Laura Vanderkam - What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: How to Achieve More at Work and at Home

Though you have just picked up a physical book, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast was born in the digital world.

My first book on time management, 168 Hours, came out in May 2010. Shortly after that, I started blogging a few times a week for BNET (an entity later folded into CBS MoneyWatch) on time management topics. Every morning I got traffic reports from the previous day. I found this feedback both addictive and inspiring. Studying the data, I began to see what topics and titles most interested people. I could also see which posts got the digital equivalent of a shrug.

One day in May 2011, I found myself writing about one of my favorite bits of time management advice: using your mornings well. Over the years Id noticed that people who get a lot done tend to make use of these hours that the rest of us fail to seize. While some of us hit snooze, theyre training for half marathons. While some of us struggle to get our kids dressed and out the door, they have fun family breakfasts and organize their little ones into morning book clubs. I wrote about activities one could do in the early hours, before life has the chance to get away from you. Then I sat there trying to figure out a title. I thought about calling the post Use Your Mornings Well. But at the last moment, with those traffic reports buzzing around in my brain, I changed that to What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast.

It turned out to be a smart move. Something about that title drew readers in. We all want to be successful, but changing how we spend the entire 168 hours we all have each week seems daunting. Changing what we do before breakfast? That sounds doable. My traffic data soon soaredspiking into the six figures on one memorable dayas people shared the link around the Internet.

Traffic drifted back to earth after a week or so, but whenever Id include that title in lists of links, it would get another spike. I realized I had stumbled onto an idea that people really cared about. But what should I do with that knowledge?

That fall, I went to a book party in New York for another Portfolio author. While there, I chatted with my editor, Brooke Carey, who had told me in the past of Penguins desire to experiment more with the e-book market. E-readers and tablet computers were changing the field of publishing, and all of us were trying to figure out what would work. E-books could be any length, and the sweet spot of roughly ten thousand to fifteen thousand words (readable on a train commute) seemed perfect for fleshing out my ideas on creating better mornings. I suggested publishing What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast in the format that Penguin was then calling an e-special. Within a few weeks we decided to make that happen. The e-book came out in June 2012, and the title worked its magic again. The audio version Id recorded hit #1 for audiobooks on iTunesbriefly surpassing Fifty Shades of Greyand we decided to expand the concept into a series of e-books, looking at how successful people spend their weekends and workdays, too.

This paperback is a compilation of those e-books for people who still like to curl up with something thats got a cover and a spine. What experimenting with short e-books has taught me is that people want options. Sometimes we want to become absorbed in a topicwhich a full-length book like this one allowsand sometimes we want a quick burst of motivation for the hard work of personal change. A short e-book can do that, and if you can read it before breakfast, all the better! In an era when technology personalizes everything it touches, why not interact with content however youd like? To sweeten the deal on the printed version (which, as a bookworm, I confess I like best), Ive also included a bonus section featuring time makeovers of people who wrote to me after reading my previous books. These readers wanted to change how they spent their early hours in order to make more of their mornings and their lives. The discovery? Crafting new habits is never easy. Still, over the course of several weeks, all these busy people made changes to their routines that they could live with.

I had a lot of fun writing these three short books. I interviewed fascinating people: CEOs, a presidential candidate, a bestselling childrens book illustrator, a race car driver. I came across intriguing research on time use. And even though Ive been writing about time management for years, I discovered lots of new ideas that Ive been putting into practice in my own life. My familys weekends have certainly improved since we began putting more thought into them. Sunday night is my new favorite night for parties. I cant say Ive become a morning person, but Im trying to get to bed on time. And with the help of an accountability partner, Im making progress on some projects Id otherwise be tempted to chuck.