The title intrigued me—even though I wouldn’t exactly call myself a morning person, I do like to get up before everyone else so I can have some quiet and uninterrupted time alone. This is especially important to me because my husband and I share an office. Now that summer vacation is upon us and I don’t have to wake up so early to make sure my son gets off to school, I still plan to get up before everyone else so that my priorities don’t get lost in the daily shuffle.

And, according to Vanderkam, that’s why those pre-breakfast morning hours are so important to successful people: “[They] have priorities in their lives and early morning is the time they have the most control over their schedules.”

In this short, readable guide, Vanderkam draws on scientific research as well as anecdotes to illustrate how successful people use those crucial morning hours to nurture their careers, their relationships and themselves, and gives suggestions to help you make over your own mornings.

“The most successful people know that the hopeful hours before most people eat breakfast are far too precious to be blown on semiconscious activities,” writes Vanderkam. This makes sense to me. I know if I get my most important or most difficult task done early (or at least started), I’m in a much better frame of mind when the inevitable distractions and less-than-important-but-still-urgent tasks take over. If, on the other hand, I spend the hour before breakfast playing Mahjong Titans on my computer or reading random emails, I can easily find myself at 3 p.m. wondering where the day has gone and what I have to show for it.

I especially appreciated Vanderkam’s parallel between saving money and time use: “If you wait until the end of the month to save what you have left, there will be nothing left over. Likewise, if you wait until the end of the day to do meaningful but not urgent things like exercise, pray, read, ponder how to advance your career or grow your organization, or truly give your family your best, it probably won’t happen.”

As Vanderkam notes, every morning feels like a new chance to get things right. Starting off the day with success—accomplishing something meaningful to you, no matter how small—can only help the rest of the day to feel successful, too. She concludes, “When you make over your mornings, you can make over your life. That is what the most successful people know.”

What is your morning routine? How does it help you have a successful and productive day?

Note: For more discussion of morning routines and how to tweak your own, please see lauravanderkam.com. Also, I received no compensation for this review (other than an advance copy of the ebook) and the opinions are my own.

“No price is set on the lavish summer;

June may be had by the poorest comer.”

—James Russell Lowell, “The Vision of Sir Launfal”

Spent the weekend on the beach with my wonderful husband celebrating our 24^th anniversary (very belatedly—our actual anniversary is in January!). I’m a little sunburned, despite sunscreen and shade, but more relaxed than when we left. It was such a pleasure to be away from responsibility and to-do lists, to be with each other with only fun on the agenda. We walked on the beach, swam, did a lot of reading and poked around in some antiques stores and a flea market. I even did a little sketching:

Our room:

When I turned my wall calendar page to June this morning, I found a list of 2012 international holidays stapled inside. I was about to toss it, when I stopped to take a look. Along with the more traditional holidays like Christmas, New Year’s and various independence days, other countries celebrate some memorable and colorful holidays such as:

Picnic Day (Australia—Aug. 6) 

Tomb-Sweeping Day (China and Hong Kong—Apr. 4) 

Day of Goodwill (South Africa—Dec. 26) 

Waitangi Day (New Zealand—Feb. 6) 

Coming of Age Day, Children’s Day, Respect for the Aged Day (Japan—Jan. 9, May 5 and Sept. 1, respectively)    

Not to brag or anything, but we here in the U.S. have quite the array of holidays and  “National Month/Day of” designations ourselves. For example, in addition to the well-known Father’s Day and Flag Day, June contains some of most lighthearted and silly of these.  How about Chimborazo Day (June 3)—celebrating an inactive volcano that is supposedly the point on Earth that is closest to the Moon and farthest from the Earth’s center? Food lovers celebrate National Cheese Day (June 4), National Chocolate Ice Cream Day (June 7), Iced Tea Day (June 10), Corn on the Cob Day (June 11), National Fudge Day (June 16) and National Bomb Pop Day (June 28)—among others!

To work off all that ice cream and cheese, you can get outside for National Trails Day (June 2), National Running Day (June 6—also National Yo-Yo Day) or Go Fly a Kite Day (June 5).

Other days of note: Weed your Garden Day (June 13), World Juggling Day (June 16), Eat Your Vegetables Day (June 17), Take Your Dog to Work Day (June 22), Camera Day (June 29), and Meteor Day (June 30).

And, of course, there’s always Donald Duck’s birthday. Mr. Duck made his first appearance in the cartoon “The Wise Little Hen” on June 9, 1934. Happy 78^th birthday, D.D.!

Believe it or not, these are just a few of the days in June with official celebrations! Click here for a more complete listing.

What do you want to celebrate today? Me, I’m celebrating National Doughnut Day—meet me at Krispy Kreme for a free doughnut!

Children at play give personalities to lifeless objects, and we don’t need to give up that pleasure as we grow older. Poets are good at discerning life within what otherwise might seem lifeless. Here the poet Peter Pereira, a family physician in the Seattle area, contemplates a smiling statue, and in that moment of contemplation the smile is given by the statue to the man. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

The Garden Buddha

Gift of a friend, the stone Buddha sits zazen,   

prayer beads clutched in his chubby fingers.   

Through snow, icy rain, the riot of spring flowers,   

he gazes forward to the city in the distance—always   

the same bountiful smile upon his portly face.   

Why don’t I share his one-minded happiness?   

The pear blossom, the crimson-petaled magnolia,   

filling me instead with a mixture of nostalgia   

and yearning.  He’s laughing at me, isn’t he?   

The seasons wheeling despite my photographs   

and notes, my desire to make them pause.   

Is that the lesson?  That stasis, this holding on,   

is not life?  Now I’m smiling, too—the late cherry,   

its soft pink blossoms already beginning to scatter;   

the trillium, its three-petaled white flowers   

exquisitely tinged with purple as they fall.   

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2007 by Peter Pereira. Reprinted from What’s Written on the Body by Peter Pereira, Copper Canyon Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.