Ex-J.Crew exec says she used to work 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. without a break, followed by hours of phone meetings at home

• J. Crew's former president Jenna Lyons recalled working over ten hours a day.
• Lyons spoke on a recent podcast, which was released Monday.

J.Crew's former president sounds relieved to no longer be working the long hours often expected of executives.

Lyons is J.Crew's former president and creative director, holding the position between 2010 and 2017. She's also known for starring on "Real Housewives of New York."

Lyons appeared on an episode of "The Skinny Confidential Him & Her" podcast, hosted by entrepreneurs Lauryn Evarts and Michael Bosstick.

In the podcast episode, Lyons spoke about her time leading J.Crew, during which she oversaw the J.Crew, Madewell, and Factory divisions.

The schedule sounded pretty grueling. Lyons said she would work every day from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. without breaks, and then she had to join phone calls for more meetings after arriving home.

Lyons said that she was constantly exhausted and had no time to be creative, which led to her decision to leave J.Crew.

"That's the biggest difference in my life now is I get to be creative in a way that I haven't in a really long time," Lyons told the podcast hosts. In total, Lyons worked at J.Crew for 26 years.

Lyons' interview sheds light on the long schedules that executives often work. Apple CEO Tim Cook's daily routine, for example, starts around 4 a.m. and he was known to be the first into the office and the last to leave when he was the iPhone company's chief operating officer.

In April, Lyons also spoke with Time Magazine about her decision to leave the company.

"When I left my job, my whole world sort of dismantled," Lyons told Time. Lyons said that she had placed value on things that weren't really valuable, but when she parted ways with J.Crew, she stopped getting recognized in public as much, an experience she called "humbling."

Still, Lyons's departure from J.Crew was not all rainbows and sunshine. She told Page Six in 2020 that she was "really struggling" with the transition between nonstop work and events to having a clear schedule, and ended up spending most of the year on the couch, looking through art books.

"I went from having every minute of every day on my calendar packed, so much so that I had a bathroom built next to my office so I could jump in there so a meeting could continue and I could pop back in," she told the publication.

Lyons's stint at J.Crew may have been half a decade ago, but the businesswoman is now onto her next chapter, having founded the vegan lash company, LoveSeen, and working as an interior designer with home design company The Expert. She is also rumored to be engaged to photographer Cass Bird.