A short interview excerpt in which Maria Shriver describes her morning life-hacks: morning solitude (meditation and quiet time), a short written to-do list, and exercise; she also describes setting intentions for the week on weekends and checking in on people. The exchange emphasizes practices for feeling "alive" and redefining aging.
Chapters
Do you have any life hacks or personal hacks that have benefited you over the years that might benefit somebody? Listening?
Well, meditating in the morning works really well for me. Being in quiet and being alone in the morning really works for me every morning. Every morning?
How long?
Probably 45 minutes to an hour.
Oh, that's serious.
Yeah, no, like alone. Yeah, alone with my thoughts. And then I have.
You're not necessarily sitting there saying, oh, and meditating for.
No, I meditate for like 20 minutes.
Okay. But it's the alone time. Yeah.
Then I just kind of look out the window. I look at the sky. Sometimes I'll. Then maybe I'll write a poem or I'll. And then I write a to do list for my day.
Okay.
I do that. I definitely, like, I need to do this, I need to talk about that. I need to send a note about this.
So you read a little to do list.
And then I exercise because that's really good for my head.
And obviously for if, you know, if I want to be independent and I want to age well, you know, that's a really big part of. And my work in the Alzheimer's space and the women's health space has really taught me a lot about how do I want to redefine aging, how do I want to age? You know? And I remember recently I went to a birthday party for a 70th birthday party with my daughter, and I was like, oh, my God, this people are so old. She was like, mommy, this is your age group. I was like, what? She goes, these people are your age. I was like, no, they're not. She goes, yeah, they are. I'm like, okay, you know, So I was like, okay, I. I want to be around vibrant, you know, alive people. I really want to be alive. And I think a lot about what does that, you know, because you can have one 70 year old and one 70 year old, or you can have one 30 year old. Well, I know a lot of 30 year olds who are like, you know, so. So I really want to be alive. I have a book in my living room that says becoming alive. I want to be alive. I want to feel it all. And that means the good, the bad and the ugly, right? And so I think that's my. And then on my weekend, I think a lot about what kind of week I want. I write down what kind of week do I want? What do I want to do in that week? What do I want it to mean to me? And my other hack is that I check in on people.
I really like this idea.
You really start every day with a check with a. With a to do list, and then.
Yeah.
And then the weekend, what I want to do this week. So an intention for the day and an intention for the week.
