My Non-Existent Morning Routine (And How to Actually Get Your Life Together)
By Sienna — Spontaneous, playful, a little chaotic. Life's an adventure and I'm dragging you along. ·
Who Needs a 5:00 AM Wake-Up Call?
If I see one more TikTok of someone waking up at 4:30 AM to journal, ice-roll their face for twenty minutes, and drink a green smoothie that tastes like freshly mowed lawn, I might actually lose my mind. Look, I love ambition, but I also love my bed. Plus, working as a PA on reality sets means my 'morning' can happen at 6:00 AM or 2:00 PM depending on whether we’re filming a sunrise shoot in Malibu or a late-night drama in a warehouse in DTLA.
My life is chaotic by design. Gerald—my beat-up '09 Civic that currently has a check engine light for a personality trait—doesn't always start on the first try, and my schedule is basically a suggestion rather than a rule. But here’s the secret: you don’t need a rigid, military-grade morning routine to get your life together. You just need a few non-negotiables that keep you from spiraling when the rest of the world is going sideways.
The Anti-Routine: My Three Pillars
Since I moved to Silver Lake at 19 with nothing but a duffel bag and $800 to my name, I’ve had to learn how to be functional without being a robot. When you’re constantly bouncing between sets or driving across the 101, you have to be able to hit the ground running. My 'routine' is really just three small things I do, regardless of what time I crawl out from under the covers.
1. The 'No-Phone' Buffer
This is the hardest one, I know. We all want to check our emails or scroll through Instagram the second our eyes open. But if you start your day responding to a producer’s demand or comparing your life to someone else’s highlight reel, you’ve already lost the battle. I force myself to stay off my phone for the first fifteen minutes. I use that time to just… exist. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling, sometimes I blast a song that makes me feel like the main character, and sometimes I just talk to my cat. It’s your brain’s only chance to wake up on its own terms before the world starts screaming at you.
2. Hydration That Doesn’t Taste Like Sadness
I’m not a water-with-lemon-and-a-prayer kind of girl. I’m a 'chug a giant glass of water before I touch a drop of caffeine' kind of girl. It sounds basic, but when you're working 14-hour days on a production set, you’ll realize pretty quickly that dehydration is the enemy of good decision-making. Keep a glass by your bed. Drink it. Then—and only then—can you hunt for the coffee. If you’re feeling extra, throw in some electrolytes. My brother Cole swears by them, and honestly, he looks less like a zombie than I do most mornings, so he’s probably onto something.
3. The 'Ready-to-Roll' Setup
Because I’m usually rushing out the door to get to a location, I don’t have time to hunt for my keys or my favorite sunglasses. I treat my front entryway like a staging area for a mission. Keys go in the bowl. Bag is packed the night before. Shoes are by the door. It’s boring, I know, but it saves me from the 8:00 AM panic-sweat that ruins a perfectly good outfit. If you’re a natural chaotic like me, you need these little anchors to keep you from drifting into a total meltdown.
How to Design Your Own Chaos
People ask me how I stay productive when my life feels like a constant adventure. It’s not about doing the same thing every day; it’s about having a toolkit. If you’re struggling to build a morning rhythm, stop trying to copy someone else’s lifestyle. Maybe you don’t need to meditate. Maybe you just need to put on a podcast, make a quick coffee, and step outside for five minutes to get some actual sunlight on your face.
Find the three things that make you feel like you. Maybe it’s reading a page of a book, maybe it’s doing ten minutes of stretching, or maybe it’s just making your bed so you feel like you accomplished one thing before 9:00 AM. Whatever it is, keep it small. If it feels like a chore, you won’t do it. If it feels like a treat, it becomes a habit.
Embracing the Adventure
Listen, life is too short to spend your mornings stressed about not being productive enough. You’re allowed to have messy days. You’re allowed to sleep in. You’re allowed to wake up and realize you have no idea what the day holds—and then decide to make it a good one anyway. That’s the beauty of being twenty-something in a place like LA. Everything is a story waiting to happen, and you don’t need a perfectly curated morning to be the protagonist.
So, what’s your one ‘non-negotiable’ for the morning? The thing that makes you feel human no matter how much chaos is waiting for you in the inbox? Drop a comment and tell me—I’m dying to know if anyone else out there is just winging it like I am. Let’s chat, and maybe share some tips on how to survive the daily grind without losing our minds.