Book review- What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam

(These are my reading notes, the highlights!)

Section 1- mornings 
"Hopeful Hours"  (think about how these words can accurately describe the potential of morning time)

-Productivity and positive decision-making happen in the morning. Most failures of self-discipline happen at night. (Diets, vices, crimes)

-Mornings are highly eligible for wasted time, when we see them as full of chaos. If we prepared ourselves before we start taking care of the kids or work, we already have several small victories for the day, advancing us toward the lives we want.

-We all have 168 hours a week, but not all hours are equally suited to all tasks. Longest stretches of concentration happened earlier in the day.

-Will power is a muscle. Things that used to require a lot of self-discipline become habits and rituals and no longer require effort or consideration, we just make them happen. Like toothbrushing.
-I am thinking about and applying what I read in this book to my own life, particularly analyzing whether my email/phone use is occuring at optimal times, or at times that I wouId be most capable of accomplishing something important in my day.  I noticed on my first morning of trying this that I enjoyed starting my morning with this book, exercising, or another good book or project, and not checking my phone first.  It was both a subtle and dramatic shift.  When I did open my email I felt like I was putting other people‘s needs before my own and cluttering my mind before establishing a good foundation for today. Those tasks on email that could have waited an hour and been no worse off interrupted the flow of my reading and progress thinking about this topic and other things.  Great lesson!

-One author/researcher mentioned the usefulness of making his morning ritual something for which he is excited to get out of bed- and makes a list of four things he is grateful for.  It starts the day in a happy mindset.
-Another beautiful idea from him is to put his gratitude into action and write a quick note of appreciation to an actual, specific person: a friend, colleague, mentor, spouse, etc. “This puts him in a loving, connected frame of mind.“  On a spiritual level, one could thank G-d for specific things each morning and gain spiritual connection.  A person could also do this in the format of a journal but that doesn't help with connection, just introspection.

-The book discusses the power of making something happen – knowing that you have to work at it for a couple weeks.  Start gradually, charge your progress and then it will start to stick.  Then will be at the point that if you skip it, it feels like you are really missing something essential.

-As mentioned above, in just four or five days of rethinking my early morning routine, I feel that these "hopeful hours" are too important to my sense of accomplishment and mission to spend on semi conscious activities. I want to start my day with a cascade of successes.

-Visualize your perfect morning – or perfect anything, and take steps to reach it! Don’t settle for mediocre.

Section 2, with the most successful people do you on the weekend –
-Did you ever think that there are 60 hours between Friday evening and Monday morning? Even if 24 of them are sleeping, that leaves 36 to accomplish relaxation, important things, and recreational activities.

-We have about 1000 weekends with each child before they are an adult.

-“Successful people know that weekends deserve even more care than you bestow on your working days. Every weekend is another chance to enrich your life.  How do you achieve rejuvenation? How do you arrange your weekend hours to create, over time, a full life?“
-Planning and anticipation is key. If you wait till last minute to come up with something to do, it won’t be as meaningful and you won’t have the distinct pleasure of anticipating it for so long. If you plan a couple big special things for the major time periods of the weekend, you can still be spontaneous about lots of smaller parts of the weekend

-Make a list of 100 dream activities. Try to tackle a couple every weekend and also plan some mission-driven activities, like volunteer work, that’s your time for it. 

-Don’t let chores “fill the time available“ because that time is greater on the weekend. The weekend has special qualities not to be wasted on too many chores.

-Next the author praises the Orthodox Jewish observance of the Sabbath!  Time away from the car, phone, computer, and your job.  Now it's time for other important things in life. It’s like cross training is to athletic performance.

Section 3- the secret of astonishing productivity
-No matter what your vocation, what you accomplish is the function of how you spend your hours.
-Many people have a tendency to “fritter away the time in front of us as if it were infinite.’

-Even if you don’t feel complete control over your time, you can “look at your calendar and see the possibilities inherent in minutes rather than seeing them as sand sifting through an hourglass.”

-Overestimating hours worked per week is common – and if you do it, you diminish the hours you’re not actually working.

-Marking how you spend your time in hours and minutes for a couple days can be really helpful to seeing what your daily productivity actually is. Mindfulness can help you make choices.

-Time is not a renewable resource – it is limited.

Planning
-Careful planning distinguishes good from not so good in many professions.

-Separately plan the week, the day, the month, maybe even a year

-Self-care has a good financial return 

-people work better when they think/know that their boss/company care about them

The Discipline of Practice
“Repetition sets you  free – it automates things, so your mind can think of bigger things“(Lemov)