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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is to map out your timeline. By figuring out

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Speaker 1: all the steps in a project and when you might

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Speaker 1: be able to do each step, you can have a

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Speaker 1: much better sense of whether something is doable and you

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Speaker 1: will have a much better shot at success if you

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Speaker 1: do give the project a whirl. We are coming toward

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Speaker 1: the end of this year, which means I am nearing

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Speaker 1: the end of this year's project of listening to all

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Speaker 1: the works of Bach. I have really enjoyed doing this project.

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Speaker 1: But key to making this project work was having a plan. First,

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Speaker 1: I needed to know that there were one thousand and

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Speaker 1: eighty works in the official BWV catalog. There are a

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Speaker 1: few more fragments and lost works and misattributed works, but

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Speaker 1: we don't need to become esoteric scholars here. One thousand

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Speaker 1: and eighty sounded good enough. Then I needed to know

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Speaker 1: how to split the listening each day. Well, theoretically, you

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Speaker 1: could just do three each day. Some of Bach's works

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Speaker 1: are much longer than others, and some of the long

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Speaker 1: ones are right next to each other in the catalog.

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Speaker 1: Listening to the Saint Matthew's Passion in Saint John's Passion

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Speaker 1: back to back would be more than four hours of listening,

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Speaker 1: whereas listening to three chorals back to back might be

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Speaker 1: less than three minutes. So probably marching straight through wouldn't work.

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Speaker 1: I also realized that I would like some variety. Bach

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Speaker 1: wrote choral works, organ works, orchestral works, but the BWV

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Speaker 1: numbers put all of the world works of a kind together.

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Speaker 1: So I created a schedule assigning myself different BWV numbers

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Speaker 1: from different parts of the catalog each day, which totaled

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Speaker 1: about thirty to forty minutes of listening. How did I

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Speaker 1: know the listening time. I searched for each BWV number

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Speaker 1: and saw how long the performances were. Creating this calendar

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Speaker 1: took a fair amount of work, but I would do

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Speaker 1: one to two months at a time so it was

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Speaker 1: never overwhelming. Then I would just spot check that I

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Speaker 1: was on track. After two months, would I have been

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Speaker 1: listening to about a sixth of the catalog? In any case,

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Speaker 1: The upside of having detailed assignments for each day was

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Speaker 1: that after all of that, the project was pretty easy

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Speaker 1: to stick to. On any given day, I am not

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Speaker 1: deciding what to listen to or how much to listen to.

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Speaker 1: I am just listening to a violin sonata and a

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Speaker 1: few corals today and something else tomorrow. At this point,

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Speaker 1: I've listened to almost everything. I think if you're going

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Speaker 1: to do any sort of project like this, you need

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Speaker 1: a detailed roadmap. I interviewed someone recently who was visiting

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Speaker 1: all of America's national parks. This required a detailed outline

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Speaker 1: of how many days it takes to see each one,

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Speaker 1: which are close, and which require lots of advanced reservations,

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Speaker 1: and which are a little bit more accessible. But doing

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Speaker 1: that meant that such a comprehensive project was actually doable

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Speaker 1: over a few summers. Likewise, folks who are participating in

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Speaker 1: National Novel Writing Month in November know that you need

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Speaker 1: to crank out fifty thousand words in a month. But

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Speaker 1: this is much more doable if you know that this

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Speaker 1: is sixteen hundred and sixty seven words on each of

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Speaker 1: thirty days, or two thousand words a day if you

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Speaker 1: plan to work to twenty five days taking the five

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Speaker 1: Sundays off, or twenty five hundred words a day if

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Speaker 1: you plan to take Saturdays and Sundays off if you

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Speaker 1: don't know your expected daily word count. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot harder. Now, twenty five

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Speaker 1: hundred words a day might sound like a lot. That

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Speaker 1: means you are writing twenty five hundred words on Thanksgiving.

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Speaker 1: And if that does sound like a lot, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: you decide that you don't actually want to start this

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Speaker 1: project and then give up somewhere in the middle. And

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Speaker 1: that is a rational choice. But if you see where

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Speaker 1: you can fit twenty five hundred words a day into

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Speaker 1: your life, and you know that this is your expected pace,

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Speaker 1: you stand a pretty good chance of succeeding. Maps help

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Speaker 1: us get where we are going. We see how far

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Speaker 1: we need to go and how much time it will take.

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Speaker 1: That helps us make more rational choices. Most people understand

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Speaker 1: that you cannot drive five hundred miles and five hours

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Speaker 1: best case scenario, that is a nine to ten hour trip.

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Speaker 1: If you know where you will stop for lunch and

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Speaker 1: stop to stretch your legs along the road, you will

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Speaker 1: find it all more doable than if it looks like

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Speaker 1: just a huge number of miles. So if you are

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Speaker 1: contemplating any big project, map out your timeline. What do

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Speaker 1: you need to do when? How much do you need

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Speaker 1: to get done on each day to stay on track.

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Speaker 1: You might decide not to bite off the project, but

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Speaker 1: if you do, your odds of success will be good

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Speaker 1: if you have designed the timeline well. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

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Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach

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Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,

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Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.