Productive Habits Help You Live Successful and Wealthy

Wake Up Early

There are plenty of axioms about the benefits of getting up early, and they’ve remained popular for a reason: Rising early is a powerful path to success. Millionaires simply do not sleep in – they have too much to accomplish every day.

Author Thomas Corley spent five years studying the lives and habits of rich people and poor people before writing Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals. Corley found that 44% of wealthy people wake up three hours before work starts, compared to just 3% of poor people.

Don’t Check Email First Thing

If wealthy people get up earlier than others, what are they doing with that extra time? Well, here’s what they’re not doing: checking their email. Many people believe starting the day with a perusal of the email inbox is productive, but wealthy folks know there are better things to do with that early morning time.

Some make a habit of meditating or writing in a journal, reading something educational, or getting a head start on an important project. Some simply have a healthy breakfast and get some exercise. Generally, wealthy people leave their inbox for later in the day and don’t make email a top priority.

Eat Healthy

Wealthy people value their health and structure their eating habits accordingly. Corley found that 57% of wealthy people count calories every day, as opposed to 5% of poor people. He also found that 70% of rich folks eat fewer than 300 calories of junk food per day, but 97% of poor people eat above that mark.

There are many reasons wealthy people watch what they eat, but the most significant could very well be to ensure a longer life – and therefore an extended opportunity to earn more.

Exercise Regularly

Coupled with healthy eating, wealthy people also believe in staying fit by exercising. Millionaires may be busy people, but they nearly always find time in their days to work out. In fact, Corley reports that 76% of wealthy folks do aerobic exercise at least four days per week, compared to 23% of poor people.

Have a Primary Goal

Wealthy people choose a primary life goal and focus on it with laser-like precision – even if it seems outrageous or unattainable. Everything they do, every decision they make and action they take, is done with this primary objective in mind. Intense concentration of this nature is what enables the wealthy to accomplish what others only dream about. According to Corley, 80% of wealthy people focus on achieving a single goal, compared to only 12% of poor people.

Write Down Goals

Setting goals is crucial to achieving wealth, but if it were the only requirement then nearly everyone would be rich. For the wealthy, setting specific goals and writing them down is a winning habit that works.

Of course, broad objectives – simply wishing to be rich, for example – are not goals. Specific goal-setting involves planning something tangible, such as earning X amount by Y time through Z activities.

Successful goals are actionable, and the wealthy are deliberate, dedicated goal-setters. In fact, Corley states that 62% of rich folks focus on their goals every day, as opposed to 6% of poor people – and 67% of the wealthy put those goals in writing.

Keep a Daily To-Do List

In order to achieve an overarching goal such as attaining wealth, you need to accomplish a number of smaller goals that feed into that main objective. For this reason, the majority of wealthy people create daily to-do lists – 81% percent of them, in fact, compared to 19% of poor people. What’s more, Corley finds that 67% of wealthy folks actually complete 70% or more of their to-do lists every day.

Believe That Time Is Money

In general, wealthy people work hard to achieve their goals, to the exclusion of most other activities. They avoid wasting time on nonproductive things like social media, and that’s because of their belief that time is money, and time misspent is money lost.

Instead of considering their weekly, monthly, or annual incomes, the wealthy focus on how much they should be earning every hour – and how much money they would lose by engaging in tasks that don’t produce money. This allows them to avoid the time sinks that most non-wealthy people engage in on a regular basis.

Be Frugal

There’s a popular saying that you have to spend money to make money. While this is true, most non-wealthy people don’t take into account the fact that the more money you spend, the less you have – and spending more than you earn does not result in wealth.

Rich people avoid overspending. Just because they could throw down half a million dollars for a brand new car doesn’t mean they do. The wealthy invest their time in comparison shopping andnegotiation, getting the best deals for their dollars and saving more money than they spend. Theydevelop reasonable budgets, and stick to them.

Take Long Lunches

Many wealthy people take breaks of an hour or more for lunch. This may seem to go against the idea that time is money, but the rich also understand how to work smarter, not harder – and taking breaks is an important part of that. A long, relaxing midday lunch allows you to refresh yourself, and return to work ready to put in more productive time.

Read a Lot – But Not for Pleasure

Wealthy people tend to believe in the importance of self-improvement and continuing education, and they typically turn to reading to fulfill these needs. Corley states that 86% of wealthy people love reading, as opposed to 26% of poor people.

What they read is just as important as how much: The rich person’s reading material of choice is nonfiction, usually self-improvement. 88% of wealthy people spend at least 30 minutes each day reading on that subject.

Take Calculated Risks

Wealthy people understand that risks lead to rewards, and as a result they’re more willing to go out on a limb – though they generally take calculated risks, not reckless ones. Furthermore, the rich know exactly what they stand to lose if a risk fails to deliver its reward. They are more likely to have contingency plans in place to minimize potential fallout in the event that things don’t go according to plan.