I will give start by describing a typical morning of a working day in my family, and as I speak about our routines, I will explain why I think we do things the way we do.
As I said, life here is very diverse. There is much variance between individuals, professions, countries, races and cultures.
My family lives in a technological society. We come from Moscow and we are used to living in large cities. Maybe because in large cities we are often deprived of nature, we value it so much and try to get to nature as often as possible.
The life of my family has been always somewhat different from typical families since we don't watch television and minimize the intrusion of propaganda. Now, as I don't have a job and don't go to work, it is even more different. So I will describe a typical morning of my family in America at the time I had a job.
Note a few characteristic emotions and trends in our daily life: a high extent of time pressure: we are often in a rush; fear, focus on survival, making compromises, a high degree of deception, the high absurdity of our daily routines.
Normally my wife and I would sleep together with a small child in our bed. This is practical since she would breastfeed the child at night without fully waking up. A child would sometimes start crying even without being hungry and she would calm him down by petting him. If the child would become upset, I would get up and walk back and forth in the apartment carrying the child in my hands. This would normally calm down the child and he would return to sleep. Having small kids typically causes sleep deprivation. This causes all sorts of health distortions and our heads would be more foggy and noisy than usual. This is well justified because the kids are our best joy.
An alarm will sound at 6.30 am. Typically because of the lack of sleep, we would snooze it for 7 minutes a couple of times so we would get up around 6.50a. We run to the toilet to pee. Take a shower; brush the teeth while taking the shower. Typically at this time kids sleep soundly. Most of the time, we would have 2 or 3 kids in the house. As small ones are born, big ones leave for college. It is a bit more complex than that, but this would be in an ideal situation. Bigger kids sleep in their beds, or together in one bed. It is more fun and feels less lonely. I should clarify that sleeping together is a pleasure of less developed countries (third world, less technological, poorer). This gives a tangible sense of family, people feel less lonely. Often this is caused by crumbled living conditions, in our case, it is by choice. We love being touched and promote togetherness. Americans and the British are notorious for sleeping separately and touching each other least. But they also have time together as they sit on a couch watching television together. I presume so from commercials and movies as I don't recall ever witnessing that in real life. This is funny since I have lived in America for over 20 years (since 1996).
So shower. This is our favorite place for meditation. The noise of water and protection from other activities allows you to connect to your interests, to foster ideas about how you would want your life to roll out. Your mind wanders freely. Due to sleep deprivation, you would be still half asleep. Sprinkles of hot water would massage you feeling touched with love. Before the shower, we would start a coffee maker, so after coming from the shower the coffee would be ready. This is one of a great number of tricks that allow us to pack many activities in one day. Since we have the day repeating over and over, we optimize the routines and change them a bit to make our routines more efficient and save time for more important things. More important things vary for people. They include pleasure, creative projects, not urgent projects which may bring a useful outcome in the future such as inventions, study, obtaining a study degree, immigration documents, and projects of that sort. They are not urgent but will open new opportunities. Job search and job applications are other examples of such projects.
I realize now that you might be confused by my description of a typical day. It may seem to you too illogical, unstructured and our way of life may sound absurd to you. Let's separate two issues. The way I describe our typical day is a very typical way of describing things. That reflects much how we think. There is the main storyline and it splits into many branches. Together it makes sense and presented more systematically may be more boring and even longer. As to the way of life, no question it is inefficient, but if you grow up as a human, you grow up from birth as a part of this daily cycle. Every day, every minute, especially during the best thinking minutes in the shower you can exercise your free choice and change how you do things. People try all the time. Especially teenagers try everything to escape this routine cycle. Sometimes you would succeed but in most cases, you would find yourself punished for evading the routine. This routine makes sense in our society because it is empirically tested and optimized for efficiency. The goal is to survive, to procreate, to be more successful and to prepare kids to become more successful.
So we drink coffee, eat, feed the kids. Typically food for breakfast is chosen such that it can be prepared fast. The components are kept in the fridge. Some are good for days, some for weeks. Few are good for months. In the last couple of decades, the food became full of chemical preservatives. They increase the time the food can be stored but poison our bodies a bit causing health issues. How much of preservative has been added to the food and how much they harm you are big secrets. The food industry protects these secrets well.
Clean food is more expensive and to buy it you need more free time since it spoils faster.
In the morning the kids would normally ask or complain, why do they have to go to school, they would say that it is boring, too much time is spent riding a bus and that they already know everything they are being taught. My wife would explain that school is good because the kids get an education that is needed to get a better job and be more successful. I would explain that the school is needed because the parent needs time to go to work and this is to get paid which we need to pay for food, housing, cars, computers, and toys. The kids would appreciate the last two since they like computer games and toys. The need for Housing and food impresses them little since they have no experience of homelessness and hunger.