"What the Most Successful People do before Breakfast"

I have literally been filling up each of my hours with something useful for me and that has been so rewarding.  This doesn't mean that I am working constantly but it does mean that I fill each hour with family time, personal time, spiritual time or work time.  I don't find myself procrastinating as much.....the key is as much...I'm still working on it.  Yesterday I got 4 whole hours to do work and it was amazing what I got done.  As I learn to be even more productive and delegate properly I will be even more productive.
I have been reading this book titled, "What Successful People Do before Breakfast" by Laura Vanderkam.  I sure hope I'm spelling that correctly.  I was listening to this Million Dollar hotline, put on by extremely successful daughter's of National Sales Directors.  They have of course seen success each day as they grew up and how lucky are they to watch those positive habits!  One of the Directors mentioned this book.  While I have 'wanted' to get up early an be productive because I knew it was more time efficient than expecting to get things done at the end of the day after events and being exhausted I still have had major difficulty with that.  Well, what Vanderkam talks about in her books is that the one common thread of very successful people is what they do before breakfast....they wake up early in the morning and exercise, meditate, have a healthy breakfast and basically prepare themselves spiritually, mentally, physically and believe it or not emotionally for the day.  When you are centered and prepared you aren't wasting your day playing catch up and you learn the importance of being productive and NOT surfing the net, wasting time or texting....You understand the value.  I for one, as a mother, can see the emotional importance of waking up early so that I can spend time cleaning my house and doing things that I know while bug me later because I will be looking at what isn't done, getting frustrated and irritated and then being in a hurry because things aren't where they are supposed to be.  Thus I get really frustrated, take it out on the kids with being short and not so loving which of course affects them and then we have set the tone for the rest of the day. 
Now, I'm not going to kid myself and think from here on out I'm going to wake up at 5am and believe me that is a personal goal, but I will tell you that I am going to wake up earlier than I have.  So, this morning I woke up at 6:30am.  I will tell you I got more done with my house by 8am then I have in the last couple of days.  I had the focused time, the energy but the knowledge that I would be more productive if I did it which encouraged me to get it done.  After I write this blog I am going to go for a walk and listen to the Million Dollar Hotline, get ready for the day and be off to Charlotte's morning softball game and feel much more accomplished than if I would have woken up at 8:30/8:45 and rushed to get the morning going and get to softball barely in time. 
6:30a.m is no 5am but it's awesome to think how much more productive I'll be when I wake up at 5am  Tomorrow I'm going to to 6:15a.m. and I also think I'm going to put my phone in the living room, not right next to my bed so that I have to get up!!!! (That's probably not novel to most of  you but to me it is!)

The funny thing is that this whole concept of waking up early was what Mary Kay Ash referred to as the 5 O'Clock Club.  That woman was a single mother of 3 children and yet she got it all done....not because she was super woman, but because she woke up early in the morning and was productive, allowing her work her business and still have balance in the home (not perfection mind you but balance).....so, if a single mother of 3 in the 50's can get up at 5am and run her own business (she hadn't started Mary Kay yet but she was working in direct sales...which is essentially owning your own business) there is absolutely no reason why I can't go to bed at earlier and skip out on The Big C, Mad Men or an other great TV show so I can wake up earlier to be more productive, thus helping me reach my business goals that much quicker.  I mean really, how lame does it sound that I can't reach a goal because the shows I was watching were just too good to miss!