I Tried the ‘Top 1% Woman’ Night Routine—And It Made Me Question Everything I Thought About Productivity

Hi, my name is Ellie-Mae, and I’m a chronic Type A. Fundamentally, I am a woman built on structure, rituals and to-do lists; without them, I’m less “girlboss” and more buffering wheel. So when the “Top 1%” night-time routine started saturating my FYP, I couldn’t look away - the carrot was being dangled. And if you’re even mildly Type A, this is basically catnip.

Somewhere between self-help culture and social media, our evening routines have become a productivity project. Scroll through TikTok long enough, and you’ll find: #NightRoutine, #ThatGirl, #SelfImprovement - billions of views of hyper-optimised evenings promising to calmly dismantle your day in the name (and hope) of being better tomorrow. The “Top 1% Woman”, as she’s now dubbed online, isn’t just going to bed. She’s conducting a nightly review, audit, and reset.

It’s safe to say, it doesn’t feel fringe anymore. It’s familiar. Even expected. As though our pursuit of calm, control, and self-improvement has created a new rule: even rest should be optimised. And our productivity is somewhat attached to our sense of success.

That expectation reflects a wider truth: pressure is already high. In the UK, we’re structurally stressed, and these routines have become the aesthetic response. One in three young workers takes time off due to stress, while women face higher levels driven by workload, unpaid labour, and emotional strain. Burnout is also disproportionately female, with around 60% of women in senior positions reporting it frequently. If that’s not a sign of the times, I don’t know what is.

As ‘That Girl’ discipline and AM-to-PM routine culture dominate social feeds, are high-achieving women beginning to equate self-improvement with identity rather than activity? Is the pressure no longer to perform well, but to constantly perform better?

So yes - as a self-proclaimed connoisseur of routine, I had to try it. For journalistic purposes, of course…not because the promise of a slightly more “sorted” 9 pm version of myself is exactly my weakness.

As I weigh up whether routines like this genuinely serve us, I can’t help but wonder if my instant draw to them is inherent. Raised by overachievers, the need to experiment with rituals designed to optimise comes second nature to me. My grandma ran her own company; reviewing and auditing were how things got done. I’ve always linked my drive to her. That inheritance now exists within a culture where optimisation is constant, visible, and evolving.

Still, I committed to the experiment.

Through trialling the “Top 1%” routine myself, the bigger questions started to surface: what is this culture actually doing to us, and is this nightly drive for self-improvement genuinely supporting wellbeing, or simply giving burnout a more aesthetic format?

So, I spoke to the experts to help unpack, unwind, and dare I say it, call it a night. Keen to read more expert-backed advice on how to improve your sleep? Look no further. We've also got guides to the best sunrise alarm clocks, sleep meditation, and sleepmaxxing, here.

I Tried the ‘Top 1% Woman’ Night Routine—My Review

First up, what is the ‘top 1% woman’ nighttime routine?

On paper, it’s deceptively simple: a nightly review, audit and reset. What went well today? What could I do better tomorrow? And the top priorities for the day ahead. Three clean prompts that, in theory, promise a little hit of control before bed.

I'll admit it - It comforted me more than I expected it to. Sitting, looking back over the day, I could feel every bit of tension in my chest loosen immediately. Holding myself accountable for the unanswered emails and 103 unopened WhatsApps, the moment that didn’t quite land, the general sense of not-enoughness; all of it softened with a quiet promise: I’ll try again tomorrow. Do it differently next time.

​It felt like control. Closure. Even progress. Which, I guess, is probably the appeal.

Good news for the chronically organised: research in sleep psychology continues to show that writing things down before bed helps reduce cognitive arousal, with a popular 2018 study finding that people who wrote to-do lists fell asleep faster. As someone who’s practically on a first-name basis with insomnia, I’ll take the win.

Eight nights in, I was sitting with my journal - and yes, I could feel it working. A quick written download really can reduce cognitive arousal and make it easier to drop off - the brain stops trying to hold everything at once. Mine stopped offering its usual bonus preview of tomorrow’s to-do list… mostly because I’d already written it down.

But somewhere in that relief, something shifted. The same questions that felt grounding from day one to day four started to feel sharper on repeat. What went well started sounding like what didn’t. What I could improve began to feel less reflective and more like instruction.

And it’s here that I find myself wondering whether I’m actually switching off… or just changing format.

Is your evening routine helping you - or quietly burning you out?

With burnout lingering in the background, waiting for the slightest opening, I can’t help but wonder whether hyper-optimised routines are self-care or self-surveillance with impeccable journaling skills.

Dr Alka Patel, Longevity and Lifestyle Medicine Doctor, sees this shift play out clinically all the time. “It tips when your routine stops supporting you and starts judging you,” she explains. Healthy ambition says, ‘I want to feel and function well. Burnout thinking says, ‘If I do not execute perfectly, I am falling behind.’ That is the shift I see clinically.”

A brief review, according to Dr Patel, can be useful, as research shows our brain likes closure. “Unfinished tasks linger through what psychologists call the Zeigarnik effect, where incomplete loops keep replaying until resolved. Writing things down can reduce that cognitive drag.”

