Now that I’ve swapped out most of my dumb switches for Zwave and everything is paired to HE, I’m struggling a bit with some of the ideal automations. Most weekdays are fairly routine, I wake up first, then my wife. I want some lights on and my wife wants different ones. What I’ve stumbled into doing is creating Modes for Workday Morning Me and Workday Morning Wife. I activate those modes based on RM rules that determine that each of us is up for a workday. Then I use a triggered rule to turn on all the appropriate lights. Separate rules turn off the lights when each of us leaves. It feels very complex and being that I’m not using any definitions in Mode Lighting, not sure if what I’m doing makes sense. Is there a standard practice for what I’m trying to do?
Standard is what works for you. There's no wrong answer. I'll tell you about my morning stuff. Maybe that will spark some ideas, or none at all because my needs are obviously different from yours.
I have contact sensors wired to my qi chargers. the house knows if one of us is out of be or both because we NEVER go anywhere without our phones.
So, that being said here are the modes and rules that I have:
1 phone undocked - quiet time (morning, or evening) - the light strip under the bed triggers on motion, but main bedroom lights stay off. the kitchen and dining only use can lighting and strip lighting. Keeps the house very dim, but functional in the morning when one of us is still in bed.
2 phones undocked - Home - house interacts as normal. Lights in the bedroom all turn on when motion triggers. The Off triggers for any of my lights aren't controlled or restricted by mode. They will turn off after x-number of minutes inactive.
I know this might not help much, but there's really no right or wrong way. Just what works for you. The only lights that I really pay attention to during quiet times are the kitchen/dining and bedroom.
This is similar to what I do. I have several rules which govern the lighting automation, especially in bedrooms. I then use Alexa routines to allow one to sort of override those lighting restrictions.
April's idea of the contact sensor wired to the Qi is absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately my wife likes to leave her phone on the charger sometimes.
Can always get a 2nd 'out of bed' charger. 
She can move it
OR,
instead of the switch April uses, have it detect orientation. Your wife can put the phone at a different angle to say I'm up. Maybe flat for night/bed, tilted UP for awake.
My husband does too. I have some rules written that contain a virtual switch that directs lights to turn on based on motion. If it's on for longer than x number of minutes and if after a certain time, or both phones still docked, then change mode to quiet time. He likes to throw those in there for me to solve. Keep in mind that I don't want to have to consciously press a button or move something to indicate that I'm up.
I'm going to post a link to my project qi charger. You can check it out if you want. It's pretty basic and I've spent some time learning about glue as of late to solve the problem of the button slipping.
I've tried several software based triggers to detect orientation or motion. They're all very difficult to maintain and failed quite often. Very unstable.
I saw it when you posted originally. It's a fantastic idea.
Awh, thanks Doug, feel free to steal it if it works. Or the concept. Another use would be a pressure mat. there are several out there that you could probably put under the mattress somewhere. then you wouldn't have to worry about phones docking and orientation. They are constructed with the same contact sensor that I used for my qi project.
Thanks for the ideas, all. It doesn't sound like I'm too far off then and will just need to continue refining my rules. There's so much flexibility (a good thing!) that its easy to feel like you are going off the rails and drifting away from best practices.
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