Early mornings can make people feel more optimistic and ready to tackle challenging tasks.
"If it has to happen, then it has to happen first," writes Laura Vanderkam, a time-management expert and the author of
What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast.
Those among us who have managed to find professional
success and eke out a life actively embrace this philosophy. They must
set aside their first hours of the day to invest in their top-priority
activities before other people's priorities come rushing in.
Science supports this strategy. Vanderkam cites the famous
finding of Roy Baumeister, a Florida State University psychology
professor, that willpower is like a muscle that becomes fatigued from
overuse.
Diets, he says, come undone in the evening, just as poor
self-control and lapses in decision making often come later in the day.
On the other hand, early mornings offer a fresh supply of willpower, and
people tend to be more optimistic and ready to tackle challenging
tasks.
So what do successful executives and entrepreneurs do when they are rested and fresh? From
Vanderkam's study of morning rituals and
our own research, we outline the following 14 things that the most
successful people do before breakfast. While they might not do
all of these things every morning, each has been found to be an effective way to start the day.
They wake up early.
Successful
people know that time is a precious commodity. And while theirs is
easily eaten up by phone calls, meetings, and sudden crises once they've
gotten to the office, the morning hours are under their control. That's
why many of them rise before the sun, squeezing out as much time as
they can to do with as they please.
In a poll of 20 executives cited by Vanderkam, 90 percent
said they wake up before 6 a.m. on weekdays. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi,
for example,
wakes at 4 a.m. and
is in the office no later than 7 a.m. Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Iger
gets up at 4:30 to read, and Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey is up at
5:30 to jog.
The bottom line: Productive mornings start with early wake-up calls.
They drink water.
Many successful executives
reach for water instead of coffee first thing in the morning.
Kat Cole, president of Focus Brands, the parent company of Auntie
Anne's, Carvel, and Cinnabon, wakes up a 5 a.m. every morning and
drinks 24 ounces of water.
Huffington Post founder
Arianna Huffington and Birchbox Man chief
Brad Lande start their days with a glass of hot water with lemon.
Drinking water in the morning helps you feel more alert, rehydrates your body, and kick-starts your metabolism, says
Rania Batayneh, MPH, a nutritionist and author of
The One One One Diet.
They exercise before it falls off the to-do list.
The top morning activity of the rich and powerful seems to be exercise, be it lifting weights at home or going to the gym.
"These are incredibly busy people," says Vanderkam. "If they make time to exercise, it must be important."
Beyond the fact that exercising in the morning means they
can't later run out of time, Vanderkam says a pre-breakfast workout
helps reduce stress later in the day, counteracts the effects of
high-fat diet, and improves sleep.
They work on a top-priority business project.
The quiet hours of the morning
can be the ideal time to focus on an important work project without
being interrupted. What's more, spending time on it at the beginning of
the day ensures that it gets your attention before others--kids,
employees, bosses--use it up.
Vanderkam uses the example of a business strategist who
dealt with so many ad hoc meetings and interruptions throughout the day
that she felt she couldn't get anything done. She started thinking of
the early mornings as project time, and chose a top-priority project
each day to focus on. Sure enough, not a single colleague dropped in on
her at 6:30 a.m. She could finally concentrate.
They work on a personal-passion project.
Novel-writing
and art-making are easy to skip when you've been in meetings all day,
are tired and hungry, and have to figure out what's for dinner. That's
why many successful people put in an hour or so on their personal
projects before they officially start their days.
A history teacher at the University of Chicago told
Vanderkam that she spent the hours between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. working on a
book about the religious politics of West Africa. She was able to read
journal articles and write several pages before dealing with her
teaching responsibilities.
Carving out the time in the morning to write, and making
it a habit, meant she would actually follow through. Vanderkam cites one
study of young professors that showed that writing a little bit every
day rather than in intense bursts made them more likely to get tenure.
They spend quality time with family.
We may exalt the family dinner, but there's nothing that says you
have to have a big family meal at night, says Vanderkam. Some successful
people use the mornings to invest in family time, whether reading
stories to the kids or cooking a big breakfast together.
A financial planner in New York
told Vanderkam that, unless she's traveling, mornings are her special
time with her young daughter. She helps her get dressed, make the bed,
and occasionally they work on art projects together. They also make
breakfast and sit around the table and chat about what's going on. She
calls those 45 minutes "the most precious time I have in a day."
They connect with their spouses.
In the evening, it's more
likely you'll be tired from the day's activities, and time can easily be
wasted with dinner preparations and zoning out in front of the TV.
