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 you may have to temporarily pause something
Speaker 1: in order to pursue something else that is important to you. Or,
Speaker 1: in the words of the song from Sesame Street, you've
Speaker 1: got to put down the ducky if you want to
Speaker 1: play the saxophone. You may now have that song stuck
Speaker 1: in your head, and if so, I am sorry, though
Speaker 1: I do think it's a very good song if you
Speaker 1: want to go look it up. If you haven't watched
Speaker 1: Classic Sesame Street. Let me explain. Ernie wants to play
Speaker 1: the saxophone, but he doesn't want to let go of
Speaker 1: his rubber ducky. This causes all kinds of problems, most
Speaker 1: notably that his ducky squeaks at inopportune times while he
Speaker 1: is playing the sacks. The secret, as his friends explain,
Speaker 1: is to put down the ducky while he is playing
Speaker 1: the sacks. He can always pick it back up later.
Speaker 1: Anne Laura Leconfe invokes the song's words of wisdom in
Speaker 1: her book Tiny Experiments, How to Live Freely in a
Speaker 1: goal obsessed world. She uses the song to capture how
Speaker 1: you may have to pause something to free up time
Speaker 1: to pursue what is important to you. In Ernie's case,
Speaker 1: this was playing the saxophone. In her case, as she explained,
Speaker 1: it was writing the book Tiny Experiments while she was
Speaker 1: pursuing her pH d. She describes how she committed to
Speaker 1: spending five hours per week writing the book. To make
Speaker 1: that possible, she accepted and communicated to her doctoral advisers,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't going to teach as much or publish
Speaker 1: as much in academic contexts as she otherwise would have.
Speaker 1: She had to put down those figurative duckies to have
Speaker 1: the capacity to write her book. Now. I want to
Speaker 1: pause here because I think a lot of the narratives
Speaker 1: out there on work and life and productivity in general
Speaker 1: lean hard into that hard trade offs concept. You know
Speaker 1: how this goes. If you want to start a business,
Speaker 1: you'll need to neglect your family and your health. If
Speaker 1: you are ambitious at work, you must be a terrible parent.
Speaker 1: If you have a big career in a family, there
Speaker 1: is no way that you can have time for friends,
Speaker 1: or exercise or hobbies. I believe that all of this
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. There are one hundred and sixty eight hours
Speaker 1: in a week. You can definitely work fifty hours, spend
Speaker 1: a lot of quality time with your family, see friends
Speaker 1: perhaps twice a week or so, a coffee before work,
Speaker 1: or run on a weekend morning, and get enough sleep,
Speaker 1: and go play in your pickleball league, or sing in
Speaker 1: a choir or whatever one night a week. I promise
Speaker 1: it does all fit. But you might also decide that
Speaker 1: some things mentally are hard to do at the same time,
Speaker 1: much as it is quite hard to hold on to
Speaker 1: a ducky while using your fingers to play a saxophone,
Speaker 1: for instance. Right now, I am working on writing the
Speaker 1: manuscript for the Golden Hours, which is my next nonfiction book.
Speaker 1: As part of that, I am not focusing on writing
Speaker 1: fiction right now. I would like to write fiction again
Speaker 1: in the near future, but I am taking a pause
Speaker 1: from that until my nonfiction manuscript is done during the
Speaker 1: school year. Since I am singing in two choirs, I
Speaker 1: have decided not to train for any longer races. I
Speaker 1: just do a few runs each week. If you pause something,
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean you are giving it up forever. If
Speaker 1: you finish one project like writing a book or training
Speaker 1: for a race, then you possibly have capacity for something else,
Speaker 1: just like Ernie could pick up the ducky after it
Speaker 1: was finished playing the sacks. Once your priority project is finished,
Speaker 1: you can pick up whatever pursuits you set aside or
Speaker 1: scaled back to free up capacity. But this sequencing might
Speaker 1: be a better idea than simultaneously aiming to do too
Speaker 1: many things. So if there is something that's important to you,
Speaker 1: like writing her book was to an Laura, focus on that.
Speaker 1: Decide what other things can get a little less time
Speaker 1: for now so you can energetically pursue that goal. Then
Speaker 1: you can energetically pursue your next goal when the first
Speaker 1: is done. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making them mo 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.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.