Al Roker's early-morning wake-up secrets

When you see Al Roker on “Today” each morning, you probably don't realize that he’s already been up for more than three hours getting ready for the show. Here’s Al’s description of his daily routine and his tip for always waking up on time.

My schedule:
3:30 a.m.: Wake up/shower/get dressed
3:45 a.m.: Go on Internet and telephone with “Today” show meteorologist Don Tsouhnikas
4:15 a.m.: Leave home to go to gym and work out
6:15 a.m.: Arrive at Studio 1-A in Rockefeller Center
6:30 a.m.: Special Effects, I mean, make-up
6:45 am: Go to WNBC for local “Today” show tease
7:00 a.m.: Do the Today Show
10:00 a.m.: Finish the “Today” show

The trick is to lay out clothing the night before, get a good night’s sleep and never wake your spouse and ask, "Does this tie match this shirt?" I also find drinking lots of water before you go to bed keeps your skin looking good and insures you never oversleep because you're always getting up to go to the bathroom.

Glitch recovery
When we do the program, sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned. Just last week, we were doing a cooking segment on how to make one dish seem like many to please all the members of your family.

To save time during our cooking segments, our food stylist puts all the ingredients in individual bowls for ease of use when it comes time to add that particular ingredient into the dish.

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Well, one of the bowls was full of peppers and was a little slippery. When I picked it up, instead of just putting the peppers into the skillet, I dumped the whole bowl in, with the peppers still inside it, and the whole kit and kaboodle just sat there in the skillet.

One thing you have to know how to do in live television is turn lemons into lemonade, so to make it a little more fun, I started adding all the other ingredients in, bowl and all. Of course, I don’t recommend you try that at home – too crunchy.

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