"After I do [x], I do [y]"?

Question

So, I'm trying to construct a sentence along the lines of "After I do this action, I do that action," but I'm having the absolute hardest time figuring out what syntax and verb conjugations to use. Specifically, I'm trying to say "After I wake up, I feed my cat". Could I get some assistance?

Answer 1

That depends on context.

• (After/Once) I wake up, I feed my cat.

  起きたら、猫にえさをやる。

• (The order/sequence is) after I wake up, I feed my cat.
  or (Only) after I wake up, I feed my cat.

  起きてから、猫にえさをやる。

• (After) I wake up, (then) I feed my cat.

  起きた後（で）、猫にえさをやる。

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PS

△ 起きると、猫にえさをやる。

is unnatural, especially for talking about your own actions.

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Thanks to @oals!

Answer 2

I feel that the forms in David's answer are a bit uncommon. I'd just use a plain 〜たら:

朝起きたら、猫にエサをやる。

When I wake up in the morning, I feed my cat.

Answer 3

You have several possibilites to do this. The most used are:

1. Verb + と + action afterwards. This is a good choice, if you want to list many subsequent events. The verb must be in the present tense. If you still want to speak about the past, make the part after と in past tense.
2. Verb + [後]{あと}で + action afterwards. The focus here is on the previous event being finished, so the verb has to be in the past tense.
3. te-Verb + から + action afterwards. Similar to ５時から, the から means "since" here. It is preferably to use this, instead of 後で, if you want to emphasize the since-ness.

Applying this on your example sentence, you'd get:

[明日]{あした}、[起]{お}きると[猫]{ねこ}に[餌]{えさ}をやる, I added tomorrow here

[昨日]{きのう}、起きた後で猫に餌をやった, talking about yesterday here.

起きてから猫に餌をやっている, ever since waking up, you are feeding the cat. Lucky cat ^^