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 it is best not to mistake a
Speaker 1: hobby for a necessity. We need to spend some time
Speaker 1: on certain things, but perhaps not as much time as
Speaker 1: people sometimes spend. So I love reviewing people's time logs,
Speaker 1: partly because I am fascinated by the diversity of human
Speaker 1: experiences and how we spend our time. We all need
Speaker 1: to do certain things, such as cooking, cleaning, and getting dressed,
Speaker 1: but people spend wildly varying amounts of time on these things.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are practical reasons. It's probably going to take
Speaker 1: more time to cook for an eight person family than
Speaker 1: just for yourself. But even if we are looking at
Speaker 1: people in similar situations, say the person who generally cooks
Speaker 1: for a four person family without any major allergies, people
Speaker 1: can spend very different amounts of time on this task.
Speaker 1: One person spends about twenty minutes each night preparing dinner,
Speaker 1: and another spends an hour. Both families are probably not starving,
Speaker 1: and both families are probably not eating total junk, since
Speaker 1: cooking at home tends to wind up being on the
Speaker 1: healthier side. Feeding your household is a necessity, but spending
Speaker 1: an hour cooking dinner each night when it is possible
Speaker 1: to make reasonable meals in thirty minutes just might mean
Speaker 1: that cooking has become a hobby, same with tidying. Keeping
Speaker 1: a home clean and orderly is a necessity so you
Speaker 1: don't live in chaos, but spending both weekend afternoons scrubbing
Speaker 1: so the place is ready for a design magazine photoshoot
Speaker 1: is probably a hobby. Getting dressed is a necessity, but
Speaker 1: spending time being on top of the latest clothing trends
Speaker 1: and making sure those clothing trends are in your closet
Speaker 1: is a hobby. I'd add that sometimes work can become
Speaker 1: something of a hobby too. Working past the point of
Speaker 1: diminishing returns on things that are not due the next
Speaker 1: day because someone thinks it looks good to be seen
Speaker 1: working late means that after hours work has basically become
Speaker 1: a hobby. Now, hobbies are great, whatever people's hobbies. There
Speaker 1: is a lot to be said for spending time on
Speaker 1: things we love and that bring joy to our lives.
Speaker 1: But if you would not actively choose weeknight cooking or
Speaker 1: after hours work as a hobby, then maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to re examine how you are spending your time. Consider
Speaker 1: whether you could spend less time on these activities. Is
Speaker 1: the full amount of time you are spending on them
Speaker 1: necessary or past a certain point? Is this crossing over
Speaker 1: into hobby territory. If it is, that is good to
Speaker 1: know so that you can scale back the amount of
Speaker 1: time you are spending on these things when life gets busy.
Speaker 1: A rotisserie chicken and a bag salad is great as dinner.
Speaker 1: Angel hair pasa that cooks in less than fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: plus a jar of sauce also works. As for getting dressed,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time for a uniform of sorts, something classic
Speaker 1: you can wear in various versions over and over again,
Speaker 1: so you can get dressed in five minutes. If work
Speaker 1: has become your hobby, try taking up a real hobby,
Speaker 1: like signing up for guitar lessons one night a week
Speaker 1: so you have a reason to leave work on time.
Speaker 1: My guess, as the work will still get done. Time
Speaker 1: tends to be reasonably elastic. This truth that time is
Speaker 1: elastic shows up in time data all over the place.
Speaker 1: I study historic time amuse patterns, and One of the
Speaker 1: most interesting is how much less housework women do now
Speaker 1: than they did in the past. Sometimes people think this
Speaker 1: is because of labor saving devices, but looking at when
Speaker 1: the trends happened, I think the more powerful explanation is
Speaker 1: that more women started working for pay, and so they
Speaker 1: weren't in their homes all day. They spent less time
Speaker 1: on housework because they weren't there. But people didn't all
Speaker 1: start living in filth. Indeed, women who don't work outside
Speaker 1: the home now still spend less time on housework than
Speaker 1: women did about fifty years ago. When standards change, they
Speaker 1: change for everyone. It seems that some of the housework
Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties and sixties was as much a
Speaker 1: hobby as anything else, filling time when the kids were
Speaker 1: at school if there wasn't anything else going on. In
Speaker 1: any case, when you recognize that some things are more
Speaker 1: hobby than necessity, then you can simplify if you want
Speaker 1: this open up time for other things, like hobbies you'd
Speaker 1: enjoy more. Personally, I prefer doing my puzzles or reading
Speaker 1: to cleaning, so that seems like a good trade off
Speaker 1: to me. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks 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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