WEBVTT - Wasting time 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:07.320 Good morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.280 Every weekday morning, I'll be sharing a strategy to help 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:15.520 you take your day from great too awesome. In future 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.439 episodes we'll dive right into the tips, but in these 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.880 first few episodes, I'm introducing myself and talking about why 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:29.080 time matters and what time management really means. Today, I 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.800 want to talk about wasting time. What does it mean 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.960 to waste time, how does it happen? What should we 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:42.840 do about it? Different people have different definitions. Generally, wasting 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.360 time sounds like a bad thing. You're squandering something precious, 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.960 but precisely because it has a negative connotation, some people 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.840 like to show how clever and contrary they are by 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.240 assigning a certain romanticism to wasting time. Spend enough time 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.360 online and you'll notice that a lot of these people 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.840 write very similar essays. They proudly note that they don't 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.240 buy into puritan notions that all time must be productive. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.480 They describe a scene of them doing some allegedly frivolous thing, 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.319 staring at the clouds. Oh, the world groans in protest, 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.520 but our essayist is proud of such wasted time. Some 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.720 of this writing is much better than others. It's also 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.040 got a lot of historical precedent. When I first started 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.520 writing about time management, a friend sent me John Keats's 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.600 poem Owed on Indolence, which was written in eighteen nineteen. 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.320 He talks of being visited by the shadow of ambition, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:44.280 but sending her off, noting that you cannot raise my head. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.200 Cool bedded in the flowery grass, Keats just wants to 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.240 lie there staring up at the sky, to which I 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.360 say great. I think taking breaks to clear our heads 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.840 as smart. If we took breaks by going outside and 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.080 staring at the clouds, we would be rejuvenated and energized. 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.200 That's not wasted time at all. Unfortunately, when most of 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.760 us take breaks, what we do is read arguments between 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.680 people calling each other names on Twitter, or we look 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.400 at photos on Facebook of people we didn't like in 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:23.440 high school. Anyway, we don't emerge inspired. So I want 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:28.040 to offer a different definition. Being productive means spending your 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.480 time in ways that are meaningful or enjoyable for you 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.080 or the people you care about. Wasting time means spending 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:39.519 time in ways that aren't advancing you towards the life 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:44.720 you want. This definition sounds reasonable at first blush, though 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.360 if you think about it, it's kind of radical. All 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:53.120 sorts of things that sound productive don't meet this definition. 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.839 Spending an hour before bed picking up toys that will 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.799 just come out again the next morning is wasted time 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.760 unless you really love doing it. If you don't love it, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.120 you would have been better off doing something you would enjoy, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.840 like reading a book. Under this definition, work is responsible 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.680 for all sorts of wasted time. For instance, I firmly 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.400 believe that the point of a meeting is to change 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.600 something in the world. So if that Tuesday morning staff 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.240 meeting changes nothing beyond rendering everyone in the room ninety 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:30.640 minutes older, that is wasted time. Email can be like 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:35.560 this too. In Juliett's School of Possibilities, my time management fable, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.720 the main character falls into the trap of responding to 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:43.560 all emails as quickly as possible. This seems productive, but 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.800 of course it isn't, because the reason so many people 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.880 email her is that they think she has good ideas. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.680 Her obsession with her inbox crowds out all time to 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.040 think up the good ideas that will serve her clients, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.800 So this is wasted time. This is a tough definition, 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.480 but don't feel bad by this definition. Most of us 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.960 waste tons of time. I know I do. I spend 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.400 all kinds of time on things that don't feel particularly 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.760 meaningful or enjoyable to myself or the people I care about, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.040 or like Twitter. They feel enjoyable for the first three minutes, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.040 but not the next forty five. Thanks to the screen 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.080 time feature on the iPhone, I am now confronted with 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.200 my statistics un wasted time in a little moment of 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:38.479 reckoning every Sunday morning. Since I study my time, I 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.680 know what leads to these Internet rabbit holes, or to 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.120 time spent puttering around the house moving paper from one 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.039 pile to another. It's actually a bit of a paradox. 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.720 I think most of us waste time because we assume 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.279 we have no time. Because we assume we have no time, 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:00.800 we don't think about what we like to do with it. 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.920 When a spot of time does appear, we do the easiest, 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.560 most effortless thing, which is often picking up the phone 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.599 or some other pointless means of busting boredom. When I 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.400 think about it, then I do better. If I'm facing 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.239 an empty weekend afternoon of sibling squabbles, I load everyone 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:24.640 in the car and go to the y m c 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.680 as indoor pool, or after the kids go to bed, 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.599 I make sure I have a really good book, so 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.960 this low energy time can be spent on something slightly 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:41.640 more edifying than Twitter insults. Thinking about time is the 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:46.159 antidote to wasting time. You can think I'd like to 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.080 go lie cool, bedded in the flowery grass, just like 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.320 John Keats, and then go do it and enjoy yourself immensely. 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.760 That's not wasting time at all. This is Laura. Thanks 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:10.000 for listening. Here's to making the most of our time. Hey, 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.480 everybody got a tip or a question. You can share 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.680 them with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at Before 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:21.480 Breakfast Pod that's be the number four then Breakfast p 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.520 o D. You can also email me at Before Breakfast 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.320 Podcast at iHeart media dot com. For the email, just 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.960 spell those words out. I look forward to connecting and 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:33.599 learning how you make the most of your time.