![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/LaurenAntonoff.png?w=2048\")
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For many CEOs, the workday begins before sunrise. Leaders like Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang, Apple\u2019s Tim Cook, and Disney\u2019s Bob Iger have all said punishingly early mornings and rigid routines are their preference\u2014and essential to running a global company. Life360 CEO Lauren Antonoff takes a different approach.<\/p>\n
Rather than adhering to a tightly scripted daily schedule, Antonoff\u2019s workdays are best described as \u201corganic\u201d\u2014shaped less by the clock than by the flow of her month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really think about my routine less in terms of what the morning tonight is, and really what the rhythm is over the course of a month,\u201d she told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n On a typical day, that means starting work around 8:30 a.m.\u2014a leisurely pace by some CEO standards. From there, her schedule is dictated largely by her first meeting of the day.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day for me is very different,\u201d she said. \u201cI have probably a lot of meetings, but I try to also get time to read and reflect and communicate with people on my team.\u201d<\/p>\n That flexibility, Antonoff noted, isn\u2019t accidental\u2014and wouldn\u2019t have been possible without help at home. While she climbed the ladder to now lead a tech company with an over $7 billion market cap and took care of her household\u2019s finances, her husband took the lead at home. Though he has worked as a real estate broker and entrepreneur, he was largely a full-time stay-at-home parent while their children were growing up.<\/p>\n Antonoff calls it a \u201c1950s family structure in reverse.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur children are now officially adults, but [my husband] did all the child care and all the cooking and cleaning and all of that stuff, and I do, the making the money and paying the taxes and that kind of stuff,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n She encourages families\u2014particularly working parents\u2014to access what actually works for them, rather than defaulting to tradition.<\/p>\n \u201cGiving yourself permission to depart from tradition can be incredibly freeing,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel incredibly lucky to have a career that supports our unusual arrangement, and an amazing husband who takes care of our family and me (and doesn\u2019t make me do dishes).\u201d<\/p>\n Not having an overly regimented work schedule doesn\u2019t mean Antonoff isn\u2019t putting in the time at work\u2014if anything, it\u2019s the opposite.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have work-life [balance]\u2014they\u2019re not separate to me,\u201d she said, adding that she describes herself not as an introvert or extrovert\u2014but rather a \u201cworkavert,\u201d meaning she is energized by the work grind.<\/p>\n Even when she\u2019s off the clock, she finds ways to feed her curiosity about business, whether that means hearing about an interesting company or unpacking a problem raised by a family friend.<\/p>\n Antonoff isn\u2019t alone. A number of high-profile business leaders have openly embraced work-centric lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Emma Grede, the idea of work-life balance isn\u2019t possible for those seeking wide-reaching success.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are leading an extraordinary life to think that extraordinary effort wouldn\u2019t be coupled to that somehow is crazy,\u201d Grede told The Diary of a CEO<\/em> podcast.<\/p>\n Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and CEO of the Fortune 500 financial services company TIAA, has repeatedly echoed this sentiment, calling work-life balance a \u201clie.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, she takes an active approach in dividing out her days to ensure she can effectively juggle responsibilities at home and in the office.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is I only have 100% of me, not 110%. Understanding that I am not 100% allocated to being a mom, they only get 30%, allows me to be more intentional,\u201d Duckett told LinkedIn News in 2024. \u201cSo my children don\u2019t get 100% of all of me. But within that allocation, they get 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n Others take it even further. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to answer emails and is always thinking about work\u2014even while washing dishes or watching a movie. He\u2019s also said he never takes a day off, working seven days a week, including holidays.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #CEO #1950s #family #structure #reverseher #husband #child #care #cooking #cleaning #making #money #paying #taxes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For many CEOs, the workday beg… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[9392,2175,529,624,9395,7797,7633,9396,4709,9394,958,27,4568,1980,9393,5573,4981,1981,167,5623,6790,1982],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Forget work-life balance, Antonoff is a \u2018workavert\u2019<\/h2>\n