A Quote by Sam Altman

I get up late, have an espresso, and immediately start work. I try to get roughly caught up on email before I leave the house, then if I need to write anything or review a complex deal, I do that, and then I head to the office and work on my top few priorities for the day. I try to schedule my meetings in the afternoon.
I get up, get coffee, and go into my home office. I check email and Twitter before I start work, but I have to try not to get too distracted.
I try to write every day, preferably first thing in the morning. Of course, there are days when something happens to interfere with this ideal schedule. Then I try to find time later in the day. I usually work at home, but sometimes, for a change I'll go to a library or a cafe. And I like to read poetry before I sit down to write.
I like finding things out beforehand, because I'm nervous in disposition, and I worry that if I don't do anything, then I'll turn up and I still won't really have a sense of it, and it might be too late. So I like to get things as organized as I possibly can in my own head, to apply myself to the work before arriving to a late-in-the-day rehearsal, or in extreme cases, the first day on set.
I'm at the gym at 6, so I'm usually in my office by 7:15. And I try to not schedule a lot of meetings before 8. So I've got that first hour to get myself organized for the day and to make sure that I've structured what I want to do.
If I'm in a state about a book, I'll get up at 6 A.M. and write before breakfast, but usually I'll start afterwards and then work a full day with a break for lunch.
Having full-time classes, it doesn't really work out because there's so much workload and so much studying that you really don't have time to train. I'd stay up until two or three in the morning just studying, and then I'd have to go get a few miles running, work out at the gym super late, and try to get my working out in late at night.
A typical workday for me is getting up at about 5:00, 5:15 in the morning, getting some coffee or tea as quickly as possible, and then getting to my desk. And ideally, I'll start writing around 5:30, 5:45, and I'll write for three, four hours, and then I'll take a break, and read over what I write. Maybe about lunchtime, I'll go exercise or get out into the day. Then I'll either read over what I wrote the day before and quit work around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon and spend some time with my kids.
Day-to-day life is a lot of work. I work a lot on stand-up stuff, and then day-to-day life and, you know, just living. It's always different. Try to work out, try to stay in shape, and try to have some fun.
I think people overplay the 'Saturday Night Live' schedule. I mean, yeah, it can be some late hours. But the late hours are usually only one or two nights out of the week. You might have a crazy six-day week, but you'll work three weeks, and then you get a week off work. I'd take most jobs if it was hard work and then I got a week off.
On 'The Daily Show,' we get so caught up in the day-to-day news cycle. A story breaks, and then the piranhas in late night, we all jump to the headline, and we dissect it, and then we have to move on to the next day.
If I'm just at the White House, I have meetings in my office, I sign letters, I plan different things. Late in the afternoon, I'll quit working and wait for my husband to get home.
Work - get paid; don't work - don't get paid. Everybody is on commission, .. Try not coming to work for six weeks. Work gets paid; don't work, don't get paid. When they earn those dollars, and when you're 4, and you clean up your room, it really means mom cleaned up the room and you did two toys. When you're 14, it means you cleaned up your room. But still, we got the money caused by work, and then, we have teachable moments on how to handle the money they earn.
I try to write every day. I don't beat myself up about word counts, or how many hours are ticking by on the clock before I'm allowed to go and do something else. I just try to keep a hand in and work every single day, even if there are other demands or I'm on a book tour or have the flu or something, because then I keep my unconscious engaged with the book. Then I'm always a little bit writing, no matter what else I'm doing.
Two committees in the house were up all night long trying to get a version of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act passed. House Republicans are just fighting tooth and nail to pass it in the House, to try to get it into the Senate, to try to make it then so that the Senate will get on board. But you know who one of the Republican senators is who`s not on board with this anymore? Senator Tom Cotton.
There is no secret, you try and never stop trying. If you have to sleep all day, and get up the next day, you keep trying. If you have to take 3 years away, do it and then come back. But it's all about trying. Not everything will work, but some things will, and you have to try.
I used to start at about 10 at night and work until early morning. My preferred way to work is to start in the early afternoon and work until about 3, go do errands, have dinner, and then write for a few more hours in the evening.
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