“I wake up by my phone, which is in the bedroom…I usually get up at about 6:40am and I’m out of the house in 10 minutes because I’m going to an exercise class.”

La Prairie laughs as she admits she bought herself an “old school” alarm clock, but it’s still in its packaging gathering dust at home. “I don’t use it,” she says, admitting that – shock, horror – she uses her mobile phone alarm to wake her up in the morning. This morning routine is a scene most of us will recognise; in 2011 YouGov reported 60% of 16-34 year olds used a phone as their primary timepiece, and 26% of the 1000 respondents quizzed used the alarm on their mobile phone to wake up.

It’s refreshing to hear that Google’s Head of Digital Wellbeing is just like us.

No emails in bed

In her own words, La Prairie’s morning looks like this: “Pick up the phone, turn off that alarm, and if I check anything before I go to the door it’s always text messages or WhatsApp.” You’ll note email-checking is most certainly not on the agenda.

In 2016, a study found one in three people check their phones in the middle of the night; respondents said they burn the midnight oil doing a vast range of things including reading the news and responding to work emails.

Bucking that trend, on a typical weekday morning La Prairie tries not to check her emails before she’s at her desk.

She explains: “Google being a global company means there’s often a lot of stuff that’s come in. If it’s come in overnight, I would rather be at my desk and be able to deal with it than to read it and not feel like I can deal with it.”

After taking part in an early-morning exercise class (“I love Soul Cycle,” she tells me), La Prairie then spends 30-45 minutes before the rest of her team gets in checking her emails and preparing herself for the rest of the day.

“I check my emails and deal with everything that has come in overnight and then, you know, get going with the rest of the day.”

My morning routine: Google’s Head of Digital Wellbeing Rose La Prairie