There was an interesting article in Forbes the other week about how power women wake up early, and commenters seemed interested in talking about it more, so I thought we should explore in an open thread. How early do you get up? What do you do with the time? Any tips that make it easier to get up then? For those of you who don’t rise that early, do you have another special time of the day? (Sunrise, originally uploaded to Flickr by killthebird.)

For my $.02: I was always a night owl when I was younger. Term papers and graduation speeches alike got written in the hours between 12 and 3. I realized this was a problem sometime around high school when, reading a college admissions essay I had thought brilliant the night before, I realized a good two sentences were devoted to “finding a piece of licorice on the floor.” And not even in a metaphor way, just a “Kat had a dream while typing” way. Still, the habit perpetuated until after law school, I think. By then — working crazy long hours — I realized that my best time truly was first thing upon waking. So I started getting up earlier.

I also realized a funny thing: that the time was truly mine when I got up earlier. I wasn’t rushing out the door to get to work. I had time (and energy) for a workout. Then I truly got greedy and realized I could get the ME stuff done then — the stuff I’d always wanted to do but never had the chance to. I attempted to finish NaNoWriMo in the hours between 4:30-6:30 one November. I read books I had meant to read in college but never gotten around to — thinky books that won National Book Awards, and not just the latest brain candy. I started this blog. (In fact, most of the longer posts for the first six months of this blog were written primarily in those morning hours.) Occasionally, I would even use this “super Kat” time for good and do work work (usually when I was up against a deadline and needed super focus to get it done.) I love these hours — time to myself, and time to be proactive rather than react to the day.

All that said — I’ll admit it’s really hard to get up, especially when it’s dark outside. I’ve found that it’s helpful to set the coffee the night before, and also to put my workout clothes in the bathroom so it doesn’t take too much effort to change into them.  I also tell myself, “If something is important to you there will be time in your schedule for it somewhere, and now is that time.”

Readers, how about you? Do you rise and shine early — and do you use it for “me” time or productive work time?

How do you function the day after an all-nighter, let alone looking competent and vaguely human? We covered this a looong time ago, back in the dark days of 2008 — but considering that Corporette has so many more readers now, I thought I’d update the Corporette coverage of the subject, and I can’t wait to hear what commenters say.

We’ve all been there — stuff needs to get done, and stuff needs to get done now. In the high-stress job, the all-nighter (sometimes several nights in a row!) is par for the course. One of my former bosses once said she reveled in looking like crap the next day — that she wore it as a badge of honor. Me: not so much.  If you look sloppy and tired and incoherent, well, that’s how you tend to get treated (and sometimes the treatment lasts far longer than the sleep deprivation).  (Pictured: IMG_9636, originally uploaded to Flickr by mikebitton.) So, that said, here are my tips for how to avoid looking and acting like the walking dead:

1. Get as much quality sleep as you can. Your goal on these nights is to complete as many sleep cycles as possible. There are four stages to sleep; the final stage is REM sleep. It generally takes 90 minutes to finish a full cycle, but it can vary, so play around with it.  (A new product, the WakeMate wristband and smartphone App “optimizes your waking hours by automatically analyzing your sleep and illuminating personal habits that affect your sleep.”  Lifehacker just rounded up some other helpful sleep tech, also.) My point here is that once you get home from the office, figure out how many 90-minute cycles you can get in. Go for solid numbers of sleep cycles, because it’s a little like doing your laundry: if you’re interrupted halfway through you’re worse than you were before. Note that a sleeping pill will interrupt your sleep cycles (as will other chemical aids). In general, if you remember your dreams, you’re waking up in the middle of a cycle.

2. Force your skin to look young and awake, even if you feel anything but. Almost every skin care line has masks or lotions that use natural acids to exfoliate the skin and promote the skin’s turnover rate. If you’re loyal to one skincare brand, check that line first — look for something like Bliss ‘The Youth As We Know It’ Anti-Aging Cleanser, which is part of a collection that contains “the top ten age-fighting ingredients” and guarantees to “leave skin smoother, brighter, dewier and firmer.”  Another good one:  Clinique 7 Day Scrub Cream Rinse-Off Formula No Color One Size, which has won the reader’s choice awards for Allure magazine in 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

3. Ward off colds. No, an on-coming cold doesn’t really affect the way you look, but after a sleepless night your immune system will be vulnerable. If you’re a fan of zinc or echinacea, now’s the time to take a preemptory hit.  You may also want to try some Emergen-C packets — you add them to 8 oz of water and the Kool-Aid type concoction gives you more than 1000% of you Vitamin C for the day. (Especially for when the office emergency has passed and you’re now just trying to make it to the end of the day, I prefer an Emergen-C packet to coffee for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up — no caffeine crash.)

