15 Morning Routines of Successful People

Tim Cook handed Apple’s chief executive job to John Ternus on September 1, 2026, and became executive chairman. In a letter to Apple’s community in April, he described the habit that had framed his 15 years as CEO: “I open my email and I read notes I received the day before from Apple’s users all over the world.”

This list first ran in 2016, promising 21 people and naming 20. We rechecked each routine against the person’s own words, in an interview, a letter or their own writing, dropped those we could not trace or chose to leave out, and updated titles. Fifteen remain.

How 15 successful people start the day

1. Tim Cook, executive chairman of Apple

Cook told Dua Lipa on her podcast, At Your Service, in 2023 that he gets up between four and five and spends the first hour on email, then an hour at the gym without checking his phone.

2. Anna Wintour, chief content officer of Condé Nast

“I’m a morning person,” Wintour, who is also global editorial director of Vogue, told The Guardian in 2019. “I get up every day between 4am and 5am, and I work out every day.”

3. Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank investor

O’Leary gets up at 5 and rides an exercise bike for an hour while watching international business news, he told CNBC, because overseas markets set “the trend, very often, for the North American markets.”

4. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Block and Twitter

“Up at 5, meditate for 30, 7-minute workout times 3, make coffee, check in,” Dorsey wrote in a Product Hunt Q&A in December 2015, as The Hustle reported. In 2020 he said meditation was the most important part of his mornings before the pandemic, followed by a five-mile walk to work, CNBC reported.

5. Kara Goldin, founder of Hint

“I wake up every morning at 5:30am on the dot,” Goldin told My Morning Routine in 2018. She checks email and her calendar, has a large latte, then hikes in Marin County with her dogs.

6. Brad Feld, co-founder of Foundry Group and Techstars

In 2007 Feld wrote that he tried to get up at 5 a.m. Monday to Thursday for coffee, email and news before a run at 7. By 2022 he was getting up around 6 and spending half an hour over coffee with his wife, Amy, before running, he told WhoAPI.

7. Gary Vaynerchuk, chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia

“I wake up at 6 a.m. Literally. Every day,” Vaynerchuk wrote in 2015. He reads the news on his phone, then Twitter and Instagram, works out with a trainer and is at his first meeting, often before 9.

8. Michelle Gass, president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co.

“I do some type of physical activity pretty much every morning,” Gass said in a company interview in 2023. “I have been a runner for about 25 years.”

9. Oprah Winfrey, founder of Harpo Productions

In a first-person 2018 piece for Harper’s Bazaar, Winfrey described waking a little after seven, meditating for 20 minutes in her breakfast chair, then working out for an hour.

10. Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States

“Most of my workouts have to come before my day starts,” Obama told Men’s Health in 2008, as the AP reported. “Usually I get in about 45 minutes, six days a week.” As president he said he usually woke around 7, The New York Times reported.

11. John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of Paul Mitchell and Patrón

“The very second I wake up, I stay in bed for about five minutes,” DeJoria told Business Insider, as the World Economic Forum republished it. He spends that time being present and grateful. He also has no email, he told Tim Ferriss in 2020.

12. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple

For 33 years, Jobs said in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, he looked in the mirror every morning and asked: “If today were the last day of my life, would I wanna do what I am about to do today?” If the answer was no for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something.

13. Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist

Asked on Quora how successful people spend the first hour of their day, Newmark answered: “Customer service,” Fast Company reported in 2012. He has since turned to philanthropy.

14. David Karp, founder of Tumblr

Karp told Inc. in 2011 that he avoided email until he reached the office between 9:30 and 10 a.m. “Reading e-mails at home never feels good or productive. If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.” He left Tumblr at the end of 2017.

15. Franz Kafka, writer

Kafka worked at an insurance office from 8 to 2 or 2:30, ate, slept until 7:30, exercised, walked and had dinner, then sat down to write at 10:30 or 11:30 p.m. and kept going until 1, 2 or 3 in the morning, he wrote to Felice Bauer in 1912, in a letter later published in English.

What the routines share

The wake-up times run from 4 a.m. to after 7, and Kafka did his real work after 10 p.m. What repeats is not the hour. Most move early in the day: Cook, O’Leary, Dorsey, Gass, Winfrey, Obama, Feld and Vaynerchuk exercise in the morning, and Wintour works out daily. Some keep the first part of the day for themselves; others, like Cook and Goldin, go straight to the inbox. And a few begin with reflection: Jobs questioned the day ahead in the mirror, and DeJoria spends five minutes in bed being present.

Should you get up at 5 a.m.?

Not because someone successful does. Whether you are a morning or evening person is partly inherited: a study of nearly 700,000 people found 351 regions of the genome linked to it, yet people carrying the most morning-linked variants sleep only about 25 minutes earlier than those carrying the fewest. It also shifts with age, running latest around age 20, according to a study of 25,000 people.

Forcing a late type onto an early schedule creates what researchers call social jetlag, linked to sleep debt and more smoking. The outcome studies are mixed and observational. Night owls showed somewhat higher heart risk in a 2026 UK Biobank study, which outside experts said was largely down to habits such as smoking and sleep, while evening types scored higher on cognitive tests in an Imperial College study. Richard Branson, a famous early riser, made the same point in July 2026: “you need to find a routine that works for you and your life,” he wrote.

The lesson to take is the content, not the clock: enough sleep at regular times that suit you, movement, and a first hour you control. Our list of business books and our review of marketing newsletters can fill that hour, and our guide to starting a startup without funding can fill the rest. Several people here built followings by sharing how they work. Turning a founder’s views into a recognizable voice is brand identity strategy, and publishing them is content marketing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What time do successful people wake up?

There is no single time. On this list, Tim Cook and Anna Wintour get up between 4 and 5 a.m., Kevin O’Leary and Jack Dorsey at 5, Kara Goldin at 5:30, Gary Vaynerchuk at 6 and Oprah Winfrey a little after 7; as president, Barack Obama usually woke around 7. Franz Kafka wrote from 10:30 or 11:30 p.m. until the early hours. The common thread is a consistent routine, not an early alarm.

Is waking up early better for success?

Not on its own. Research shows morning or evening preference is partly genetic and changes with age, and forcing an evening type onto an early schedule causes social jetlag and sleep debt. Studies linking chronotype to health or performance are observational and mixed. One study even found evening types scored higher on cognitive tests. Getting enough sleep at regular times that suit you matters more than the hour you wake.

What is a chronotype?

A chronotype is your body’s natural preference for when to sleep and be active. Morning types, or larks, feel alert early and tire early; evening types, or night owls, peak later. Most people fall in between. Chronotype is partly inherited, shifts later in the teenage years, and gets earlier again from around age 20. A rough guide to yours is when you wake without an alarm on a free day.

How do I build a morning routine?

Start from your own sleep. Pick a wake-up time you can keep on workdays and weekends, then add one habit at a time. Many routines on this list include at least one of three things: some movement, time before email or meetings that is your own, and a moment of reflection. Keep what helps after a few weeks and drop what does not.