Expert Opinions: Three things that successful people do before breakfast

What the most successful people do before breakfast has already been published by Business Insider, INC, Life Hack and many other publishers multiple times. Instead of simply saying what everyone else is, here are three things you will find common in most of the articles out there and why it could be what you need to be more successful.

1. Wake up Early

Waking up early makes it so that you have the extra hours that are needed to get the necessary things done. In a poll of 20 executives cited by Vanderkam, the author of “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast” 90 percent said they wake up before 6 a.m. on weekdays.

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, for example, wakes at 4 a.m., Disney CEO Bob Iger gets up at 4:30 to read, and Square CEO Jack Dorsey is up at 5:30 to jog.

Analysis: A lot of people get bogged down by emails and phone calls so they just don’t have the time to do the little things that make life more successful. Anyone can make the time by waking up early to do what he or she can’t do at work. It makes sense why so many sources suggest that waking up early can make a world of difference.

2. Exercise

Exercise is a known essential to ensuring that your brain and body are functioning at peak performance. For most successful people, having a high performance level is one of the most important ways to ensure that they get the best results possible.

According to Jennifer Cohen, a writer for Forbes, exercising in the morning is the easiest way to fit exercise in, which may be why it is so common for the most successful people to do it before breakfast. In addition, exercise is a good boost to help get you ready for a productive workday.

Analysis: Exercise is important and it gives you more physical and mental energy, so if before breakfast is the only time you can fit it in, then by all means, exercise before breakfast. However, you already have a boost from a good nights sleep, which makes exercise less necessary in the morning. If you can do it during the afternoon, you may get more benefits from exercising than if you did it in the morning.

According to Life Hack, Charles Darwin exercised three times each day: Once in the morning, afternoon, and in the evening. Exercise can be used as a boost throughout the day, which may be more useful than in the morning. So if you can, exercise throughout the day.

3. Map Out the Day

If you don’t have a target at which to aim, there is nowhere for the arrows to go. In other words, goals and daily objectives (the target) can help you make sure that your actions (the arrows) have a purpose. According to Business Insider, Banking executive Christine Galeb says that mapping out the day helps improve time management and makes the day more manageable.

Analysis: Goals and daily objectives are associated with the most successful people. Processing the goals and daily objectives on a fresh mind in the morning makes sense. Also, from personal experience, mapping out daily objectives in the morning and re-centering my focus to achieve my goals has made a huge difference in my time management. In addition, I have found that my success rate improved astronomically since I started to do this each morning.

Final Words

If there were only three things you could do to improve your success rate, these three things should be at the top of the list for you to implement. If you are serious about becoming more successful, start doing them tomorrow morning. Wake up early, plan out your day, and figure out how to fit exercise in, whether in the morning or throughout the day.