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 ask for more convenient appointments. While sometimes
Speaker 1: you need to take the time slot you are offered,
Speaker 1: in many cases you can ask what else is available
Speaker 1: and find something that's more convenient for you. Recently, I
Speaker 1: went back through my time logs from twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Longtime listeners know that I have tracked my time in
Speaker 1: half hour increments since twenty fifteen. Perhaps that makes me
Speaker 1: sound a little eccentric, but the upside is that I
Speaker 1: do know where my time has gone, and I can
Speaker 1: see patterns. One thing I saw clearly is that I
Speaker 1: have I had few uninterrupted work weeks between my five kids,
Speaker 1: various doctor and dentist appointments, and my own appointments. It
Speaker 1: was the rare week without something. I've realized for my
Speaker 1: older kids that I really need to ask for early
Speaker 1: in the day or late in the afternoon, because it
Speaker 1: has become a lot harder for them to miss school.
Speaker 1: But I realized that I wasn't giving myself the same courtesy,
Speaker 1: particularly in the first few months of the year. I
Speaker 1: was going to multiple physical therapy sessions each week. They
Speaker 1: would offer me a time of let's say eleven am
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, and I would take it. After all, I
Speaker 1: was technically available, and it's certainly easier to make that
Speaker 1: time work than say eight am, when I'm rushing to
Speaker 1: get people out the door. But the net result was
Speaker 1: that my work time was quite chopped up. I am
Speaker 1: an efficient person, but there is a limit to how
Speaker 1: much deep thinking you can do when you are stopping
Speaker 1: and starting all the time. And then there are the
Speaker 1: contractor visits. Now, on some level, if I'm working from home,
Speaker 1: it seems costless to have the HVAC guys come by
Speaker 1: at some point between eight am and noon, but it isn't.
Speaker 1: I won't want to schedule stuff that can't be interrupted
Speaker 1: right when they might come in, and no doubt they
Speaker 1: will have questions and I'll need to pay them, and whoops,
Speaker 1: there's another morning with limited focused work time. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have discovered the same thing. If so know this, you
Speaker 1: can ask for more convenient appointments. A lot of service
Speaker 1: providers have early morning slots or late afternoon slots. Some
Speaker 1: people even have evening or weekend availability, or at least
Speaker 1: they're open until five thirty or six. You may have
Speaker 1: to wait slightly longer to get an appointment, but your
Speaker 1: teeth will probably be fine if you make it to
Speaker 1: the dentist at seven months instead of six. As for
Speaker 1: contractor visits, sometimes this can be tricky. Some people who
Speaker 1: work in offices and can't get time off easily actually
Speaker 1: pay someone to come sit in their homes to meet
Speaker 1: these people, it might be worth paying fifteen to twenty
Speaker 1: dollars an hour to have someone sit there for four
Speaker 1: hours if you really need something repaired right then, versus
Speaker 1: taking that time off work. But even if you work
Speaker 1: from home, you can try to push all contractor visits
Speaker 1: to certain times. Maybe you decide that Friday is the day.
Speaker 1: If the contractor gives you a window of Wednesday at
Speaker 1: eight am to noon, you can say, no one's available then,
Speaker 1: and you really need Friday now. Maybe it won't be
Speaker 1: this Friday, but if it is not urgent then that
Speaker 1: can be okay. Attention and focus are valuable in their
Speaker 1: own right, especially if your schedule is flexible. It's easy
Speaker 1: to see that you aren't booked for a certain slot
Speaker 1: and say yes, but no doubt you can do amazing
Speaker 1: and valuable things when your attention isn't fragmented, so ask
Speaker 1: for more convenient appointments and give yourself the gift of space.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.