As I always mention, I love The Cut’s How I Get It Done series. It’s fascinating to see how highly successful people organize their day, especially when they have weird habits like Candace Bushnell not eating until 4 or Amy Sedaris preparing her house at 5 for bed but not falling asleep until 2 or 3. Their latest interview is with Hoda Kotb. She wakes up at the crack for her job on The Today Show and she’s out of the house by 4:15. I could do this, I love waking up at 5 and often wake at 4. She’s in bed by 7 and she’s trying to give up her phone but she ends up playing Candy Crush until she turns the lights out. I wonder if she falls asleep doing that.

She wakes up at 3am, writes a gratitude journal, and a car picks her up at 4:15
Don’t hit snooze. Don’t do it. You wanna do it, you think that ten more minutes is gonna be great. It’s never good. Once you hit snooze, your day is no bueno, because you’re already behind.

She goes to bed around 7
I put Haley down between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Joel will tell me a little bit about his day. I’ll give him a kiss. And I’m like, “Light’s out.” Joel’s like, “Wait, what?” I’m like, “Goodnight. It’s over.” Sometimes I play Candy Crush, to be honest. I do the Soda one, which I like. Sometimes I just do a little mindless that, and then it’s lights out.

I’m a cranky mess if I don’t sleep. I try to get the eight — I mean, you definitely don’t always get it, but I try.

On drinking wine at 10 a.m.
Just let it flow, baby. That’s my tip for drinking at 10 a.m.

Here she changes her story a little about her phone
After I order our dinner and put the music on in [Haley’s] room, I put the phone away. Unless it’s some kind of breaking news situation, I try to shut it down until the morning.

[From The Cut]

I agree with her about hitting the snooze button. You may as well get up, it’s not going to get any better. I used to play Candy Crush in bed and would fall asleep playing it. I had to uninstall it from my phone for this reason. It’s so addictive! I’m kind of confused about Hoda’s phone use though. She says she puts it down after a certain hour but then she also admits that she plays Candy Crush before she goes to sleep, presumably in bed. No shade she’s probably trying to give it up. Those damn games are designed to trigger the reward centers of our brains so we crave them. I was playing Bejeweled for a while trying to quit Candy Crush. It’s like an alcoholic switching to wine spritzers thinking that will solve it. I had to go cold turkey.

photos credit: WENN