4. Depuff your eyes. The adage says the eyes are the window to your soul — so it’s best to avoid that blank, swollen look in your eyes. Before you leave the house, apply something cold to your eye area. Tea bags soaked in cold water will do in a pinch, but a gel mask is far less messy. Second, invest in a good eye cream — let’s face it, this area always needs help. I like Aveeno Eye Brightener but, again, recommend you look first to whichever brand of skincare products you use; I’ve also started using Clinique’s All About Eyes.  Also, Visine is handy if your eyes are very red (but avoid using it daily — I’ve heard the ingredient that gets the red out will eventually stop working.)  If your eyes are continuously dry and sore, I luuurve TheraTears — they’re preservative-free and come in both a regular liquid and a super-duper thick and soothing gel.

5. Choose a safe outfit. Trust me, today isn’t the day to experiment with that new trend you just read about in Lucky. Even if it’s going to be a low key day, I suggest going ultra safe here: pull out your interview suit or some other outfit you’ve worn a thousand times, and pull your hair back into a bun or a French twist. The look you’re going for is clean, professional, and most of all, coherent.

Readers, what are your best tips for looking great the day after an all nighter and functioning normally?  What products are your favorites?

(L-8)

Reader M had a question about post-interview anxiety, something I notice coming up in the comment threads a lot…

I had a second round interview this week, and I’m waiting to hear back. The job is working in-house for a big company. Their legal team is spread throughout their offices, so my first interview was with HR, then my second interview was with their VP Legal Counsel and another Senior Counsel attorney. I think it went well, but I’m so anxious. My first question is what to do with anxiety while waiting to hear back about a job? My second question is if anyone has stories from successful interviews that might shed light on whether or not it went well.

The wonderful thing about interviewing for jobs outside your own company is that they have no idea what a stressball you may be after the interview. (Of course, for jobs inside the company you have to keep your cool, which is even tougher — but hopefully less stress-inducing given that you can “read” the personalities better and they know you better.) There are two interesting questions here: what to do to ease anxiety, and how to know if an interview went well.  I’ll take the second one first.

How to know an interview went so well that you’ll get the job: You can’t. Unless you know the interviewer (or the interviewers), you really won’t have any idea if things went well. I’ve been on some interviews that I thought went laughably bad (and then was offered the position) and some that I thought went over-the-moon great (and then didn’t get the position). (I fondly remember one interview, during interview week at law school: I sat down, prepared to talk about the law firm, and was shocked when the interviewer said “Yeah, so, based on your first year grades and the fact that you’re on law review, we’re going to extend an offer. Can I answer any questions you have?” — couldn’t they all be so easy?) But interview success depends on that fine mix of who else is interviewing for the position, what the company is looking for (which may be something as simple as “someone different than the last person to hold this job” in ways that you can’t really identify), what MOOD the interviewer is in, where they are in the interview process (too early and they may not have figured out what they want; too late and it may just be a polite gesture). So how do you handle interviews? You focus on what you can control: you. You give the best interview you can, you prepare as much as you can, you follow up to the extent that you feel comfortable (there is a wide spectrum, on both sides, of what is “go getter” versus “pushy”) — and you let the cards fall where they may. It isn’t necessarily a personal reflection on you if you don’t get the job.

But all of this is easier said than done — the anxiety after an interview can be intense. We’ve talked about ways to relax before, and now might be a great time to reopen that discussion.  I think general stress is one thing, but I think of anxiety as really strong stress that is triggered by one particular situation or one thing, which you probably can’t do anything about.  Personally, I do the following kinds of things when I’m anxious:

- Exercise. A walk, a run, a good aerobics workout — it’s amazing how I can feel my shoulders and neck “unlock” in the middle of the workout. You carry so much stress with you, and you don’t even realize it.

