What the most succesful people do before beakfast

 Author: Laura Vanderkam 

Genre: Nonfiction

Original publication date: June 12, 2012

Book description: 

Mornings are a madcap time for many of us. We wake up in a haze—often after hitting snooze a few times. Then we rush around to get ready and out the door so we can officially start the day. Before we know it, hours have slipped by without us accomplishing anything beyond downing a cup of coffee, dashing off a few emails, and dishing with our coworkers around the water cooler. By the time the workday wraps up, we’re so exhausted and defeated that any motivation to accomplish something in the evening has vanished.

But according to time management expert Laura Vanderkam, mornings hold the key to taking control of our schedules. If we use them wisely, we can build habits that will allow us to lead happier, more productive lives.

Thoughts:

This is a nice short easy to get through reading. In Scribd, I found it in audiobook and it is narrated by the author herself. That alone makes it a great experience. 

This is a fun read. It gives you a few real-life examples of starting your day and tackling priority tasks early in the morning. She gives good reasons, again not something you can´t come up with if you start to think about it. She is a time management professional and it gives you a lot of examples of why starting and moving your priority tasks to a specific time of the day is a good idea. 

It feels like a talk with the author. She gives you examples of what moving important things to early in the morning helps you start your day in a good way. It is not a groundbreaking idea-I mean there are plenty of popular sayings in different languages that give that very advice. In English what is it?

The early bird catches the worm.

That is similar to what it means right?

In Spanish, we have "El que madruga Dios lo ayuda" which pretty much means God helps early risers or those who wake up early.  

So in order words, it's not a huge secret that only she has found out. But the way it's told to you, well let's say she knows how to inspire and make other people make up their minds. I literally read it right as I was getting ready to go to bed, and I was already with the lights out and just stayed awake to complete it. After it was done, I took my phone again, rated the book, and changed my alarm clock to 40 minutes earlier.

Result: I showered, drank my coffee, and wrote and started the first draft of the post that had to go up that day. Normally if I don´t get the blog scheduled the night before it ends up being posted at some random time during the late afternoon-evening. I felt inspired to start getting up earlier thanks to this book. It is not the first time I try but at least I made the jump from thinking about it to actually doing it.

I will try to keep it up, we'll see how we do with that new "habit" in making.

I recommend you read this type of book when you wish to make a change in your daily life. You are almost always planning on starting something or other, if you are anything like me, that is. Getting this type of book where people tell you examples of how it has worked for others helps inspire you and it gives that little push you need to get started and after that, the secret is in trying to keep it up for a little bit until you are 100% you can do it with no effort.

I gave this book:

I like it, it was a nice enjoyable read. But like I said before not something that amazed me. I feel that is not the point of this book, it is to serve you as inspiration to do that thing you are always trying to fit into your schedule and never have the time for. Everything really can be achieved by common sense, either way, I had a good time listening to it.

Be warned: This is in no way scientific, nor doe sit includes useful tips.

The main takeaway: The first thing to do is to complete or work on the most difficult things on your to-do list. Avoid distractions or schedule the tasks that require the most focus in the window where you have the least distractions possible.

What do you guys think is rise early in the morning to complete your main focus tasks or staying up late to complete the high-priority tasks for the next morning?

I'm more of a try to get things done in the mornings kind of person, by the evening or night I am very uninspired.

See you later, stay safe, stay healthy!