Jessica Alba started off her career on our TV screens and is most known for her acting, but in recent years she has developed a career and built a business that stands for transparent ingredients and supporting women at home and with their beauty routine.

She’s the definition of a boss, waking up early to work out, managing to find the time to go to the office every day at 9 AM, spend time with her children, make TV appearances and stay hands-on with her business while she’s in Hollywood.

We can learn a lot from Jessica’s life, dedication to herself, and the time she has for her family. We put her daily plan in the Getting Stuff Done planner to see just how she manages to balance it all, and how she’s optimized her life to live her best life every day. 

5:30 AM

MORNING ROUTINE 

As a mum, Jessica Alba’s mornings are busy. She’ll wake up for a workout at 5:30 am, but she fully expects one of her kids to have already woken her up. “Working out is not my favorite, but it’s stress relief and I get good ideas working up a sweat. I like to to make a morning class before I get to work: Spinning or hot yoga sculpt, always with friends to keep me motivated.”

Before a workout, she makes sure to wash her face and moisturize, she uses her own brand of moisturizer, cleanser, and hydration mist to get ready.

Breakfast for Jessica is usually coffee with almond milk and either avocado toast with gluten-free bread or a coconut water smoothie. She’s always in the office by nine, so she gets in some time with her kids before she leaves, and makes sure to meditate with Headspace during the day at some point.

nd goes back inside for a series of spiritual exercises. She likes to dabble with different spiritual activities that help her to feel whole, grateful, and positive before she starts the day. When the weather is warmer, she sits outside to meditate. 

After meditation, she works out for an hour. She does resistance flexibility, a low-impact strength-training program. Two or three people push against her as she pushes against them, and then she goes for a run and combines that with a thirty minute run on the treadmill. Her life today is so far removed from where it was when she started out, she confessed to Ellen Degeneres that her toilet roll is always folded in little triangles as you’d get in a hotel, and she never runs out. She built this life for herself and lives it fearlessly.

6:00 AM

WORKOUT 

“I take Spin or hot yoga classes in the morning, and I sacrifice sleep to fit them in,” Jessica has said. She gets up super early to make sure she’s doing a class and moving her body. She’s into YogaScult, a hot yoga-inspired full body work out. It’s a hardcore physical workout with the balance and stretch of traditional yoga. 

“For me, the benefits of exercise are more mental than physical,” Jessica told Shape. “Working out takes away that little edge so that I feel happier and more productive, and my brain can get kick-started.”

“I love lunch. It’s my favorite meal. If Stedman isn’t here, I will invite others over—all the people I’m interested in talking to or meeting. I had Jennifer Lawrence up for lunch, Chrissy Metz, Princess Ameerah of Saudi Arabia. I do cook, but not if it’s more than four people.”

9:00 AM

WORK, WORK, WORK

Jessica is a workaholic, “I set a pretty high bar,” Alba admitted to Arianna Huffington. “I expect excellence out of myself at all times, and it’s not sustainable.”

She’s always in the office at 9 AM and working as hard as she can, “I really wanted, in my life, to have a job that I loved, and that I’m excited about doing and participating in,” she explained. That’s why, in 2011, after building up her career as an actress, Alba founded The Honest Company, creating products that are natural, safe, and healthy for babies.

The one thing she struggles with is balancing her career with motherhood. But, she knows that to get to where she wants to go, she needs to push herself hard. “I am relentless. I think you have to be to be successful. There are so many people who give up and it’s so easy to give up when someone says no. It’s so easy to just move on and I think if you’re doing something that’s making a difference, and if you’re doing something that will have an impact, you’re doing something that’s never been done before and you have to figure out your own path and your way of doing it,” she told Chriselle Lim.

6:00 PM

DINNER TIME 

Jessica tries to stick to a diet that supports her lifestyle. Her nutrition coach spoke to Well & Good and explained how Jessica had approached her to help boost her energy and stay away from foods that caused inflammation.

“For lunch and dinner, I encouraged her to build a Fab Four plate, and not to think about what she shouldn’t eat. Making protein, fat, fiber, and greens the cornerstone of each meal worked wonders for her.” You can usually find her eating a plate that contains one of each of those four, and it helps power her through the day.

10:00 PM

EVENING RITUALS

Jessica loves to spend time with her children, and get a good nighttime routine in, wherever she is. It’s important to her to look after her skin in the evenings before bed, and she will always take her makeup off, no matter where she is.

“If I’m lazy and traveling, I’ll just use makeup remover wipes but usually, I’ll use a gel cleanser because it’s so gentle and, I can trust what’s inside. I’ll always take my makeup off and then I’ll use the deep hydration face cream.” It’s important to Jessica not only to spend enough time with her family, but to spend time on herself.

GOOD THINGS

…come to those who sign up for our emails