Speaker 1: Good morning, I'm Laura Vanderkim. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Every weekday morning, I'll be sharing a productivity strategy that
Speaker 1: will help you make the most of your time at
Speaker 1: work and at home. My mission is to help you
Speaker 1: take your day, your week, maybe your life from great
Speaker 1: too awesome. I value your time, so normally we'll dive
Speaker 1: right into the tips, but since this is the first episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself
Speaker 1: and talk about why time matters to me. Professionally, I
Speaker 1: write and speak on time management. I'm the author of
Speaker 1: several books, including A hundred sixty eight Hours, What the
Speaker 1: Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and Off the Clock.
Speaker 1: I'm also the author of a brand new book that's
Speaker 1: out this week called Juliette's School of Possibilities, A little
Speaker 1: Story about the power of Priorities. It's a time management fable,
Speaker 1: the story of a young consultant whose life is falling
Speaker 1: apart on various dimensions until she learns from her mentor, Juliette,
Speaker 1: about the difference between business and a successful, well lived life.
Speaker 1: I also co host another podcast called Best of Both Worlds.
Speaker 1: My co host Sarah Hart Unger is a practicing physician,
Speaker 1: and she and I talk about how people successfully combine
Speaker 1: work and family. On the personal side, I definitely spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about how best to combine
Speaker 1: work and my family. My husband Michael, and I are
Speaker 1: raising four spirited children. They are currently eleven, nine, seven
Speaker 1: and four. You'll be hearing more about our adventures and
Speaker 1: future episodes as we navigate everything from middle school to
Speaker 1: preschool and the logistics of two career family life. As
Speaker 1: for hobbies, I run every day and I sing soprano
Speaker 1: in my church choir. People often ask me how I
Speaker 1: came to this topic of time management. Unfortunately, it is
Speaker 1: not because I am always on time everywhere I do
Speaker 1: try to be. But I was once late to my
Speaker 1: own speech on time management. Quite the ironic moment for
Speaker 1: all involved. That said, there wasn't some moment when life
Speaker 1: was falling apart. I'm not the normal self help narrator
Speaker 1: who hit rock bottom and had some epiphany that everything
Speaker 1: must change. That makes for good reading, but my life
Speaker 1: is just not that interesting. Instead, it was more gradual.
Speaker 1: I've long enjoyed reading and discussing people's schedules, and this
Speaker 1: interest became more urgent when I became apparent for the
Speaker 1: first time twelve years ago. Anyone who's been through that
Speaker 1: transition knows that a lot of the literature about work
Speaker 1: and life is pretty negative. We need to just throw
Speaker 1: up our hands and declare that no one can have
Speaker 1: it all. As you can imagine, I found this literature
Speaker 1: fairly depressing. But I'm also a curious person. I've worked
Speaker 1: as a journalist in the past, and so I wondered,
Speaker 1: is this leak picture true. I began studying people's schedules,
Speaker 1: not just how people talk about their time, but actually
Speaker 1: having them keep track of their time half hour by
Speaker 1: half hour, usually for a week. I've found some interesting things.
Speaker 1: As I've studied thousands of time logs over the past
Speaker 1: ten years, I've learned that there truly is space for
Speaker 1: what matters to us in all spheres of life. People
Speaker 1: like to talk about dark moments, but time is vast
Speaker 1: enough for good moments too. Plenty of people are successfully
Speaker 1: combining rewarding careers with fulfilling personal lives, whether that's raising
Speaker 1: happy families, being involved in their communities, doing some sort
Speaker 1: of crazy athletic endeavor on the weekends, or all of
Speaker 1: the above. After all, there are a hundred sixty eight
Speaker 1: hours in a week. If you work forty hours, so
Speaker 1: that's a full time job, and sleep eight hours per night,
Speaker 1: so that's fifty six per week. That leaves seventy two
Speaker 1: hours for other things. If you work fifty hours, that
Speaker 1: leaves sixty two hours for other things. If you work
Speaker 1: sixty hours, that leaves fifty two hours for other things.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that very few people consistently average
Speaker 1: more than sixty hours of work per week over the
Speaker 1: long haul, something we'll talk about in future episodes. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in forty to fifty hours of focused work, you can
Speaker 1: get a lot done. In sixty two to seventy two
Speaker 1: hours a week of waking, non working time. You can
Speaker 1: spend quality time with your family and enjoy personal pursuits too.
Speaker 1: Making time for what matters might involve some creativity, but
Speaker 1: I promise you the time is there. This is why
Speaker 1: I find time management such a hopeful topic. I know
Speaker 1: that time management might sound a bit boring or maybe
Speaker 1: even small minded. Here we are spinning on an improbable planet,
Speaker 1: in the middle of cold space. Around the globe, violence, cruelty,
Speaker 1: and disaster is up in people's lives. Yet here I
Speaker 1: am talking about how to turn a sixty minute meeting
Speaker 1: into a forty five minute one. I get this, and
Speaker 1: I also get that the best moments of life I
Speaker 1: wouldn't we pay no attention to time, like a dinner
Speaker 1: with old friends that makes an evening pass in the
Speaker 1: blink of an eye. But none of this is inconsistent
Speaker 1: with wanting to use time. Well, we only get so
Speaker 1: much time on that planet in cold space. Economists preach
Speaker 1: the virtue of optimizing any scarce resource. When people feel
Speaker 1: in control of their time and their lives, they have
Speaker 1: the mental space to help people facing violence, cruelty, and disasters.
Speaker 1: They can use their talents to keep some of these
Speaker 1: things from happening in the first place. As for that
Speaker 1: dinner with old friends, well they probably won't just show
Speaker 1: up at a restaurant you happen to like. You have
Speaker 1: to decide to get together and arrange when that will happen,
Speaker 1: and maybe book a babysitter too. Even feeling off the
Speaker 1: clock requires thinking about time. I care about time because
Speaker 1: life is lived in hours. What we do with our
Speaker 1: lives will be a function of how we spend our hours.
Speaker 1: In particular, I want to help people see that life
Speaker 1: is not either or you can throw yourself into work
Speaker 1: you love, doing what you can to make the world
Speaker 1: a better place and nurture your relationships with the people
Speaker 1: you love, and take care of yourself, to be thoughtful
Speaker 1: about your time, and you can do all of this.
Speaker 1: Time is precious and time is plentiful. There is no
Speaker 1: contradiction here. I hope you'll join me on this journey
Speaker 1: of making the most of the time we've been given.
Speaker 1: Every weekday morning, I'll be here sharing a tip or
Speaker 1: a strategy that's worked for me or for someone else.
Speaker 1: If you've got a question or a strategy, you can
Speaker 1: write me at Before Breakfast Podcast at i heeart media
Speaker 1: dot com. Just indicate if you'd be willing to have
Speaker 1: your note read on Before Breakfast. I plan to share
Speaker 1: many listener questions and tips over the next few months.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's B the number four.
Speaker 1: Then Breakfast p O D you can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
Speaker 1: dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
Speaker 1: in touch, y