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Speaker 1: Welcome to before breakfast, a production of I heart radio.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, this is Laura. Welcome to the before breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to try the three hour rule. Schedule

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Speaker 1: a three hour chunk of time on at least a

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Speaker 1: few days per week to focus on your most important work.

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Speaker 1: No meetings, no email, no phone calls, no notifications, no interruptions,

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Speaker 1: just you and your most important task. I know it's

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Speaker 1: not always possible. I know not all work allows for this,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes it might and it might mean getting a

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Speaker 1: lot done. Today's tip was suggested by a reader and

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Speaker 1: I talked about it a bit in my latest book,

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Speaker 1: tranquility by Tuesday, nine ways to calm the chaos make

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Speaker 1: time for what matters. You could say that the three

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Speaker 1: hour rule is the inverse of the two minute rule.

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Speaker 1: This is the popular productivity guideline which states that if

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Speaker 1: you could complete a task within two minutes, you should

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Speaker 1: do it as soon as it comes up. The thinking

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Speaker 1: is that it would take longer than two minutes to

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Speaker 1: make a note of what you need to do and

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Speaker 1: then return to the task later and complete it. So

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Speaker 1: just get it done. And I do think there is

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Speaker 1: some wisdom to the two minute rule. It's good to

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Speaker 1: save time where we can for other things, but I

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Speaker 1: find that this rule doesn't always work in practice. The

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Speaker 1: problem is that it's easy to spend your whole work

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Speaker 1: day doing two minute tasks. There seems to be an

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Speaker 1: endless supply of them. After what feels like a day

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Speaker 1: full of accomplishment of two minute tasks, you may realize

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Speaker 1: that you haven't even touched your big projects. The three

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Speaker 1: hour rule is a counterbalance to the two minute task.

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Speaker 1: It ensures that you carve out time for what calnewport

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Speaker 1: calls deep work first, before you make yourself available for

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Speaker 1: the myriad demands on your time, even those that seem

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Speaker 1: like you could get them done pretty quickly. So what

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Speaker 1: this reader of mind did was start the day by

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Speaker 1: scanning her email and calendar and then, at nine a

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Speaker 1: m diving into her big task for the day. She

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Speaker 1: would aim to be pretty close too, unreachable, phones silenced,

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Speaker 1: in box closed and so forth. She would stay at

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Speaker 1: it until noon. That's three hours. By lunch time she

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Speaker 1: would generally have accomplished something pretty important, and then she

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Speaker 1: could spend the afternoon attending meetings and handling routine tasks.

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Speaker 1: The three hour rule allowed her to do the deep

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Speaker 1: work that she needed to do and do all her

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Speaker 1: shallow work instead of pitting one against the other. Now,

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Speaker 1: I know not everyone has the autonomy to be unavailable

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Speaker 1: for three hours every morning, and I also know not

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Speaker 1: all work works like this. Health care providers, teachers, retail

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Speaker 1: workers and others operate in an entirely different manner. But

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Speaker 1: for those who are in information professions, consider that you

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Speaker 1: have probably been unreachable for three hours at some point

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Speaker 1: in your life, on a plane during a root canal.

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Speaker 1: If your office kept humming along, then most likely people

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Speaker 1: can learn to keep doing so. Even if three hours

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem right, maybe you could do ninety minutes or

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Speaker 1: maybe three hours twice a week if it helps. You

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Speaker 1: can make exceptions for calls from Your Kids, school and

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Speaker 1: your spouse, and maybe one designated work person for true

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Speaker 1: work emergencies, but start from the assumption that your sole

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Speaker 1: priority for the allotted time is the deep work that

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Speaker 1: you've identified. Let your manager and your colleagues know what

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Speaker 1: you're doing and share what you accomplish. That might help

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Speaker 1: bring them along for the ride, because you were probably

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Speaker 1: not hired to do two minute tasks, or at least

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Speaker 1: not only two minute tasks. You were probably hired to

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Speaker 1: do challenging projects that demand your deepest attention. So try

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Speaker 1: the three hour rule and see what you can get

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Speaker 1: done in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on twitter, facebook and Stagram at before breakfast pod.

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Speaker 1: That's B e, the number four, then breakfast P O d.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at before breakfast

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Speaker 1: podcast at I heeart media DOT COM. That before breakfast

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Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much.

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Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before breakfast is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: my heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple

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Speaker 1: podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.