- Make dates with a lot of friends. This way you keep occupied enough that you don’t dwell on the anxiety too long, and by seeing a lot of different people you won’t drive any one person crazy with your own anxiety. In my experience, I’ve found that friends have to be very, very close to sit through more than 3 conversations about the same stress points, especially when there a) is no clear way to resolution, or b) they’ve suggested things to handle the situation (more appropriate where it’s boyfriend- or family-related stress) and you haven’t taken the advice.

- Brain candy. When I’m stressed, I find that focusing my full brain power on anything else seems impossible. So I turn to things that I call brain candy — reality TV shows (America’s Next Top Model is a particular favorite — so many of the contestants are unintentionally hilarious) or easy-to-read books that are well-written but lurid enough to suck me in. I just devoured (again) Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse mysteries always capture my attention. I particularly find that these books are great before bedtime, because they get my mind away from things that are stressing me out.

- Make lists. Maybe I’m alone here, but lists sometime help me solidify my thinking. I’ve used them to nail down what I’m worried about (you’ll be amazed at how the list goes on once you start writing them down), and to make pros and cons lists to remember that there are both pluses and minuses to getting the situation.  I find that lists are also helpful to realize that some of the thoughts in my head can be kind of silly when I’m stressed — for example, write out “this one job will make or break my entire career” — see, doesn’t that look fairly silly? (This isn’t to say that there aren’t hugely important, singular opportunities — things like a Supreme Court clerkship, for example. But those are few and far between, and if you have gotten to the interview point on something like that, your career already sounds golden.)

- Sleep. Everything looks better in the morning.

- Avoid anxiety loops. Every so often, I let myself get overwhelmed by stressful, anxious thoughts, and I go into what I call “loops” — StressPointA takes me to slightly-related StressPointB which takes me to slightly-related StressPointC (and so forth) which leads me back to A. When I find myself caught in a loop, I can’t actually make any decisions or come to a helpful point of view — I just get panicked and frenzied, leading to sleepness nights and totally unproductive days.  Avoiding the loop is critical — getting enough sleep (see above re: brain candy and exercise), keeping occupied, etc.  I also try to avoid too much “alone in my head” time when I’m in one of those moods — I once broke down in tears in a yoga class because my brain was looping.   (Once you’re in a loop, well… a glass of wine may help you ease up or cause you to loop further; it really depends on you and the moment. If you find yourself frequently in this situation, talk to your doctor because there may be a prescription that can help, either on a sometimes basis or an every day basis.  Be careful, though: anxiety drugs can be very addictive, so don’t borrow a friend’s pill — talk to your doctor about them, and follow his or her instructions.)

Readers, what do you do when you’re trying to relax from anxiety, either from a job interview or from a particularly stressful situation? And, do you have any fun interview stories to share — times you knew you nailed it, or wondered how it could go so wrong?

Reader J would like a post on under-eye routines…

I would love to see a post about your (and your readers’) “undereye routine.” After working some long hours, I am more and more frequently starting to notice that I look pretty haggard under the eyes with puffiness and/or dark circles. I have an undereye concealer, but I don’t care for it and really want to find a new one that I like. I could also use recommendations on eye creams or any other products that people like to use to help them appear more “fresh.”

Great question!  Personally, my under-eye area is one of those “beauty musts” for me, as I look slightly ill/dead without concealer. My personal routine generally consists of a special under-eye cream when I get out of the shower, before I put on my general facial moisturizer with SPF — and then before I put my makeup on, I swoop a general concealer on the skin beneath my eyes (and on my brow bones and around my nose if I think about it). If I have evening plans, I generally try to revisit the under-eye area with a highlighter before I leave the office — I prefer YSL’s Touche Eclat, but lost my last container and can’t remember *exactly* what color I had, which is preventing me from ordering it online. In short, I’m kind of on the lookout for new products for all of these steps — so I’m curious to hear what you guys say! (Currently I use Aveeno Active Naturals Positively Ageless Firming Eye Cream and Maybelline Dream Mousse Concealer Corrector, Fair Light 0-1 (both available at Drugstore.com for $19.99 and $8.99, respectively) — both are fine but I’m not agog over either one.  (I think Elle just had a round-up of the best concealers, incidentally.)  Readers, what are your preferred products for the undereye region?

