I was in the habit of getting one foot on the ground and then with the bike in an upright position swinging my other leg over the top of the bike. My wife after a hip replacement was having a great deal of difficulty swinging her leg over the bike and started to use a curb to gain to more height with the leg on the ground.
I realized watching her that there was no reason to have the bile upright when getting her leg over the saddle. If she leaned the bike over toward the leg she was standing on, the height of the saddle relative to the ground was reduced by more than a foot.