Here’s Everything Katie Couric Does Before 9 a.m.
She spent 15 years waking up at the crack of dawn for the Today show, but is Katie Couric actually a morning person? Now, as the head of her own media business, Katie Couric Media, her role certainly requires her to be—especially to check in on her her daily newsletter, aptly titled Wake-Up Call. But that’s not all: Couric just launched a brand-new podcast, “Next Question.” In it, she dives into a singular, zeitgeisty question like, “Does CBD really work?” And during each 40-minute-long episode provides a detailed—and well-researched—perspective. Whew, she's clearly got a lot on her plate. So we had to ask: How does Couric start her day?
Her alarm goes off at a different time every morning. “Alexa wakes me up with this very annoying sound. Then, I usually tell her to wake me up 15 minutes later. Today, I got up at 6:45 a.m. Some days I sleep until 7:30; others, I’m up by 6 a.m. It all depends on what I’m doing that day and how late I stayed up the night before. I try to get seven or eight hours of sleep. I do wonder if I’d feel better if I got up at the same time every day. Don’t they say that’s a good idea? Whatever. There’s so much to feel guilty about.”
Then, she grabs her phone. “I look at a whole host of newsletters—first and foremost, my own. I edit and sign off on it the night before, but I like to open it in the morning because I like to experience it like other people are. After that, I check out Axios and Mike Allen’s newsletter. I like Morning Brew, The New York Times newsletter and Jackie Alemany’s for The Washington Post, called Power Up, that helps me understand what’s going on by the Beltway. I also read The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. And Politico! I try to get a real cross-section of news.”
Lately, she’s been into Flywheel. “I take classes in the city or in the Hamptons. We have a gym in our basement, so I try to work out a few times a week. My trainer has me lifting weights and stretching—basically, doing exercises that are good for maintaining muscle mass. You lose a lot of it as you age, so that’s why it’s really important to do weight-bearing exercises. I also don’t live too far from Central Park, so I like to take brisk walks there.”
Couric’s testing out intermittent fasting. “I’ve only started this week, but right now, I don’t eat anything until noon. Intermittent fasting is supposed to increase the size of your telomeres, which are the end of your DNA and are responsible for aging. I don’t know if they’re growing or not, but I hope so. I think eating Rocky Road ice cream at 10 p.m. defeats the purpose so I’m trying not to do that. But I have to admit that last night I did go back to the carton a couple of times. You gotta have a little fun.”
She takes her coffee black. “I used to think of iced coffee like ice cream. It’s delicious—a total treat. But I’m getting used to black coffee. I also drink a ton of water because I’m always dehydrated. I think everyone needs to drink more water.”
Then she emails, texts and reviews her day. “I get emails and texts constantly, so sometimes I’ll just get back to people in the morning. I have a calendar that my assistant fills in and virtually every minute is scheduled. I try to take some time off so that I can just be at work and talk to my colleagues about certain things that they may need. When you’re starting a company, you’re building a business, but also running the business, so I’m always trying to balance those two things. My assistant keeps me honest and running on time. I used to go into an office, do a show, finish a show and go home. Now, I have so many balls in the air—it’s really challenging to schedule my day.”
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