(Pictured: Bags Under The Eyes, originally uploaded to Flickr by DerrickT.)

We’re normally not fans of pricey beauty products — the drugstore is more of our vibe.  However, we were talked into buying this YSL highlighter as part of our wedding makeup, and we are absolutely addicted now, because it’s the perfect way to “look alive” after a long day of staring at the computer screen.  (We use it so often we even keep it in our purse, so we always have it with us.)  Before we head out for a night on the town, we’ll add a bit under the eyelids, alongside our nose beneath our brows, and up over the brow bones to perk up without getting that startled look that plain concealer can bring.  Brilliant.  It’s available at Sephora for $40. Yves Saint Laurent TOUCHE ÉCLATRadiant Touch 1 Luminous Radiance

Let’s start by saying this:  eating is a Good.  Food is fuel for your brain and body, it’s yummy, and the act of eating gives you a nice break during the day.  There are metabolic benefits to eating small meals very often, and your subordinates will appreciate the consistent mood that comes from frequent meals.

However, sometimes just finding the time to eat can be very difficult — just getting downstairs to the deli to grab something and go can be taxing, not to mention unrewarding after realizing you’ve paid $10 for a sandwich that wasn’t fresh or healthy and spent 30 minutes of your time between elevator rides and cashier’s lines.

That’s why we’ve been a big fan of bringing food to the office. If you’re trapped at your desk, it’s easier to rationalize a 5-minute break to eat the food you’ve already brought. It’s also easier to lock yourself into a healthy choice — the all-too-often thought of “well, I’ll just treat myself because I’m so busy” never ends well — and it’s ultimately better for the budget as well.  (Pictured above:  soup season, originally uploaded to Flickr by looseends.)

While there are some who have made an art form out of bringing a beautifully packed lunch, we can only aspire to be in that group for the moment.  So we’ve come to specialize in what we’ll call the grab-and-go snack form of lunching. While none of them would normally be considered a meal, they take far less time to prepare or eat than a proper lunch, and if you eat 2 or 3 of them throughout the day you’re never hungry.  So, without further ado, our list of food staples for the busy working girl:

- Yogurt — we strive for brands/lines that have no more than 100 calories per cup. If you can get a good deal, it sometimes pays to get the big containers (4 cups or so) of yogurt — bring it to the office and use a coffee cup to portion it out when you’re ready to eat it. We like mixing our yogurt with Fiber One — the cereal adds fiber, which boosts the feeling of fullness and helps you feel like you’re eating something substantive. It’s a great way to get your calcium in, also (but note that the calcium percentages vary widely among the brands, so check them out before you buy).

- Hard-boiled eggs. (Yes, this one’s cheating a bit — it requires a bit of prep work at home in order to make the hard-boiled eggs.)  These suckers are great sources of lean protein — at least the whites are.  The yolks do seem to make it seem more filling, though, and last time we checked we thought the fat in the yolks was a healthy fat.  Still, for calories and cholesterol sake, we tend to eat one whole egg and two egg whites if we’re considering these a snack.  Be sure to a) check your teeth before venturing into the world again, and b) get the remnants out of your office (even if it’s just to the office kitchen garbage) as soon as possible.  We tend to bring only what we intend to eat to the office — i.e., take 3 hard-boiled eggs from the fridge, wrap them in a napkin, and stick in our purse before heading out in the morning.

