How Apple CEO Tim Cook spends the first two hours of his workday

“The trend of sharing how the world’s most successful people spend their mornings has swept across the internet, as eager readers hope to glean insight into how they, too, can seize the day,” Simone Stolzoff writes for Quartz. “Actor Mark Wahlberg wakes up at 2:30 am to pray. Comedian Melissa McCarthy wakes up at 4:30 am to watch reruns on TV. And Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up at ‘a little before 4 am’ to read user feedback on Apple products.”
“‘I like to take the first hour and go through user comments and things like this that sort of focus on the external people that are so important to us,’ Cook shared in a recent interview with Axios,” Stolzoff writes. “‘And then I go to the gym and work out for an hour because it keeps my stress at bay.'”
“Reading customer comments in the pre-dawn hours, followed by some stress-relieving exercise, isn’t the worst example to be setting for Apple’s employees,” Stolzoff writes. “But it isn’t the best, either. Though morning rituals can help workers start the day on the right footing, it’s sleep that’s the ultimate productivity hack.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This reminds us of something we wrote back in January 2015 in an open letter to Tim Cook:
We occasionally hear things about the company from Apple employees.
Some of those things lead us to wonder if perhaps you should rethink some aspects of the culture at Apple? Specifically, what really should constitute a badge of honor at Apple? Working all day, all weekend and all night in order to squat out iOS 8.0.1 and then have to turn around and do it all over again, in a panic, to get iOS 8.0.2 out the door in order to clean up the mess? Or taking the time necessary to do the job correctly the first time?
People with proper sleep and lower stress levels do better work. Many major medical studies prove these facts. Shouldn’t quality, not quantity, of hours worked be the utmost badge of honor at Apple?
Working long hours simply for the sake of working long hours is counterproductive. It really doesn’t prove anything except that you have no life and that, despite all of their work on Apple Watch, Apple executives still do not understand basic human health requirements and are incapable of properly staffing their departments so that they can function without requiring sleep-deprived, mistake-prone employees who feel that it’s a job requirement to be able to reply to emails from managers at 2:00 am. That’s idiocy.
Driving too hard, too fast, and for too long leads to accidents.
We speak from experience, albeit at a far, far smaller level than yours. We’ve tried and been exposed to several methods as both managers and employees in the television, financial, and online media industries. Regardless of the size of your department or company, people are people. You can push people to a point that’s very productive, but when you exceed that point, it’s all downhill for everyone involved. It’s not a badge of honor. It’s not an “I love this company!” statement. It’s simply mismanagement. It’s verifiably unhealthy and it leads directly to diminished quality, increased turnover, and productivity declines. And customer satisfaction ultimately suffers. Hence this letter.
SEE ALSO:
Apple employees voice frustration with work culture under Tim Cook – June 20, 2018
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015