Soar before breakfast: Eight morning habits for success

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” This quote from writer and entrepreneur Mark Twain can be taken to mean you should get the most important tasks done in the morning to make the rest of the day easier to deal with.

Many business moguls have adhered to Twain’s quote, sticking to the same morning ritual each day. Here are eight things successful entrepreneurs across the world do each morning.

Wake up early

If you browse what business moguls do each morning, you will not come across the phrase, ‘I am not a morning person’, that’s so common with many of us.

Aliko Dangote, ranked Africa’s richest man, wakes up at 5am and spends time strategising on his next business move, and how to make his cement, sugar, salt and flour empire larger than it currently is. Apple CEO Tim Cook is up by 3.45am to get a start on emails before working out. Most successful entrepreneurs wake up before 6am every day, including weekends.

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Setting multiple alarms at 10 to 15-minute intervals so you can wake up at the latest possible time is pretty standard today. Even Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson endorsed getting enough sleep in a blog post: “Sleep is incredibly valuable for a busy life, and I try to get it whenever and wherever I can.”

But he also said that getting up early helps you get much more done, which is why he starts each day at 5am.

Have a ‘list for tomorrow’ before you sleep

“For the past 33 years,” said former Apple Inc CEO, the late Steve Jobs, during a commencement speech at Stanford University, “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’”

Before you go to sleep each day, write down what you would like to achieve the following day, a list that is in line with your long-term goals.

Follow your list to the letter and at the end of the day, before you leave the office, look at the list and see what you have achieved. And then come up with a list for the following day. This way, you take control of your everyday actions, wasting little time.

Get your brain charged up

Different things work for different people. For some, a morning workout or yoga gets them started, for others, a cold shower does the trick. Find out what gets you energised in the morning so you can swing into action and start your day on a high. Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, says she gets energised by playing tennis for an hour at 5:45am each morning.

Spend as little time as possible deciding what to wear

From Donald Trump’s variation of the same style of suit, to Mark Zuckerberg’s grey T-shirts and Jobs’ turtle neck, there may be something to say for saving time by wearing the simplest things you know.

Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, said in an interview that he tries to make as few decisions as possible, which is why he wears the same type of T-shirt and jeans every day, which means he has one less thing to decide on.

In today’s corporate world, especially as an employee, it may not be possible to pick out just the one thing to wear. Some people have come up with the idea of a ‘work uniform’, and though unoriginal, it has saved them a lot of the time they used to spend deciding what to wear in the morning. I’m sure many of us have been late to an important morning meeting because we were not sure if an outfit was too short, too formal, too plain, too casual, too dull .... Ease your burden by getting variations of a style that works.

Find your own rhythm

Do not try to copy what everyone does after getting up in the morning. Even from the above examples, the moguls do not all have the same exact routines, rather, they make the best use of their time.

For example, while they all agree on waking up early, each does something different after this to get the best result for the effort they put in.

Catch up on current events

Former Pepsi CEO Steve Reinemund catches up on the day’s events by reading the news even before he sends his children off to school. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reads the news while exercising on his treadmill. One of the reasons he does this, according to an interview he did with Forbes, is that it’s the only time he has to read a paper and stay informed.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet told Business Insider that he spends 80 per cent of his day reading about what is happening around the world. It helps him to gather facts and information on how the world of business is performing, which is important in his line of work.

Meditate

Meditation, much needed by extra busy people, helps to relieve depression and stress. After getting up at 5am, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey does a 30-minute meditation to help him cope with the events of the day, and then launches into a seven-minute workout.