Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to map out your focused time. Even if
Speaker 1: you are not going to get as much deep work
Speaker 1: time as you would like, Knowing the contours of this
Speaker 1: time can make it feel real and like something worth protecting.
Speaker 1: So I was recently working on a project that I
Speaker 1: knew would require long stretches of uninterrupted time. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to really think and try things out
Speaker 1: and come back to the project. I looked at the
Speaker 1: week I was planning to do this and saw that
Speaker 1: with some strategizing, I could push all my calls and
Speaker 1: basic work to dos to Monday and Friday. That meant
Speaker 1: Tuesday through Thursday would be mostly open if I didn't
Speaker 1: offer those times to anyone. But it's not like I
Speaker 1: got to go hide in the woods from Tuesday to Thursday.
Speaker 1: It's summer. Some of my kids are around, and I
Speaker 1: had some driving duties for the ones going to camp.
Speaker 1: Even if I didn't have to do all the driving myself,
Speaker 1: my days were going to get chopped up. I was
Speaker 1: feeling a bit discouraged about this, but I decided to
Speaker 1: map out exactly when my deep work time would be.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, I could likely get going at seven forty
Speaker 1: five am and get all the way to three forty
Speaker 1: five pm before I had to bring people places. On Wednesday,
Speaker 1: I got nine fifteen to two forty five. On Thursday
Speaker 1: I got eight fifteen to two forty five. Now that
Speaker 1: wasn't the end of the workday. I could do things
Speaker 1: after two forty five on these days, but I knew
Speaker 1: this time would be more chopped up the time before
Speaker 1: would be less. So of course I would have liked
Speaker 1: to have had more time. But seven forty five to
Speaker 1: three forty five is eight hours. It's not a short
Speaker 1: amount of time. Seeing that in the five and a
Speaker 1: half hours on Wednesday and six and a half hours
Speaker 1: on Thursday made me feel better about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I felt less like there was no point in even trying.
Speaker 1: If I had stop at two forty five to go
Speaker 1: pick someone up at camp, I could feel like I
Speaker 1: could work slowly and not feel rushed and still get
Speaker 1: a lot done. I know not everyone writes for a living.
Speaker 1: I know in many jobs there is no way you
Speaker 1: could hold seven forty five a m to three forty
Speaker 1: five p m. Open on any day, even with a
Speaker 1: lot of strategy, but even if you only get a
Speaker 1: few hours here and there, mapping out potential focus time
Speaker 1: can help you decide what to do with it. You
Speaker 1: will see that you can get say two hours on
Speaker 1: Tuesday afternoon, so you decide to protect this time. You
Speaker 1: ask what would be best suited to it. You don't
Speaker 1: waste that time popping in and out of your inbox
Speaker 1: that can happen in ten minute chunks in between meetings.
Speaker 1: With so many things in life, knowledge is the first step.
Speaker 1: I talked recently about how knowing the length of your
Speaker 1: weekday evenings can help you see that this is real
Speaker 1: time that can be used. Same with focused time at work.
Speaker 1: We may never get as much as we want, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean there is zero time. Being aware of
Speaker 1: this time and having a map of where it will
Speaker 1: happen in any given week means that it can be
Speaker 1: used purposefully, and that increases the chances of getting good
Speaker 1: things done in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to before breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, You can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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