I suppose this is where the tension lives: what begins as a helpful tool for closure slowly becomes something more loaded. The intention is support, but the experience starts to feel like scrutiny.

That’s the pivot, she says. “I see it a lot in high-achieving women. The routine starts as support, then turns into surveillance. Miss one step, and there is guilt. Miss three days and there is panic. Outwardly, you’re still coping - answering emails, looking polished - functioning. But underneath, you’re running on elevated stress chemistry, shallow recovery, poor sleep.”

The impact isn’t just mental, it’s biological. “The body reads chronic pressure as a physiological event. Elevated stress load and cortisol affect sleep depth, glucose stability, hormone signalling, decision-making and even the speed of ageing,” she says.

In other words, the very woman trying hardest to optimise can end up less resilient.

Her verdict: “Peak performance turns dangerous when recovery starts to feel undeserved.”

Why does this land so deeply?

Everyone’s reason for optimising their routines is different. Mine? Control. I’ll admit it - the thought of missing a professional opportunity rattles my birdcage. I’m constantly scanning for loopholes: better systems, sharper routines, anything that makes success feel a little more obtainable.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t say how exhausting it is. Underneath the ambition sits a constant need to get it right. To be perfect.

I know this sits well beyond me. Culturally, women are still expected to be everything, everywhere, all at once: high-performers at work, present partners at home, emotionally fluent friends, and - just for good measure - entrepreneurial side-hustlers. We’re told we can have it all; less often are we told how tiring it is to hold it all.

​No wonder these optimisation rituals feel so compelling. McKinsey and LeanIn’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report found that around four in ten women report burnout. Throw in research linking high-achieving women to perfectionism and constant self-monitoring, and the appeal is seductive to say the least: as life feels overwhelming, control starts to look like comfort.

​As neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart puts it, in an age of biohacking and self-optimisation, there must be a limit. “If habits fuel self-criticism rather than self-awareness, they become counterproductive,” she says. “Sometimes, in this busy modern world, the art of being rather than doing is the best medicine.”

​So, in a culture where productivity has quietly become an identity, I’m wondering, how do we define success without burning out in the process?

Experts reveal: a genuinely restorative evening routine

Gather round the metaphorical circle, it’s time for some Type A tea. Apparently, there is a hyper-optimised routine that doesn’t end in burnout. I’ll let the experts take it from here.

​To Dr Patel, the key is what she calls “precision without pressure.”

“The best evening routine is one that lowers your internal noise,” she explains. “Rather than cramming in supplements, trackers, and self-assessments, the science-backed essentials focus on calming both mind and body: lower light, lower stimulation, less emotional loading, fewer blood sugar swings, and a predictable wind-down cue that the brain learns to recognise. Think of it like landing a plane; you don’t drop out of the sky; you descend in stages. That gentle deceleration allows the nervous system to prepare for restorative sleep.”

For those seeking the benefits of self-optimisation minus the crippling guilt, she recommends a simple framework: R.E.S.T - Review, Exhale, Soothe, Trust.

• Review: Lightly reflect on the day. Two minutes, not twenty. Ask what mattered and identify one priority for tomorrow - closure, not critique.
• Exhale: Dim the lights, slow your breathing, and step away from screens and emotionally loaded messages. Your brain and melatonin need a softer runway.
• Soothe: Embrace calming, repeatable rituals like reading, stretching, or a warm shower to shift your nervous system out of alert mode.
• Trust: Sleep isn’t something you force; it’s something you allow. Create the conditions, then step aside.

Clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd agrees, emphasising that there is no universal blueprint. A healthy routine, she notes, “should be evidence-based, leave you feeling better rather than worse, and be flexible enough to adapt to real life. Aim for consistency, not perfection, and reserve the right to change it if it stops serving you.”

Ultimately, the most effective evening routine isn’t the most aesthetic or ambitious. It’s the one that helps you rest, recover, and begin again.

So… would I do the “Top 1%” routine again?

Ultimately, what I’ve landed on isn’t whether the “Top 1%” routine improves your evenings. It’s how it makes you feel about yourself in the process.

The verdict I’m left with after trialling it - and still very much wanting to dip back into the hyper-optimised routine pool - is this: I love the control of auditing and resetting. I love making tomorrow feel slightly more possible than today. That quiet sense of direction, of being a little more on top of things, is where I feel safe.

But it only works when it doesn’t become another performance; chosen, not enforced. Something I return to, not something I’m ruled by.

And that, for anyone trying to build a “healthy” evening routine in the age of optimisation, is the real sweet spot: not doing more, just doing what actually lets you switch off…properly.

Ironically, productivity improves the moment you stop trying to optimise it. Log yourself out of your routine. Sit with yourself. Let the day be done.

Because you don’t need to put yourself - or your productivity - on a pedestal, and you don’t need to be in constant pursuit of being a high achiever to be successful. Especially not at 9 pm.

And maybe, that's what I now understand about the “Top 1% Woman”: she isn’t someone who has perfected rest, she’s someone who has forgotten it doesn’t need perfecting.

MC'S EVENING ROUTINE ESSENTIALLY