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 that even a full day can have downtime.
Speaker 1: Even if some of this downtime is contaminated as the
Speaker 1: phrase goes or is chopped up, it's often still there
Speaker 1: to some degree. By learning to see this time and
Speaker 1: use it intentionally, it is possible to enjoy life a
Speaker 1: lot more. Because I have tracked my time for eleven
Speaker 1: years now, I have become quite aware of the give
Speaker 1: and take aspects of time. Some days feel very full,
Speaker 1: with lots of work or activities stretching into the evening.
Speaker 1: Others feel more open. But I can see that almost universally,
Speaker 1: even the busy days have some amount of time that
Speaker 1: is not claimed by things I need to do. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's that I'm in my bed at ten twenty but
Speaker 1: don't turn off the light until ten forty five, That
Speaker 1: is twenty five minutes. Or maybe it's a different sort
Speaker 1: of stretch, like I'm waiting at a kid's concert for
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes because I had to drop the kid
Speaker 1: off early and the actual performance hasn't started yet. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the chunks are small. I need to have my little
Speaker 1: guy get his shoes on at eight forty five am
Speaker 1: if I'm driving him to school and it's eight thirty five,
Speaker 1: so I don't really have time to start focused work,
Speaker 1: And so I don't, but that time will be spent
Speaker 1: on something. Any given day might feature all three of
Speaker 1: these sorts of available space. They don't look like a
Speaker 1: day at the spa for sure. So if my idea
Speaker 1: of leisure time is a day at the spa, I
Speaker 1: might be tempted to say I have no free time,
Speaker 1: but that's not true. These chunks do add up to
Speaker 1: an hour. So what do I want to do at
Speaker 1: that time? I'll admit that I generally do what most
Speaker 1: of us do, which is read headlines, check texts and emails,
Speaker 1: watch short videos, and generally putter around on my phone.
Speaker 1: But if you told me, hey, Laura, you'll get an
Speaker 1: hour for some sort of hobby today, even on this
Speaker 1: busy day, what would you like to do with it?
Speaker 1: I am not sure that reading comments on an article
Speaker 1: online and deleting emails would be my first choice. I
Speaker 1: don't think it would be my second or third choice either.
Speaker 1: So the key breakthrough is to stop writing off these
Speaker 1: smaller contaminated bits of time as unusable. They are not
Speaker 1: completely discretionary. Of course, I'm not going to play the
Speaker 1: piano right before bed if kids are sleeping, nor will
Speaker 1: I sing if I am waiting for someone Elsa's concert
Speaker 1: to start. Ten minutes is not enough time to get
Speaker 1: changed for a full workout and do that. But there
Speaker 1: is a big difference between something and nothing. That hour
Speaker 1: of downtime, chopped up as it might be, will be
Speaker 1: used for something. The question is what longtime listeners know that.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite suggestions is to put ebooks on
Speaker 1: your phone. I love reading things in print, It's really
Speaker 1: my first choice, but the convenience of ebooks is hard
Speaker 1: to beat. You can get them instantly if you have
Speaker 1: internet access and you have your phone with you all
Speaker 1: the time. It is as easy to open an ebook
Speaker 1: as to open Instagram or email. So if you can
Speaker 1: train yourself to do that, you could easily get an
Speaker 1: extra hour of reading time each day. That would be
Speaker 1: enough to read an extra one to two books per week.
Speaker 1: One of my big breakthrough the last few years has
Speaker 1: been to listen to things during this downtime with some intention.
Speaker 1: Listening to an hour of music. A day is enough
Speaker 1: time to get through all the works of Mozart in
Speaker 1: a year if I know that's what I want to
Speaker 1: do and put in the right cave number. When some
Speaker 1: downtime shows up, you could do something creative. Of course,
Speaker 1: write a line or two an a journal if you've
Speaker 1: got your phone, take some interesting photos. Sometimes needlework is
Speaker 1: easy to pick up in small bits of time, as
Speaker 1: is coloring. But the first step in all of this
Speaker 1: is noticing when this time is happening. So, even if
Speaker 1: today is busy, do try to notice every thirty minutes
Speaker 1: or so look at what you are doing. Is it
Speaker 1: something required like work, housework, childcare, personal care, or travel
Speaker 1: time related to those things, or is it something more morphous?
Speaker 1: If so, could this time be repurposed for intentional leisure.
Speaker 1: If that doesn't do it for you, here's another trick.
Speaker 1: Start reading a real page turner of a book. You
Speaker 1: will magically start turning your downtime into reading time because
Speaker 1: you want to find out what happens. Take note of
Speaker 1: when these potential reading moments happen. They might be usable
Speaker 1: other days for other sorts of leisure too. Yes, life
Speaker 1: is busy. We have a lot of responsibilities, but even
Speaker 1: a full day generally has some downtime, if not much.
Speaker 1: By seizing these bits of time, or time that isn't perfect,
Speaker 1: we can make space for a lot more fun in life,
Speaker 1: and that is worth celebrating in the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.