What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home

This small paperback packs in three of the author's previous ebooks: What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life (A Penguin Special from Portfolio) What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off (A Penguin Special from Portfolio) What the Most Successful People Do at Work: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Career (A Penguin Specialfrom Portfolio) It also includes a generous appendix with interesting and useful new content: 3 "time makeovers", how to do your own time makeover, and 50 great tips on time management. I read a lot of time management books, articles and blogs, so I see a lot of the same recycled content. Laura Vanderkam's books are delightfully different. She chooses interesting people to interview in a huge range of professions, and has a writing style that's extremely engaging and easy to read. She mixes anecdotes from other successful people in with her own experiences, adding a lot of personality to what would otherwise be a very dry list of tips. I'm currently taking time off from work and I still find tons of useful information in her books to help me be more effective (and have more fun!) in my personal life. The "weekends" book was especially eye-opening, as I've never thought about the concept of "scheduling" your leisure time. Her simple suggestion of creating "anchor events" has changed the way my family spends our weekends, and consequently we have done a lot more Big Fun Things than I would have expected with two small kids. What I like especially is that her books are not just recycled content from her blog, as many ebooks seem to be. Her writing style is not dry and boring like most nonfiction - in some places, it's downright poetic and often philosophical. Hers is the only time management book I've read that actually made me a bit weepy in one section! If you liked 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think , you will definitely enjoy this book as well. The content is new and interesting, but follows the same philosophy. These books are the sort I revisit often and make notes about, so getting all three ebooks in print version was extremely helpful. It's a small volume, a quick read, and a great value if you want to get more out of your days, both in and out of the "office", whatever that means for you.

This book in a nutshell: Wake up early and use that morning time to do something that enriches your life. The magic of this advice comes not in the words of the book, but in the dispositional change it suggests. The book's central thesis: you have the power to change your life. What this book is doing, in a succinct and marvelous way, is intimating a reference group that you can be a part of if you desire. Movers, shakers, successful people-- all of them, the book claims, use the morning hours to advance something important to them. There are a lot of concrete suggestions in this small ebook for managing your new routine, but it all comes down to making those morning rituals a habit. However, WHAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO BEFORE BREAKFAST is not only for morning people. Vanderkam talks a lot about getting up early, but truly, it’s not about when you rise, but how you prioritize your day. It’s about using those first hours productively, whether they come before dawn or not. This is the dispositional change that can truly impact your life. It's a great message, and a great read. Had a cup of coffee and a biscotti and finished the book before I knew it!

In this slim, but practical ebook, time management author and trainer Laura Vanderkam has put together some gems on how to get the most out of mornings and, as a consequence, the rest of your day. Mornings hold the key to taking control of our schedules, full stop. Drawing on anecdotes from some well-known American executives and solid scientific research Venderkam provides a compelling case for altering the way we start our day. Studies show that most Americans, across age groups, get up at about 6 a.m. The time between waking and starting work is spent herding children towards the door for school, tidying up, personal grooming, commuting and so on. From a study of the time logs and profiles of high-achieving people Vanderkam reports that former CEO of Pepsico, Steve Reinemund is up at 5 a.m., goes for a 4-mile run, prays and eats breakfast with his family before going to run a Fortune 500 Company. James Citrin, head of Spencer Stuart is also exercising at 6:00 and then spends time in quiet time to consider the day ahead. Citrin did a survey of the morning rituals of executives he admired to find that the latest any of them was up regularly was 6 a.m. Successful people have their priorities clear and early mornings are the time when they have most control over their schedules. But that is probably true for all of us. We can divide the world up into “night people” and “morning people.” Both groups have only 168 hours each week, but not all hours are equally suited to all things. The common reason for not rising early cited by “night people” is that they do their best work then. There is little scientific evidence that this is true. Professor Roy Baumeister has spent his career studying self-discipline (I reviewed his book in this paper earlier this year,) and has found a direct correlation between fatigue and self-discipline. “Diets are broken in the evening, not the morning. The majority of impulsive crimes are committed after 11:00 p.m. Lapses in drug use, alcohol abuse, sexual misbehaviour… tend to come about late in the day.” In the early hours of the day we have enough will-power and energy to tackle things that require internal motivation, and that are rarely rewarded immediately. Baumeister also proved that once something is a routine or habit, it requires very little self-discipline to continue. Applied to the argument of this book, people who turn high value tasks into morning rituals conserve their energy for later battles. What are the best morning habits? Vanderkam’s research showed that successful people use their mornings for nurturing their careers, nurturing their relationships, and nurturing themselves. Nurturing your career can take the form of doing focused work, reading in your field, and thinking strategically about your projects or company, or planning the day. One executive is quoted as saying: Every day I have a job; in the morning I think I have a career. To “nurture relationships” Vandekam advised one single mother to get to bed early so she can use her early mornings for Mommy-and-me time with her daughter before beginning her commute to work. What a beautiful way to start a day, giving your child your best, not what is left over of you at the end of the day. Much is made of the value of families having dinner together for the stability and moral growth of children. This surely true of pleasant breakfasts, too. Statistics indicate that dual income couples can find only 12 minutes a day to talk to each other. Early mornings might go some way to address this relationship issue. And then there is “nurturing yourself.” Most of the executives the author quotes use part of their early starts to exercise or do yoga – examples are Xerox’s Ursula Burns, Coors’ van Paasschen, Rodale’s Steve Murphy among others. These are incredibly busy people and they choose the mornings for their exercise routines possibly without knowing how beneficial exercise at this time of day really is. Stress hormones released on waking are counteracted by exercise, as is the blood glucose effects of high-fat diets, and so much more. People exercising in the morning are also more likely to stick to this routine with the heightened ability to apply self-discipline at this time. Spiritual practices – praying, studying scripture or meditating were also found to be popular. The inability to get to bed early enough to allow for an early rise because of the many chores that have to be done before going to bed, doesn’t hold up according to Vanderkam. In the same way that dieticians tell dieters to keep a food log, Vanderkam suggests that to know how you spend your time is best seen from actually tracking it. This involves jotting down what you are doing as you are doing it so you can reflect on exactly how you spend your time. It will become evident that much of the night time activity is unnecessary and of a far lower priority than what can be gained by the early start. This is a practical guide that addresses many of the logistic and other complications that prevent one seizing the golden hours of the day. It will inspire you to rethink your morning routine and you will be so much better off for doing so. Readability Light +---- Serious Insights High --+-- Low Practical High +---- Low Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

Das Buch lässt sich extrem einfach zusammenfassen: planen Sie ihre/n Tag/Woche und machen Sie wenig sinnloses. Am Anfang etwas inspirierend, auf den letzten Seiten (die dann mit Tabellen vollgestopft sind) ist es nur noch ernüchternd. Hatte es eigentlich wegen den guten Rezessionen aus Amerika gekauft. Schade.

Great read & great tips can’t wait to get going. Book has made me change my mornings. Made me feel very positive

C'est exactement c'est qu'il faut lire... C'est le conseil plus l'explication et le résultat d'un processus qui démarre avec le fait de être contient de la réalité et améliorer petit a petit.

Fantastic book, has so much insightful and logical information that almost finished reading it in one day!

The book was very inspiring It is very useful book