Men’s Health recently caught up with Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, to discuss his daily routine. Here are some key takeaways:
- He doesn’t use an alarm clock, and usually wakes up at 7:30am to the sunrise or the sounds of his daughter
- His first meal isn’t until noon, at which point he eats a “smorgasbord of dairy” — milk, cottage cheese and yogurt
- Huffman lifts for an hour each morning at Equinox, and employs a lower-body program in order to stay in skiing shape
- A few mornings a week, he likes to walk or bike the mile to Reddit’s headquarters
- He’s a proponent of workday naps — no more than a 15-minute refresh
- Instead of cooking, he’ll generally order some takeout at the end of the day (he’s apparently partial to Chinese)
- Around 10:00pm he’ll climb into bed and read from his Kindle
Our immediate impression? Honestly, a measure of surprise. Not because anything Huffman described is insane; rather, relative to other driven/eccentric CEOs in Silicon Valley, his daily routine is extremely reasonable. It’s become common for athletes and artists to “routinesplain” their daily rhythms to publications, detailing perfect days where they get up well before dawn, exercise twice, meditate, finish a book, crush meetings and still make it home in time for family dinner.
Then there’s another type of public figure who delights in imparting pseudoscientific secrets, as if no day is complete without serums or cleanses or sessions with spiritual advisors.
Huffman is a refreshing riff on these molds, as an executive who’s clearly picked up some fads from the tech world he calls home (with intermittent fasting leading the way), yet feels secure enough to divulge that he still consumes dairy, likes to bring home kung pao chicken and hasn’t completely eliminated tech from his bedroom. (We’re yet to meet a human being under the age of 50 who truly has.)
As for what we like most here — the daily constitutional on the way to work is fantastic, as is his embrace of a workday snooze, both of which have been shown to boost mood and productivity. Also fantastic is the fact that his workout routine is tailored around a specific sport, in skiing. That’ll shore his legs up against potential injury, and most importantly for any fitness routine, keep him coming back and working towards an endgame.
As always with celebrity routines, try to take his purported activities with a grain of salt. It’s high time we stop comparing ourselves to these people. But if you see something you like, feel free to steal it. The man oversees 330 million monthly active users. He’s doing something right.
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