Present Simple Daily Routines

The present simple is the perfect tense for talking about daily routines — the things you do every day or on a regular basis. Common routine verbs include: wake up, get up, have breakfast, go to work, start, finish, come home, have dinner, and go to bed. For example: "I wake up at seven," "She has breakfast at eight," "They go to school by bus."

When describing routines, we often use time expressions to say when things happen: "in the morning," "at noon," "in the evening," "at night," "every day," "on Mondays." These expressions usually go at the end of the sentence: "He finishes work at five." Remember the third person rules: "She gets up early" (not "get up"), "He has lunch at one" (not "have"). Talking about daily routines is one of the first topics in English courses because it is useful for real life and it helps you practise the present simple with many different verbs and time expressions. Cambridge and IELTS exams often include questions about routines.