I chanced upon a book recently called What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. Mmm, I said, what can possibly happen before breakfast that makes it worth writing reams of pages about it?

Well, it’s interesting to know (insert pop-eyed emoticon here) that a lot can take place before you or I have even lifted our heads off the pillow. Laura Vanderkam, the time management guru and author of this sage manual, tells us that 90 per cent of the world’s top CEOs wake up before 6am.

Which means, erm, 4am they would already have gone for a run on the treadmill, a jog in the park and caught up on their reading. They drink lots of water – definitely not coffee – and most are behind their desk, fresh and sparkling, by 7am. That’s more or less when the first round of my alarm goes off.

By the time I’ve tossed and turned and tried to stamp out the ringing harp with the palm of my hand, these CEOs would already have checked their e-mail, read the news and in general tut-tutted at what’s happening in the world and taken firm, solid action on it.

Are you reading this at 8am, for example? You’ll be delighted to know that Richard Branson, the Indiana-Jones-like businessman who’s always throwing himself off planes and hot air balloons and what not, has already been up for three hours. “No matter where I am in the world, I try to routinely wake up at around 5am. By rising early, I’m able to do some exercise and spend time with my family, which puts me in a great mind frame before getting down to business,” says Sir Richard.

I also am not eager for chatty pow-wows. I just look forward to breakfast

Which of course begs the question: what time does his family wake up?

Ah, says Vanderkam, successful people invest in family time early in the morning, such as spending quality time “with their spouses” and doing things like “cooking a big breakfast together”. I mean. How? If there had to be a roll call for a 6am breakfast at our house, only the dog and the resident kitchen ants would be (very enthusiastically) present.

Also – shock, horror – does this mean that they do lots of speaking to each other at breakfast? Are they not grouchy/cranky/surly? Aren’t they content with just the sound of clinking bowls and spoons and the coffee machine (oops, no coffee)? Do they actually have lively, cheery debates at breakfast? Of course they do.

And the next time you rush out to work leaving behind a bedroom full of clothes that you were trying to match-and-wear strewn all over a bed of tangled sheets, remember these two things: successful people make their bed as “this leads to a happier and more productive day”; and successful people usually wear the same kind of outfit day-in-day-out so as to save time on deciding what to wear.

One more thing, while you’re eating breakfast with one hand and quickly scribbling things to buy on an old receipt with the other hand, do you know what these people do? They write down the “the things they are grateful for”, or in the case of Bill Gates, watch “educational DVDs”.

Alas this makes me feel rather glum. My mornings, I have to admit are much less fruitful. I crawl out of bed, I sit on a toilet-seat-less loo, and brush my teeth. On the days I go for a morning fast-walk, I slink out of the house all the while thinking how lovely it would be if I were still in bed. I wish I could say that all the while I’m planning and strategising for the day ahead, but my thoughts are limited to: “why does not one put the toilet seat down in this house”; “we’re running out of shower gel”; “we’re running out of dog food”; “we’re running out of the coffee pods”;  “Despacito”; “Despacito!”; “dammit, why can’t I take this song off my mind”; “okay, what shall I wear” and “oh no the top I want to wear is in the laundry”. As can be seen, I do not use the morning to do the big-picture thinking and plan the trajectory of the day.

I also am not eager for chatty pow-wows. I just look forward to breakfast, as in, the actual food. I plan it all in my mind – slices of melon or watermelon and crunchy granola. And if there’s no watermelon, there’s no granola, and it’s not crunchy, then boo hoo that’s not a good start to the day.

I wonder if successful people are fussy about that.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti