This book has been recommended to me many times, yet I never wanted to read it because I was already sold out on the idea of waking up earlier. I have been waking up at 5 am for at least four years now since I started my master’s degree while working on a fast-growing startup and had a much bigger load than I could handle. So I decided to read to book to rest a bit from a few complicated and slow technical books I am reading. I did learn a few lessons from the book that made the reading worth it.

The author has to choose an alternative way to write the book, like a story. On the one hand it made it easier to digest, but I found it odd to read a productivity book that way. For example, in the book, the author tells the story of a billionaire (Called “The homeless” in the initial chapters). I got myself thinking many times the author did that just so the book would be “big enough” to sell. On the other hand, my wife, for example, likes much more to lean with these small stories than with more direct books, so I may not be the kind of person he was trying to amuse.

That aside, the book is good and brings good techniques; if applied, I am 100% sure it will yield great results. I can tell that myself. One of the tips I liked the most was the 20X20x20 rules, like splitting the first hour of your day into three slots of 20 minutes time, twenty minutes exercising, 20 minutes improving the knowledge in your field, and 20 minutes reflecting. It sounds like a great idea, and tho I don’t plan to incorporate this into my morning routine. I like to spend more than 20 minutes working out. I work out three times a week for like 1 hour. Yet the 20 minutes of learning and 20 minutes of reflecting on your day are excellent.

I have an adaptation of that 20x20x20 formula to suit my schedule. I wake up and go straight to prepare my coffee, where I prepare banana pancakes and fresh coffee with a V60 (No coffee machine) that usually takes 20 minutes, and I use that time to reflect a little bit about my day and my life. After that, I usually clean up my Dog’s place, which takes about 10 minutes. I feed them and clean up their places for the day, then I enter the doing mode, where in the morning, I will work for at least 30 minutes on my personal project Nun-DB. I then go to the gym, where I spend about 1 hour working out (3 times a week).

I think the idea of the 20x20x20 role is amazing but not so easy to fit into my already functional schedule, yet I think I am changing my “reading hour” for the morning and making it 20 minutes, last year while trying to incorporate the hour of reading to my scheduling I end up reading less than when I had no time defined to read at all.

The author covers many other aspects that I think are gold for productivity and for life; for example, in “Become a Heroes of Their Lives,” where the author, in his own way, shows why it is so great to be the changing factory of your life and take the responsibility to live your life and the one in control other than the consequences of things that happened to you.

There are a few hidden gems in the book; in a few chapters, the author mentions places and influential people and how they approached life or some situations. In one of the chapters, the author writes about Nelson Mandela, and it is an exciting part that does not add much to the context you are probably trying to learn with the book, but something worth reading.

Conclusion

I recommend the book to people trying to improve their lives and habits. In social media, many people demonize the “exhaustive routine” that may wonder if you should rest until 8 am because you deserve it or because you decided to drink too much last night. Don’t listen to that.

I have been in the earlier morning since I can remember, and I started waking out at 5 am since my master’s degree, so I would have enough time to study before my team in the USA (O live in brazil) would start working. I would wake up, study for 4 to 5 hours, and be the first in the office to start working still. Now I days, I still do the same, and by 9 am, I Prepared and ate my breakfast, Clean up my dogs place, go to the gym, work for at least 30 minutes on my project, read books and news or review my investments and made the grocery for the week.

I guarantee your life will prove a ton if you start waking up at 5 am every day, maybe reading this book first will give you a more straight line them mine to get to my current routine, but I will never know because I was doing it long before knowing this was a thing. Yet give it a try for at least two months; it will be worth it.

Where to find it?

Amazon