- I tried President Donald Trump's daily schedule for a week.
- Every morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m. for "executive time." I got to work at 11 a.m. and tried to watch four hours of cable news every day.
- Ultimately I discovered that the president's routine doesn't work for me.
I am exhausted. Still exhausted, I should say.
I've recently recovered from a week of trying President Donald Trump's daily routine.
Based on articles in Axios and in The New York Times, I pieced together Trump's schedule and did what I could to replicate it for five work days.
I don't know how he does it. Here's how it went:
The experiment
Trump reportedly rises at 5:30 a.m. and starts his day with "executive time." That includes watching cable news — either "Fox and Friends" or MSNBC's "Morning Joe" — as well as making phone calls and tweeting.
He doesn't typically "get to work" — i.e. take his first meeting of the day — until 11 a.m. After a full day of meetings and assorted other presidential responsibilities, he generally ends the workday at 6 p.m.
After dinner at 6:30, it's time for more TV. Trump reportedly watches at least four hours a day of cable news.
One of the most well-documented aspects of Trump's daily routine is that he only sleeps four to five hours a night. That means going to bed around midnight.
None of this sounded especially horrible. I didn't even have to follow his diet — Business Insider's Dennis Green already did that. Lots of successful people wake up early and I'm accustomed to having the TV on in the newsroom anyway. No big deal, right?
Um, right.
Waking up is hard enough
I've been experimenting with different morning routines for the past year or so, ever since I consulted a sleep doctor for a story. Sometimes I wake up at 6 a.m. and head to a yoga class; other times I wake up at 7 a.m. and start getting ready for work.
On the first day of the experiment, I woke up to a 5:30 alarm, dragged myself to the couch, opened my laptop, and found a YouTube channel with streaming cable news.
An hour later, I woke up again. Apparently I'd fallen asleep while watching the news — not very presidential, I know. I brewed a cup of black tea and made it through another few hours.
On the four mornings that followed, I managed to stay awake, provided I had some caffeine. (Trump's drink of choice is Diet Coke, but cracking open a can before dawn seemed vaguely nauseating.)
Executive time flew by
Starting my day at 5:30 a.m. and leaving for work around 10 a.m. meant I had over four hours of executive time. That's a lot of hours.
But every day they seemed to fly by. I watched Fox and Friends; I tweeted links to interesting articles I'd read; I prepared to-do lists for the workday ahead; on some days I made phone calls to sources. Then I'd look up and realize it was already 9:15 a.m.
One morning a friend asked what I'd learned watching the news — and I couldn't remember a single piece of information.
Maybe if I hadn't been multitasking, or maybe if I hadn't been so sleepy while watching, I would have absorbed more. As it was, I felt silly and frustrated about having wasted precious time I could have spent resting or devoting my full attention to work.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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