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 to know and acknowledge stretches of time when
Speaker 1: you will not be getting much done. You can plan
Speaker 1: your life more rationally when your expectations match reality. Today's
Speaker 1: tip comes from the podcast Best Laid Plans, which is
Speaker 1: hosted by Sarah hart unger my co host on my
Speaker 1: other podcast, Best of Both Worlds. On a recent episode,
Speaker 1: Sarah read a note from a listener that described how
Speaker 1: she divided the year. She thought of the year and
Speaker 1: five quintiles, and one of those quinn tiles went from
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving to the end of her children's holiday break. Now,
Speaker 1: if you do the math, that is not going to
Speaker 1: be a very long quintile. There is maybe a week
Speaker 1: in November, and then they had a longish like three
Speaker 1: week holiday break from late December to early January. So
Speaker 1: we are talking a stretch of time that is maybe
Speaker 1: seven to eight weeks in total. This is not mathematically
Speaker 1: a fifth of the year. But the reason this person
Speaker 1: divided her year up this way is that she realized
Speaker 1: she basically never got much done during this stretch of
Speaker 1: time Because her kids were out of school so much,
Speaker 1: they tended to take their vacations then or go visit family.
Speaker 1: The three to four weeks or so that her kids
Speaker 1: were in school between Thanksgiving and Christmas break were often
Speaker 1: stuffed with other activities. The space available to work was limited.
Speaker 1: She could try to play through, or she could acknowledge
Speaker 1: that this was just not going to be a very
Speaker 1: productive time, and she could think of the season accordingly.
Speaker 1: She could have limited expectations for her business and probably
Speaker 1: feel happier when she met these low expectations versus setting
Speaker 1: high expectations that would crash into reality. I think this
Speaker 1: is a smart idea. Many of us have stretches of
Speaker 1: time that are simply not going to be productive. Maybe
Speaker 1: you cover for a colleague who tends to take a
Speaker 1: vacation in late June, and then the fourth of July
Speaker 1: causes a series of interruptions to the usual schedule, and
Speaker 1: then you tend to take your vacation in mid July.
Speaker 1: Probably this is just not going to be the stretch
Speaker 1: of time when you can launch some big new speculative project.
Speaker 1: If you have got young kids who to get sick
Speaker 1: like clockwork in February, in March. Then maybe you need
Speaker 1: to take this into account when you plan out your year.
Speaker 1: It's not that you won't get anything done, but the
Speaker 1: odds that you get through all eight to nine weeks
Speaker 1: of February in March without getting sick yourself are low. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously you can't trot out excuses all fifty two weeks
Speaker 1: of the year, though perhaps they would be reasonable for
Speaker 1: much of the time. The woman who didn't get much
Speaker 1: done between Thanksgiving and New Years worked in a tax
Speaker 1: education field. This meant she poured it on from January
Speaker 1: to April and would often make a lot of her
Speaker 1: revenue during this time. If you are going to have
Speaker 1: a slow season, you probably need a fast season at
Speaker 1: some other point. It might even help to note your
Speaker 1: busy seasons for work and set your expectations for your
Speaker 1: personal life accordingly. And we don't acknowledge these stretches that
Speaker 1: lean one way or another, we start to feel perpetually
Speaker 1: behind whatever sphere of life that happens to be in.
Speaker 1: When you acknowledge that you won't be productive for a
Speaker 1: particular chunk of time. On the other hand, you can
Speaker 1: enjoy that time a lot more. You are still getting
Speaker 1: the same amount done, but at least now you don't
Speaker 1: feel bad as well. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.