- Sandwich fixings (particularly if the idea of assembling a sandwich in the morning stresses you out).  Just grab about six slices of whatever low-cal bread you have on hand (or whatever’s easiest), and a packet of low-fat cheese to the office — voila, sandwiches for days. You can also bring a package of deli meat to the office — turkey or ham both tend to be low in fat — but be sure you’re not overdoing it on preservatives and sodium. (The other downside to deli meat is that it tends to get gross a day or two after you open it, which means you have to eat the same meal at least twice.) If you have reduced-fat peanut butter or almond butter sitting around, you can also add that to the bread — but watch your portions. Products like Better ‘n Peanut Butter or PB2 might be particularly worth looking into if you’re a little bit too much of a big fan of the peanut butter — they’re lower in calories.  Canned tuna fish or salmon can be something else great — we try to collect low-fat mayonnaise packets when we see them (Panera is our usual source) and save them, but if in doubt we think both tuna and salmon taste good when mixed with mustard.  Try to avoid eating tuna too often — the mercury content is bad for women (or perhaps people? chime in if you’re more up on this than we are) and, if buying canned salmon for the first time, be sure to read the label carefully — sometimes skin and/or bones are involved.  These can be eaten in a coffee cup or on bread; either way, get the remnants out of your office as soon as possible.  Sardines are something we’ve never tried to prepare ourselves, but we’ve read great things about them — if anyone has suggestions on eating sardines in a no-fuss way, do tell.

- String cheese or other easy-to-eat forms of low-calorie cheese.  Mini Babybels, a Laughing Cow wedge, or, if you have time to pre-slice some 50- or 75-percent fat free Cabot’s cheese — they taste good, provide calcium and protein, and satiate.

- Oatmeal — This can be a great and filling snack, and feels more indulgent than the 130 calories or so that you usually consume with it.  If you don’t have access to a microwave — try adding hot water (meant for tea) to the oatmeal; almost all brands, including plain quick-cooking oats, become oatmeal after a few minutes.  (With plain oatmeal, try adding a sugar-free packet of hot cocoa to it, or some raisins and cinnamon.)

- Raw almonds. They’re a superfood!  We prefer them raw because there’s no oil involved in a roasting process — and, c’mon, a raw almond is far less tasty than a wasabi-flavored roasted almond (or any of the delicious new flavors they’re selling).  Count out 12 whole pieces or so and call it a snack.

- Vitatops. We just ordered these again for the first time in a long while, and they’re just as good as we remember — filling, tasty, and yes, only 100 calories.  Sure, we could do a homemade version of them (we’ve taken a muffin mix and added powdered Fiber One to it and seem to recall it being similar) but sometimes it’s just easier to order them.  Even though they have to be frozen (no preservatives), if you don’t have access to a microwave you can bring them to room temperature or behind by placing one on top of a cup of tea or coffee.

- Lattes. Even if you don’t have time to run to your local Starbucks, get some coffee from the office kitchen, and add skim milk until the coffee and milk are roughly 50/50.  It’s a great liquid snack that boosts your energy, adds calcium to your diet, and wards off hunger.

- Soups. We had a lot of ladies write in to sing the praises of soups — we completely agree!  (If you don’t have ready access to a microwave at your office, try bringing a thermos — some of them are the perfect size for soup.)  (Including Thermos Nissan 16-Ounce Leak-Proof Food Jar, pictured, available at Amazon for $25.)  If you have time to cook your own, go for it –readers recommended recipe sites like Food Gawker and Taste Spotting — but if you need to buy prepared soup, so be it.  After all, $2 for a can of soup (or less, if you’re lucky) is a great deal compared to spending $6 or more on a cup of soup at the local Au Bon Pain.  (If you’re eating canned soup uber-regularly, you might want to opt for organic soups — if only to avoid preservatives and such.)  Manhattan clam chowder is usually a good, low-cal fix (our $.02: avoid New England clam chowder in a can at all costs); bean and lentil-based soups also tend to taste pretty good for the calories you’re consuming.  Chicken noodle soup is almost always a good bet, calorie-wise.  We’ve recently bought a few of the soups in Progresso’s High Fiber line and were impressed with the taste.

- Salads can be a bit messy and complex for us — after all, it assumes we’ve had time to go to the grocery store and select fresh greens and other ingredients, and to prepare them for inclusion — rinsing, chopping, etc. — but obviously they are great for diet and health reasons.  Reader C e-mailed us, noting that she brought salads the entire year she clerked.

I just bought a clamshell of lettuce, a decent dressing, and a bag of pre-cooked shrimp.  To make the lunch I tossed lettuce in a gladware container, then put some shrimp in a ziplock baggie with some marinade ingredients.  I would do an Asian style with ground ginger, red pepper, soy sauce, and pepper, or scampi with lemon juice, olive oil, dried basil, and garlic.  I either covered the lettuce in dressing or put it in a separate little container.  Then at lunch just microwave the shrimp and toss them into the salad.  It’s filling, cheap, and easy.

