On Daily Routines, we profile successful leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, executives and athletes to explore the routines, schedules, habits and typical day in their life.
Actor and producer, Michael B. Jordan, known for his roles in The Wire, Creed, Black Panther and Fruitvale Station, spoke to Vanity Fair about his daily routine and a typical day in his life.
Transcript:
A lot of my days, for the most part, start in New York City. I hit the snooze button all the time. My body is a natural alarm clock. Whether I like it or not, I get up around 5am, but then I go back to sleep depending on what I have to do. It’s like a second sleep, it’s like the really, really good sleep. Always get out on the right foot. Right foot is the first thing that touches the ground.
Jump in the shower. Shower is like the kick starter for the day. I meditate a little bit, standing when I’m meditating in the shower or I have a stool. I kind of sit down and I just let the water kind of run over me. It’s a really calm and peaceful feeling. I don’t wash my hair every day. I think I let the natural juices kind of set in.
My favourite breakfast would be, I like to taste things, so I’ll get a little bit of everything. So I think I’ll do the hash browns and breakfast tomatoes, home fries, depending on who’s making it , turkey sausage, cheese grits, English muffin and then I’ll do like a croissant, like a bacon, egg, and cheese with a little bit of jelly. It’s the sweet and salty thing. That will probably be the perfect breakfast for me. Maybe pancakes, maybe pancakes.
When I’m doing intense training, I probably do around six meals a day. If not, if I’m lucky three meals a day. I only drink coffee when I’m prepping and when I’m shooting. When I’m training, I’ll drink about a gallon and a half of water a day. Normal days, probably not drinking enough.
I have a gym in my house, so I usually just head downstairs and work out. It’s convenient. Warm up, jumping rope, you know get the heart rate up a little bit. Push ups, sit ups. I like circuits. Get in and out. You work out for like 45 minutes and you know, you get the showering and get on about your day. My thing is I probably work out maybe two to three times a day.
If I have a goal, if I’m prepping for Creed, then we’ll do a lot of weight training and boxing and working out around what a boxer would actually do. If I’m doing something like KillMonger for Black Panther, it’d be more mass. It’d be more weight training trying to get bigger. So it just all depends on what I’m trying to do.
Casual normal day for me: clothes, sweats, shoes, sneakers. T-Shirt. I’m pretty low maintenance, maybe a hoodie, depending on where I’m at the time of the year it is. Sports Center is always on, you know, I think it’s like just in the background, you know on mute.
The way I get around in New York City is either walking or taking cabs. A friend of mine, Sue, she has a gallery that’s going on out here and it’s really, really incredible. So something I like to stop and pop into, or I just opened up a rum bar on the lower side as well. So that’s another watering hole I really like to kind of go with my friends and just hang out and grab a couple of drinks or just to, you know, just chop it up about what we got going on.
Lunch time is whenever I get hungry. I’m a creature of habit so I pretty much order the same things. I usually get turkey, egg and cheese on a roll, a little bit of jelly or a Blue Ribbon. You know, they have great sushi, chicken burgers, amazing.
The phone is constantly ringing. Sometimes I just throw it on silent and just throw it in my pocket. So I have an excuse not to answer it, but yeah, a lot of calls, a lot of emails, text messages, piling. I think right now, where am I at? Yes, 255 unread messages, 256, 257, 258. Yeah, 259, 261. I’m not even lying. It’s really absurd.
That’s my day. Second workout, it would have to be a break in the day for me. Just go to the gym workout or go home, work out real quick, get in the shower and then knock out the second half of my day.
Hobbies for me. I used to play basketball a lot. I don’t have the time to play it as much as I love the game. Play a lot of video games. Call of Duty, NBA 2K, still playing basketball but just sitting down. For me, even when I’m in the car of I’m on the computer sometimes if I feel like it, I’ll just pull up, you know, a manga, and read that, or I’ll have a graphic novel in my book bag and I just always have it with me, so if I feel the need, if I feel like reading, I’ll just like pop it open and get to it.
Usually I head home for dinner. That’s not true. I go out a lot too. All right, it’s split. Honestly, it really just depends, I’m pretty spontaneous. So depending on what day it is and what I had going on, if I’m lucky enough to get up and just be at the house, I’ll get a home cooked meal. If not, I’ll probably just go out for dinner. My parents are living with me and I’m loving it, but we have our moments.
No, me and my family are very close. It was a dream come true, you know, to buy your mom house. It was a special moment for me. The flip side of that, I got roommates, so roommates, you always going to have something to talk about.
A normal night for me after dinner, I’m pretty much a homebody. You know, the times that I don’t have an event to go to, or some place to be, I kind of like chilling in the house and just watching a movie or playing video games and just being in my own thoughts, you know, you don’t really get a chance to be by yourself too much when you’re on the road and constantly traveling. So when you can find a moment where you can just kind of be to yourself, that’s pretty much what I’m doing.
Bed time, unknown. Who knows? After midnight for sure. I mean, if I’m lucky enough to get in the bed before that and actually go to sleep. Yeah, miracle; four hours of sleep is, you know, pretty solid. Didn’t they do a study on that? Four hour intervals or something like that. I’m working on that one.
Bed prep for me, I sleep naked. It’s something about clothes. My mom, as a kid, used to say, you know, when she had company, I would just come in, rip all my clothes off. And I was like three years old and just running around the house. So yeah, never really been a fan of clothes like that, especially when I’m sleeping. And that’s basically what I do in a day.
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Check out more daily routines from Barack Obama, Joe Rogan, Jeff Bezos, Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and plenty others.
