What the Most Successful People do Before Breakfast Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Brief Summary

The ideal morning is within reach. Start by tracking your time and noticing where you can cut down in order to accommodate a morning routine. Visualize what your ideal morning would be and make sure you have enough time for everything you’d like to do. Consider logistics and slowly integrate the habits you wish to adopt. Keep it adaptable to outside forces until it’s just as you’d like it. To have a more productive weekend, plan ahead and make a list of activities that will keep you excited and looking forward. Schedule in rest time too. To be productive at work, notice when you’re actually working on your time tracking sheet. Plan your priorities, cut out distractions, and nurture your career capital. Finally, make sure you’re noticing your wins and improvements to make for a happy day-to-day life.

About the Author

Laura Vanderkam is a time-management expert and author of best-selling productivity books including Juliet’s School of Possibilities, Off the Clock, I know How She Does It and 168 Hours. Her work has appeared in publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA today, City Journal, Fortune, and Fast Company. She has appeared on numerous TV programs including The Today Show and CBS This Morning. She lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and five children. She blogs at LauraVanderkam.com

Topics

Self Development Management & Leadership

What the Most Successful People do Before Breakfast Book Summary Preview

Who Should Read This

Entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs.

Anyone looking to get the most out of their day.

People who feel they have little time to achieve their dreams or work on personal projects.

What You’ll Learn

How early mornings can make your entire week more productive.

How to time manage all your activities and keep a log of how you’re spending your day.

How to get more done on the weekend and at work.

Key Insights

Time-management expert Laura Vanderkam knows the importance of a good morning routine. Vanderkam argues that although days may feel short, we aren’t capitalizing enough on the best-kept secret of some of the most successful people: the hours before breakfast. This is where you can find time to work on a dream project, get ahead on your career, and stay on top of your relationships. In this book, Vanderkam reveals how hyper-productive people use this time and how you can too.

Mornings can be hectic for most households so it can be easy to fill them with small chores or inconsequential tasks.

The author explains how in her household, mornings can get pretty hectic. After her 7 AM wake-up time, she has to run around making sure her children get out the door and to school on time before getting herself ready for work. Oftentimes, she’s tempted to spend the rest of the morning online, checking e-mails and decompressing.

But having studied how the most productive people use their time, Vanderkam knows that this isn’t the only way. The most productive people know that mornings can be sacred: a time square away the things that are most important to us so they don’t get pushed down the to-do list during the rest of the day.

Think of the things that you value that get lost in the hustle and bustle of day to day life. It could be exercise and stretching, reading and working on writing a book, or writing an annual report for work. These precious tasks are important to do the first thing because otherwise, the day can wear us out before we’ve had a chance to get to them. This makes morning the perfect time to fit these things in, while we’re still fresh-brained and energetic.

James Citrin, the leader of a headhunting agency called Spencer Stuart’s North American Board and CEO Practice, interviewed executives about morning routines and unsurprisingly found that 18 of 20 woke up before 6 A.M. every day.

Steve Reinemund, the former CEO of PepsiCo and dean of the School of Business at Wake Forest University is another example. He starts his day at 5 a.m. and goes for a four-mile run. After that, he either reads or prays. Only then is it time for breakfast and morning-time with the kids.

How do you know which “important things” to do in the morning? Choose the hard but rewarding things.

The author notes that it may be difficult to distinguish the things that are important to you from the things that will get done anyway. But this distinction is crucial—the best morning routines are those...