Perfect!  Personally, when we have time to spare we tend to hit the local salad place and get the same thing:  baby spinach, crumbled feta, tomatoes, and a few black olives, tossed with balsamic vinegar.  Very low-calorie, high in antioxidants and calcium — when we want to add more protein we tend to add grilled shrimp.

- Prepared meals. We’re not big fans of the frozen meal — they’re filled with preservatives, and they’re not as filling as eating 2 or 3 of the snacks above.  (Also, they require a trip to the microwave.)  Still, for dietary restrictions they may be the easiest way to go:  reader A wrote in to rave about the Gardein line for vegans, noting that each is less than 200 calories.  A tip:  if the prepared lunch is for you, you may want to try to boost the nutritional value of it by adding vegetables — most dinners are improved by adding a can of green beans or 1/2 a bag of frozen broccoli.  (We’ll admit, though, we love Amy’s Tofu Vegetable Lasagna and most any Lean Pocket — but they’re a rare treat for lunch.)

All right, enough of our lunch choices — what do you eat when you have no time to eat?

(L-3)

Liking these posts? Follow us on Twitter or fan us on Facebook — this is the edited version of what we’re reading! (We also Tweet if we hear about a good sale.)

- We talked business card cases earlier this week — if you’re also in the market for a Rolodex or way to keep the cards you collect, Jeri’s Organizing & Decluttering News collects some interesting address “boxes.”  (For our $.02 — we throw most business cards away after we enter the information in our Palm pilot.  We keep the cards of close friends, cut them up (about 5 slits along both long edges), and wrap delicate necklaces around the card as a way to keep the necklace from getting tangled.)

- Jezebel reports on new tests that allow you to predict your risk of “early ovarian aging.”

- The WSJ continues to wonder whether jeans are appropriate at work, and gets up close and personal with an article on shapewear.

- Can you pay off a sleep debt by sleeping late on the weekends? The NYT investigates.

- The NYT profiles a new Facebook application that will let you delete objectionable photos.

- The Blushing Hostess advises how to be a gracious host to colleagues and improve your team’s working relationship at the same time.

Liking these posts? Follow Corporette on Twitter — this is the edited version of what we’re reading! (We also Tweet if we hear about a good sale.)

Wow — in what was one of our most unpopular polls ever, we asked last week whether people nap at the office and whether they have a system to it.  The poll is still open, but the initial results were split pretty much in thirds:

- 32% said that yes, you had napped at the office more than once

- 30% denied ever napping

- 38% said they’d only napped once and weren’t proud of it.

As various articles report, napping for just 20 minutes can increase your productivity by clearing your mind’s clutter, as well as improving memory, stamina, and motor skills.  One article even weighs the different benefits of naps lasting anywhere from 2 seconds to 90 minutes.  Some companies are even installing “sleep pods” to help their workers recharge:

Some articles to consider, if you’re not currently napping:

• How to Get the Perfect Nap [Stepcase Lifehack]
• How and Why to Power Nap [Lifehacker]
• How to Nap like a Pro [Boston Globe, via HuffPo]
• Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better [Lifehacker]

Photo credit:  Cat nap, originally uploaded to Flickr by Mr. Miyagi. Note that there’s actually a difference between a cat nap (which one does on a lazy Sunday) and a power nap (which one might do at your office).

Liking these posts? Follow Corporette on Twitter — this is the edited version of what we’re reading! (We also Tweet if we hear about a good sale.)

- Ye Gods: Talk about an amazing suit (pictured at left). [Rare Vintage]

- Jezebel wonders what role fashion should have in the conversations about Democratic National Convention.

- Dream big:  establish a solid morning and evening routine to be a more productive and happy you.  [Zen Habits]

- We are not alone in our love for Microsoft’s OneNote — good to know!  (We really must do a “Tool of the Trade” about that program.)  [Lifehacker]  Ooh, and you can get it (and the rest of Microsoft’s latest products) super cheap if you have an .edu address.  [Lifehacker]