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Patton's Picks from the PMA Library: The 5 AM Miracle

July 2020

"The 5 AM Miracle: Dominate Your Day Before Breakfast" by Jeff Sanders

 

If you're looking for book recommendations in the productivity and professional development genre, Patton offers a weekly summary of some of the essential and emerging titles from the PMA Library. This is a recommendatioon made by podcast guest and PMA team member Penny Hawkins. 


In The 5 AM Miracle, author Jeff Sanders explains how and why his dramatic wake up time is the "anchor habit" that frames his overall productivity blueprint. By establishing certain priority habits, he shares how one can use their morning to master the rest of their day, ultimately maximizing their time and finding greater success throughout their schedule. The key to Sanders' process is having an intentional, written plan every day, and to prepare for the next day with an evening ritual and healthy sleep habits.

 

Three Takeaways:

  1. Make Key decisions. By setting your grandest goals around which actiivty is designed, you are able to prioritize your most important tasks, as well as organize your schedule effectively. Determining key anchor habits, such as exercise, meditation, and sleep, you can keep the routine consistent and make other activities fall into place with productive repetition. 

  2. Visualize Ideal life. Coming up with an ideal version of your schedule is key to making the plan a reality, Sanders suggests you create an ideal week, an ideal morning, and an ideal evening and visualize the component parts that define each of those blocks of time. By striving towards "equilibrium zero," a state in which your email, desktop, home base, and project management are not demanding your attention, you are able to get to this final state much easier by imagining its completed form. Sanders suggests key productivity strategies such as task management, file management, and effectively collecting notes/ideas. 

  3. Practice Accountability. Track progress with scheduled review tools: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually. Sanders also advises the reader to find an accountability partner, and to have weekly meetings with them to assure mutual progress.


Sanders asks readers to identify their "POP", or their personal optimization plan. By identifying what your priorities are in your schedule each day, you can allow them to hold your routine together and set the tone for success in everything you do.