What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast Book Summary - What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast Book explained in key points

Listen to the Intro

00:00

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast summary

Name: What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast
Rating: 4.3 (925 reviews)
Author: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam

And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and Home

4.3 (925 ratings)

26 mins

Topics

Simplify Podcast Success Time Management Self-Help

Table of Contents

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast
Summary of 10 key ideas

Audio & text in the Blinkist app

Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? Time management tips to get the most out of your mornings.

Life often seems to pass in a blur. Most days, there’s so much to do that you can’t even think about the things that matter most to you.

By the time you’re done packing lunch for the kids, answering emails at work and picking up groceries on the way home, you’re drained.

So how on earth are you supposed to find the energy to spend some quality time with your friends and family, let alone make a start on that book you’ve always dreamed of writing?

Well, best-selling author and renowned time-management expert Laura Vanderkam has a solution.

There’s always time to do what you really want to, she argues. The trick is knowing where to look. And that’s something the world’s most successful highfliers know all about.

Ask any one of them where they find the extra time to nurture their careers, relationships and personal dreams, and they’ll give you a three-word answer: in the morning.

All it takes is careful planning, mindfulness about how you spend your time and bit of self-discipline. Master that, and you’ll be amazed by how much you can fit into your daily schedule.

In the following blinks, you’ll find out

how to use a time log to keep track of how you spend your time;
why early nights and early starts will make you more productive; and
how to apply your new time-management skills to other areas of your life.

Start the day by immediately doing the things that matter most to you rather than putting them off.

Mornings are hectic and often pass in the blink of an eye. You jump out of bed, bustle about getting the kids ready for school and then rush out the door and off to work. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Rethink your mornings and they can become an opportunity to do the things that matter most.

The key is to stop postponing important tasks. Do them now rather than waiting for the perfect moment later on.

Everyone wants more time to do the things they care about. For some, that’s exercise; for others, it’s reading or putting in a few hours on a long-term work project like writing an annual report. It’s all too easy to let daily chores and obligations distract you. And, by the time you’re done responding to work-related emails and doing the laundry, all you want to do is collapse in front of the TV.

That makes mornings the perfect time to accomplish your goals. Take it from James Citrin, the leader of the headhunting agency Spencer Stuart’s North American Board and CEO Practice.

He interviewed a group of high-flying executives about their morning routines, and 18 out of 20 of them had this one thing in common: they were up before 6 a.m. every day.

Citrin is also an early riser, and he uses the morning hours to work out. The world is still calm in the wee hours – a perfect time for some quiet reflection!

Then there’s Steve Reinemund, the former CEO and chairman of PepsiCo and the current dean of the School of Business at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He gets up even earlier, starting his day at 5 a.m. with a four-mile run. After that, he takes some quality “me time” and either reads or prays. Next on the itinerary is a good breakfast with his kids. If he’s traveling, he makes sure he can stick to his tried-and-true routine by only ever staying in hotels with treadmills.

Perhaps you’ve also tried to develop a morning routine but fallen prey to the temptation of grabbing some extra sleep. That’s a common enough problem. As we’ll see in the following blinks, it can be overcome. The secret? Willpower.

The best morning routines are about getting non-urgent but important things done.

What exactly is a good morning routine? Well, it doesn’t mean doing the laundry. That’s going to get done at some point anyway. The same goes for conference calls or anything else that you can do later on in the day.

The best morning routines are about doing things that matter to you but require a little bit of extra self-motivation. These are the kinds of activities that don’t have an immediate payoff but might just change your life in the long run.

Get into the habit of using mornings to spend quality time with your family and practice self-care.

Your career is important, but it’s just one of the pillars that support a fulfilling life. Relationships are another pillar. How often have you come home from work and found yourself too tired to spend quality time with your friends and family?

Well, that’s why it’s time to start using your mornings to nurture your relationships!

Start transforming your morning routine by tracking your time and envisaging your ideal morning.

Now that you’ve seen just how much you can get done in the morning, it’s time to ask the all-important question: How do you start putting your new morning routine into action? There are five key steps. In this blink, you’ll learn about the first two.

Start making your morning more productive by recording how you spend your time over the week.

Consider the logistics of your ideal routine and take your time adopting new habits.

Now that you have a better understanding of how you spend your time over the week and have pictured your perfect morning, let’s turn to the third step.

This is all about logistics. Put differently, it’s about figuring out if your ideal morning routine is doable.

Plan weekend activities ahead of time and savor the sense of anticipation.

Weekends are your opportunity to get some well-deserved rest and recharge your mental and physical batteries, which are integral to your well-being.

But it’s all too easy to waste these precious hours on a random hodgepodge of activities. By the time Monday rolls round, you realize you haven’t gotten as much out of your time off as you could have.

Make your weekend plans special by writing a list of actionable dreams and embracing spontaneity.

There are lots of different ways of planning your weekend. Let’s take a look at a couple of strategies you can start putting into action today.

The first tip is to make a list of your top one hundred dreams.

Boost your chances of success at work by keeping a log of how you spend your hours in the office.

