him, getting him fed and ready and out the door, and then plonking myself down at the computer.
This is the incredibly honest morning ritual: I wake at dawn, around 6:45 ET. Occassionally I'll beat off before I get out of bed, it depends on what mood I'm in. But since the morning wood is already there, my work is already half done. So why not? I hop out of bed, and fart all the way to the bathroom. Usually I stand at the toilet, wobbling like a drunkard struggling to find his balance and empty my bladder. Then I brush my teeth and give myself a quick look of disgust/shame in the mirror and head into the kitchen. Next, I fix myself a hearty breakfast and cup of Newmans Own from my Keurig. I sniff the comforting aroma as I peer out my window and watch the fog calmly drift over the pond as the sun rises. I go back into my room and sit at the foot of my bed, staring at my toes and wishing my entire office into the cornfield so I don't have to go in that day. It hasn't worked (yet). Lastly, I throw on my business clothes, a little cologne for the ladies, and head back into the kitchen and realize I didn't prepare myself a lunch the night before and silently whimper. I accept my self-defeating habits, grab my laptop, and leave.
I wake up in the morning to the alarm clock at around 6:30 and wake my wife up. I then hit snooze once or twice, depending, usually getting out of bed at 6:40. From there it's to the bathroom for a morning piss and shower followed by taking the three allergy meds I use so we can own a cat. After that I drink a glass of water mixed with protein powder and get dressed. Then hopefully out the door by 7 or 7:10 with my wife driving me to work before she heads in to her office. I'll often nap in the car or listen to a podcast. Once at work I log in, set up my browsers for the day, and often grab a snack and soda from our cafeteria. Then I settle in to a day of doc review and internet browsing.
I wake up usually between 6 AM and 8 AM, if the GF isn't subbing or if she is and I wake up early enough we'll have sex. She'll go and take a shower while I either hop on the bike or pass out for a few more minutes. I'll shower while she makes breakfast, we eat, I get my backpack ready and head off to work. All in all my total awake before heading to work time is about an hour. Audio books for the car ride kick ass.
I moved in June and cut my commute in half. Prior to that I had to leave the house at 7:10am, now? Alarm goes off at 7, snooze once, wake up at 7:10 as a fuck you to my old life. Piss, shower, start the Keurig. At this point it's about 7:30. I then have to spend anywhere from 3 - 5 minutes dragging Soon-To-Be-Mrs. Sherwood out of bed and coaxing her into the shower. Then I get dressed, put her coffee on and make my cereal. So, now it's anywhere between 7:45 and 7:55. At this point, I park my ass in front of the TV, and leave whenever the mood strikes me, hopefully between 8 and 8:15. The moral of the story? I'd have a lot more time to watch Sportscenter if I didn't have to jump start a 25 year old every fucking morning.
Internal clock wakes me up between 6:00-6:15 every day, including weekends. I haven't set an alarm in nearly 3 years. Head to the bathroom, turn on the shower, pee, brush my teeth, shower, trim my beard every 3 days or so, get dressed. The Mrs. is up before I am, so my coffee is ready when I come out to the kitchen. I fix my first cup, light up a cigarette (that first one with coffee is the best one of the day) and go to the front page of the WSJ. By the time I'm finishing my first cup, Mother Nature tells me it's time for my first morning constitutional and I take the section from the local paper that has the NY Times crossword puzzle in it. Usually, on Mondays & Tuesdays I'll finish the puzzle before I finish the constitutional. At 7:00, wake up the kids. Back in the kitchen, I fix cup #2, start my second pot (it's a French Press and a pot makes 2 mugs), make and pack my breakfast and lunch, get my bag organized for the day and load it all into my truck. Enjoy cup #2 while either scanning the rest of the paper or finishing the puzzle. Fix my travel mug with another cup, yell at my youngest to get a move on, and by 7:30, we're out the door. I drop her off, and head to campus. Except Fridays. I'm off on Fridays, so I come back home, work on the cw puzzle a little more, and then take care of errands or do school work.
I wake up to an alarm. Press the snooze button once. Get up once THAT alarm goes off. Wash my face. Get dressed. Make my hair look less like a bird's nest. Search for my keys. Find them somewhere weird (This literally happens every morning. My keys are always somewhere weird.) Get in the car. Smoke a cigarette on the way to work. Get coffee when I get to work. Then I go about my day.
I hate alarm clocks. Use them only when absolutely necessary. I naturally wake between 5:30 & 6AM depending on if there's a dog in bed with me or not. He gets up to lay by the back doors and watch the deer and fox come by from their exciting nights out. Small glass of juice and some peanut butter on a banana to kick start the engine and by 6:30 I'm letting the dog in from outside and starting my workout. I usually check email from the previous afternoon as it often motivates me (through rage) to increase my lifts and reps. By 7:30 I'm heading out the door to hike or walk the dog. Arriving back at home by 9 unless I'm working from home. Then I'm traipsing through the woods until at least 10. Eat, shower, then clickity-clack through morning emails and phone messages by 11, or commute to work for an 11AM arrival. The two main parts of my job are concept & quotation. I can do neither well during normal work hours, preferring to get creative and focused at night. So during the day I mostly return phone calls, emails, have meetings with my sales staff about their projects and fight with production about when my fucking equipment will be finished. I can't imagine having a normal 9-5. It would kill me.