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Speaker 1: Good morning, I'm Laura Vanderkim. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Every weekday morning, I'll be sharing a productivity strategy that

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Speaker 1: will help you make the most of your time at

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Speaker 1: work and at home. My mission is to help you

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Speaker 1: take your day, your week, maybe your life from great

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Speaker 1: too awesome. I value your time, so normally we'll dive

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Speaker 1: right into the tips, but since this is the first episode,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself

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Speaker 1: and talk about why time matters to me. Professionally, I

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Speaker 1: write and speak on time management. I'm the author of

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Speaker 1: several books, including A hundred sixty eight Hours, What the

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Speaker 1: Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and Off the Clock.

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Speaker 1: I'm also the author of a brand new book that's

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Speaker 1: out this week called Juliette's School of Possibilities, A little

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Speaker 1: Story about the power of Priorities. It's a time management fable,

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Speaker 1: the story of a young consultant whose life is falling

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Speaker 1: apart on various dimensions until she learns from her mentor, Juliette,

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Speaker 1: about the difference between business and a successful, well lived life.

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Speaker 1: I also co host another podcast called Best of Both Worlds.

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Speaker 1: My co host Sarah Hart Unger is a practicing physician,

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Speaker 1: and she and I talk about how people successfully combine

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Speaker 1: work and family. On the personal side, I definitely spend

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Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about how best to combine

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Speaker 1: work and my family. My husband Michael, and I are

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Speaker 1: raising four spirited children. They are currently eleven, nine, seven

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Speaker 1: and four. You'll be hearing more about our adventures and

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Speaker 1: future episodes as we navigate everything from middle school to

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Speaker 1: preschool and the logistics of two career family life. As

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Speaker 1: for hobbies, I run every day and I sing soprano

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Speaker 1: in my church choir. People often ask me how I

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Speaker 1: came to this topic of time management. Unfortunately, it is

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Speaker 1: not because I am always on time everywhere I do

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Speaker 1: try to be. But I was once late to my

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Speaker 1: own speech on time management. Quite the ironic moment for

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Speaker 1: all involved. That said, there wasn't some moment when life

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Speaker 1: was falling apart. I'm not the normal self help narrator

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Speaker 1: who hit rock bottom and had some epiphany that everything

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Speaker 1: must change. That makes for good reading, but my life

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Speaker 1: is just not that interesting. Instead, it was more gradual.

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Speaker 1: I've long enjoyed reading and discussing people's schedules, and this

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Speaker 1: interest became more urgent when I became apparent for the

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Speaker 1: first time twelve years ago. Anyone who's been through that

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Speaker 1: transition knows that a lot of the literature about work

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Speaker 1: and life is pretty negative. We need to just throw

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Speaker 1: up our hands and declare that no one can have

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Speaker 1: it all. As you can imagine, I found this literature

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Speaker 1: fairly depressing. But I'm also a curious person. I've worked

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Speaker 1: as a journalist in the past, and so I wondered,

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Speaker 1: is this leak picture true. I began studying people's schedules,

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Speaker 1: not just how people talk about their time, but actually

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Speaker 1: having them keep track of their time half hour by

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Speaker 1: half hour, usually for a week. I've found some interesting things.

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Speaker 1: As I've studied thousands of time logs over the past

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Speaker 1: ten years, I've learned that there truly is space for

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Speaker 1: what matters to us in all spheres of life. People

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Speaker 1: like to talk about dark moments, but time is vast

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Speaker 1: enough for good moments too. Plenty of people are successfully

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Speaker 1: combining rewarding careers with fulfilling personal lives, whether that's raising

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Speaker 1: happy families, being involved in their communities, doing some sort

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Speaker 1: of crazy athletic endeavor on the weekends, or all of

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Speaker 1: the above. After all, there are a hundred sixty eight

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Speaker 1: hours in a week. If you work forty hours, so

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Speaker 1: that's a full time job, and sleep eight hours per night,

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Speaker 1: so that's fifty six per week. That leaves seventy two

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Speaker 1: hours for other things. If you work fifty hours, that

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Speaker 1: leaves sixty two hours for other things. If you work

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Speaker 1: sixty hours, that leaves fifty two hours for other things.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out that very few people consistently average

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Speaker 1: more than sixty hours of work per week over the

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Speaker 1: long haul, something we'll talk about in future episodes. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: in forty to fifty hours of focused work, you can

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Speaker 1: get a lot done. In sixty two to seventy two

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Speaker 1: hours a week of waking, non working time. You can

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Speaker 1: spend quality time with your family and enjoy personal pursuits too.

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Speaker 1: Making time for what matters might involve some creativity, but

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Speaker 1: I promise you the time is there. This is why

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Speaker 1: I find time management such a hopeful topic. I know

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Speaker 1: that time management might sound a bit boring or maybe

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Speaker 1: even small minded. Here we are spinning on an improbable planet,

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Speaker 1: in the middle of cold space. Around the globe, violence, cruelty,

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Speaker 1: and disaster is up in people's lives. Yet here I

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Speaker 1: am talking about how to turn a sixty minute meeting

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Speaker 1: into a forty five minute one. I get this, and

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Speaker 1: I also get that the best moments of life I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't we pay no attention to time, like a dinner

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Speaker 1: with old friends that makes an evening pass in the

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Speaker 1: blink of an eye. But none of this is inconsistent

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Speaker 1: with wanting to use time. Well, we only get so

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Speaker 1: much time on that planet in cold space. Economists preach

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Speaker 1: the virtue of optimizing any scarce resource. When people feel

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Speaker 1: in control of their time and their lives, they have

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Speaker 1: the mental space to help people facing violence, cruelty, and disasters.

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Speaker 1: They can use their talents to keep some of these

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Speaker 1: things from happening in the first place. As for that

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Speaker 1: dinner with old friends, well they probably won't just show

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Speaker 1: up at a restaurant you happen to like. You have

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Speaker 1: to decide to get together and arrange when that will happen,

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Speaker 1: and maybe book a babysitter too. Even feeling off the

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Speaker 1: clock requires thinking about time. I care about time because

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Speaker 1: life is lived in hours. What we do with our

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Speaker 1: lives will be a function of how we spend our hours.

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Speaker 1: In particular, I want to help people see that life

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Speaker 1: is not either or you can throw yourself into work

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Speaker 1: you love, doing what you can to make the world

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Speaker 1: a better place and nurture your relationships with the people

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Speaker 1: you love, and take care of yourself, to be thoughtful

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Speaker 1: about your time, and you can do all of this.

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Speaker 1: Time is precious and time is plentiful. There is no

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Speaker 1: contradiction here. I hope you'll join me on this journey

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Speaker 1: of making the most of the time we've been given.

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Speaker 1: Every weekday morning, I'll be here sharing a tip or

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Speaker 1: a strategy that's worked for me or for someone else.

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Speaker 1: If you've got a question or a strategy, you can

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Speaker 1: write me at Before Breakfast Podcast at i heeart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Just indicate if you'd be willing to have

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Speaker 1: your note read on Before Breakfast. I plan to share

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Speaker 1: many listener questions and tips over the next few months.

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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. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,

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Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's B the number four.

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Speaker 1: Then Breakfast p O D you can also shoot me

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Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media

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Speaker 1: dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all

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Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying

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Speaker 1: in touch, y