How much time do you spend working, sleeping and doing chores? Tally it up and then ask yourself a question: Are you really sure that’s right? Most people think they know where their hours go, but it’s common to overestimate some things, such as sleep, and underestimate others, such as housework.

Work falls into the first category. People generally overestimate. That makes getting a realistic overview of how you spend your time key. The trick is to learn to mind your hours.

Achieve success by planning for it and cutting out “work” that doesn’t bring you anything.

Success is the fruit of planning. To be successful, you first have to make success possible. That sounds like a tautology, right? Well, there’s actually more to it than meets the eye.

Laying the groundwork for success is all about carefully choosing your priorities for the day ahead – every day. To do that, you need an accountability system that won’t let you down.

Success in the workplace is about practice, depositing career capital and looking for pleasure.

There are things we’ve all heard a million times before and yet still find hard to put into action. In this final blink, we’ll take a look at some time-honored truths it might be useful to remind yourself of.

First off – practice makes perfect.

Want to see all full key ideas from What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast?

Key ideas in What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

More knowledge in less time

Read or listen

Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.

Find your next read

Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.

Shortcasts ^New

We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

What is What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast about?

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast (2013) is a guide to the early hours. Packed with useful tips drawn from the lives of today’s highfliers, it lays out an actionable plan that’ll help you design and implement your perfect morning routine. Do that, and you’ll find time for the things that matter most to you. Even better – once you’ve mastered a few time-management skills and revolutionized your mornings, you’ll be set to boost your work performance and get the most out of your weekends.

Best quote from What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

[L]earning to use mornings well is, in our distracted world, what separates achievement from madness.

—Laura Vanderkam

Who should read What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast?

Managers
Parents
Entrepreneurs
Busy bees

About the Author

Laura Vanderkam, an American blogger and public speaker, writes about productivity and time management. A regular contributor to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she is also the cohost of the podcast Best of Both Worlds. Her other books include 168 Hours and I Know How She Does It.

Categories with What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

Career & Success Productivity

Books like What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

168 Hours

Laura Vanderkam

You Have More Time Than You Think

21 min

4.3

My Morning Routine

Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander

How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired

Your Morning Guide to Daily Happiness

16 min

4.1

The Everyday Hero Manifesto

Robin Sharma

Activate Your Positivity, Maximize Your Productivity, Serve The World

Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

22 min

4.5

I Know How She Does It

Laura Vanderkam

How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

17 min

3.7

The Achievement Habit

Bernard Roth

Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life

13 min

4.2

Less Doing, More Living

Ari Meisel

Make Everything in Life Easier

21 min

3.6

Who Will Cry When You Die?

Robin Sharma

Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8 A.M.)

It's Time to Cheer for Yourself

18 min

4.4

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Intuition or deliberation? Where you can (and can't) trust your brain

Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

25 min

4.4

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do

Amy Morin

Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success

40 min

4.6

ReWork

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Unorthodox advice for growing companies

19 min

4.5

The New Corner Office

Laura Vanderkam

How the Most Successful People Work from Home

13 min

4.1

Tranquility by Tuesday

Laura Vanderkam

9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters

16 min

4.3

Mindful Self-Discipline

Giovanni Dienstmann

Living with Purpose and Achieving Your Goals in a World of Distractions

18 min

4.5

The Design Thinking Workbook

CJ Meadows

Essential Skills for Creativity and Business Growth

Listening to Ignite the Human Mind

20 min

4.5

The Work-Life Balance Myth

David J. McNeff

Rethinking Your Optimal Balance for Success

The Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World-Class Performers

Timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy

33 min

4.6

A Handbook for New Stoics

Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez

How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control

23 min

4.6

How Successful People Think

John C. Maxwell

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

16 min

4.3

10x Is Easier Than 2x

Dan Sullivan with Benjamin Hardy

How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less

17 min

3.9

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

Kevin Kruse

The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs.

A Revolutionary Approach to Success

Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Improve your life by only focusing on the essentials

My Remarkable Life in Show Business

Your Personal Guide to the Mastery of Magic Words

Train Your Subconscious to Grow Mentally and Materially

Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

23 min

4.4

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M. Christensen

Finding Fulfillment Using Lessons From Some of the World's Greatest Businesses

Create a Life You Really Love with Less Stress and More Flow

A Woman's Guide to Using the Healing Power of Fasting to Burn Fat, Boost Energy, and Balance Hormones

The Power of Self-Discipline

How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win

16 min

4.5

Dare to Lead (New Version)

Brené Brown

Brave work. Tough conversations. Whole hearts.

21 min

4.3

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

Julie Smith

Everyday Tools for Life’s Ups & Downs

Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Sleep Well Every Night

20 min

4.5

Zero to One (New Version)

Peter Thiel with Blake Masters

Notes on Startups, or How to Build The Future

The secrets of 40 millionaires' wealth, revealed

On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

17 min

4.5

Every Job Is a Sales Job

Cindy McGovern

How to Use the Art of Selling to Win at Work

Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life

How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive

A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

14 min

4.1

People ❤️ Blinkist

Sven O.

It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

Thi Viet Quynh N.

Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

Jonathan A.

Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

Renee D.

Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.