That's why many successful people make connecting with their partners a
morning ritual.
Even if they're not getting frisky every morning, many
couples use the early hours to talk. For instance, she notes that a
BlackRock executive and his wife commute from the suburbs into New York
City every morning. They spend the hour-plus trip discussing their
lives, finances, household to-do lists, and plans for the week.
They make their beds.
This one-minute habit can make you
happier and more productive all day long.
In his book,
The Power of Habit, Charles
Duhigg writes that getting into the routine of making your bed every
morning is correlated with increased productivity.
Making your bed doesn't necessarily
cause you to get more
done at work, Duhigg writes, but it's a "keystone habit" that can spark
"chain reactions that help other good habits take hold."
In addition to being more productive, people who consistently make
their beds also tend to have "a greater sense of well-being and stronger
skills at sticking with a budget," Duhigg writes.
They network over coffee.
Especially if you like to make
it home for dinner, the mornings can be a great time to meet with people
for coffee or breakfast. Plus, networking breakfasts are less
disruptive than midday lunches and more work-oriented than boozy
cocktail parties, Vanderkam notes.
Christopher Colvin, a New York-based lawyer and
entrepreneur, started a networking group for Ivy League alums called
IvyLife. Most days, he wakes at 5:30 a.m. to walk his dog and read, but
every Wednesday he attends an IvyLife networking breakfast. "I feel I'm
fresher and more creative in the mornings," he told Vanderkam. "By the
end of the day, my mind is more cluttered."
They meditate to clear their minds.
Type-A personalities typically demand as much from others as they do
from themselves, so it can be difficult for them to disconnect from
their mental to-do lists and calm their minds. Before they head out the
door, many successful people devote themselves to a spiritual practice
such as meditation or prayer to center themselves for the rush of the
day.
Manisha Thakor, a financial
adviser and former corporate executive, practices Transcendental
Meditation to clear her mind. She does two 20-minute sessions a day, the
first before breakfast and the second in the evening, and focuses on
breathing and repeating a mantra in her head. She's found it to be "one
of the most life-enhancing practices" she's ever experienced, she told
Vanderkam.
They write down things they're grateful for.
Expressing
gratitude is another great way to center yourself and get the proper
perspective before heading to the office. Writing down the people,
places, and opportunities that you're grateful for takes just a few
minutes but can make a real difference in your outlook.
For example, a pharmaceutical executive told Vanderkam she
spends a good chunk of her morning "expressing gratitude, asking for
guidance, and being open to inspiration." When she gets to work, she
always has a clear vision for herself and her staff.
Similarly, entrepreneur and author of
The 4-Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss,
spends five minutes each morning writing
down what he's grateful for and what he's looking forward to. It
"allows me to not only get more done during the day, but to also feel
better throughout the entire day, to be a happier person, to be a more
content person," he said.
They plan and strategize while they're fresh.
Planning the day, week, or
month ahead is an important time-management tool to keep you on track
when you're in the thick of it. Using the mornings to do big-picture
thinking helps you prioritize and set the trajectory of the day.
One banking exec turned teacher told Vanderkam she wakes
at 5 a.m. on weekdays, exercises, reads a few Bible verses, and reviews
her tasks for the day before making breakfast. She said this ritual
makes her days more manageable and effective.
They check their email.
While time-management gurus may
suggest putting off email as long as possible, many successful people
start the day with email. In fact,
one recent survey found that the first thing most executives do in the morning is check their email.
They may quickly scan their inboxes for urgent messages
that need an immediate response or craft a few important emails that
they can better focus on while their minds are fresh.
For instance, Gretchen Rubin, author of
The Happiness Project, wakes
at 6 every morning before her family's up at 7. She uses the time to
clear her inbox, schedule the day, and read social media. Getting these
tasks out of the way from the start helps her concentrate better when
she moves on to more challenging projects, she told Vanderkam.
They read the news.
Whether it's sitting in the corner diner and reading the papers or
checking the blogs and Twitter from their phones, most successful people
have a pre-breakfast ritual for getting the latest headlines.
For example, GE CEO Jeff Immelt starts his days with a cardio workout and then
reads the paper and watches CNBC.
Meanwhile, Virgin America CEO David Cush uses his mornings to listen to
sports radio and read the papers while hitting the stationary bike at
the gym.
By the time they get to work, they have a good idea of
what's going on in the world. Then, they can get down to the business of
changing it.
This is an updated version of an article that was previously published.
This story first appeared on Business Insider.
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