Apple CEO Tim Cook's daily routine starts before 5 a.m., a time of the day he can 'control the most'

"I get up really early, I'm an early bird," Cook said on an episode of the "Dua Lipa: At Your Service" podcast that aired in November, noting that he generally wakes between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m.

He's said that at that early hour, he has the freedom to spend his time as he sees fit.

"I can control the morning better than the evening and through the day. Things happen through the day that kind of blow you off course," he told The Australian Financial Review in 2021. "The morning is yours. Or should I say, the early morning is yours."

On an episode of the podcast "Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware" released in January 2025, he added that the morning is "the part of the day that I can control the most."

"As the day starts to unfold, it becomes less predictable," he said. "So I love the part of the day that I can kind of block out the world and focus on a few critical things and just be silent for a while."

The first thing Cook does in the morning is check his iPhone, on which "he reads email, reviews overnight sales reports and studies countries where numbers are changing to keep his finger on the pulse of the business," The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024.

"I spend my first hour doing email, and I'm pretty religious about doing this," he said on Dua Lipa's podcast. "I read emails from a lot of customers and employees, and the customers are telling me things that they love about us or things that they want changed about us. Employees are giving me ideas. But it's a way to stay grounded in terms of what the community is feeling, and I love it."

Cook said on the "Table Manners" podcast that he gets "probably 500, 600" emails per day although that number can be far higher on "days where there's something extraordinary going on."

"I get notes both that are positive and some that are not so positive because people feel free to reach out and voice their opinion and I think this is great because it keeps my hand on the pulse of the company," Cook told WSJ in 2024. "I try to internalize it and ask myself, well is that accurate or not, and not just quickly put up a defensive shield and say, 'Why? What we've done is right.'"

Employees, too, have experienced Cook's early-morning emails.

"I spend an hour in the gym, usually doing strength training, and I've got somebody to really push me to do things I don't want to do," he told Dua Lipa. "I do no work during that period of time at all, I never check my phone, I'm just totally focused on working out."

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2014 that Cook didn't work out on Apple's campus, opting instead for a gym where he was less likely to run into his employees.

Cook told Axios in 2018 that working out helps "keeps my stress at bay."

Cook told the Journal in 2024 that he drinks "many cups" of coffee a day.

He'll typically have some "protein-based" cereal like Kashi with unsweetened almond milk, he said on the "Table Manners" podcast.

The Journal's 2014 article reported that Cook's weekly operations meetings could last five or six hours and that he was known to relentlessly question employees.

"'Talk about your numbers. Put your spreadsheet up,' he'd say as he nursed a Mountain Dew," the Journal wrote.

Cook has since said he's a big fan of Diet Mountain Dew, though Apple's campus doesn't stock it.

Mike Janes, the former head of Apple's online store, told CNN Money in 2008 about an afternoon meeting with Cook.

"A number of us had tickets to see the Mets that night," Janes said. "After hours, he was still drilling us with question after question while we were watching the clock like kids in school. I still have this vision of Tim saying, 'Okay, next page,' as he opened yet another energy bar. Needless to say, we missed the Mets game."

He also has no problem sitting in silence until he gets a suitable answer.

"In meetings, he's known for long, uncomfortable pauses, when all you hear is the sound of his tearing the wrapper of the energy bars he constantly eats," CNN Money reported.

As a result, the Journal said, employees had learned to be prepared, cramming for the meetings as if they were tests.

The Journal reported in 2014 that besides the energy bars he was snacking on throughout the day, he stuck to meals such as chicken and rice for lunch.

Cook has been known to eat his lunch in the cafeteria with employees, unlike his predecessor Steve Jobs, who would typically eat with then-design chief Jony Ive.

"I have lunch in Caffè Macs and I take a dinner home from Caffè Macs during the week," he said on the "Table Manners" podcast. "I typically go for the fish."

"I'll divide the day in terms of spending time with product teams or spending time with marketing teams or spending time with the executive team, and we're either handling issues of the day or hopefully our balance is more on working on future stuff, and thinking about what's next," he said on Dua Lipa's podcast.

When he was COO, he was known for being one of the first people in the office and one of the last people to leave.

We don't know much about how Cook spends his weekends and evenings, though he's said he's outdoorsy and enjoys hiking, rock climbing, and cycling.

He usually goes to national parks on vacation, he said on the "Table Manners" podcast. 

He has also vacationed at the Canyon Ranch resort in Arizona, where guests spotted him keeping to himself, often dining alone and reading on his iPad, Fortune's 2012 profile of Cook said.

More recently, he went caving in Slovenia in the summer of 2024.

He's also talked about using the Vision Pro when at home to watch "Ted Lasso" and other TV shows while stretched out on the couch.

Áine Cain contributed to an earlier version of this story.