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 make your minutes matter. Use time you
Speaker 1: would otherwise be wasting to do something you actually need
Speaker 1: to do at some point, so your best time is
Speaker 1: available for your most important pursuits. Everybody has moments of
Speaker 1: running behind when everything takes longer than you reasonably expected,
Speaker 1: But from time to time we also all have moments
Speaker 1: when we are ahead of schedule. Maybe you need to
Speaker 1: leave home at eight thirty for an appointment, but you
Speaker 1: are ready to go at eight ten. At times like that,
Speaker 1: it's easy to wander around the house tidying, But what
Speaker 1: if instead use that twenty minutes to batch the little things? Hopefully,
Speaker 1: As someone who listens to this podcast, you have a
Speaker 1: running list of tasks you know you need to get
Speaker 1: to at some point. Generally, you set aside a chunk
Speaker 1: of time to do all of these, But when a
Speaker 1: low opportunity cost chunk of time presents itself and you
Speaker 1: know you won't be able to use this time for
Speaker 1: other things, this is a great occasion to plow through them.
Speaker 1: In twenty minutes you could fill out that permission slip,
Speaker 1: order that birthday present, respond to those two meeting invites
Speaker 1: for next week, and book a doctor visit through the
Speaker 1: online portal, and hopefully still be out the door at
Speaker 1: eight twenty five. To give yourself a little buffer. Now,
Speaker 1: when you get back to your desk after your appointment,
Speaker 1: the decks are clear and you can dive into your
Speaker 1: highest priority project for the day. And now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: I am not saying you need to clear the decks
Speaker 1: in general before getting to your high priority stuff. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons I tell people to batch the little
Speaker 1: things and then designate a time for doing all the
Speaker 1: little things is that I don't want people to feel
Speaker 1: like they have to get through all the little stuff
Speaker 1: before they get to the big things. If you tell
Speaker 1: yourself you'll get through all the little things in the
Speaker 1: morning before you start the day's important work, you will
Speaker 1: likely run out of steam and then get to your
Speaker 1: first meeting, and you won't have the focused time you
Speaker 1: are hoping for. But I also know that small bits
Speaker 1: of time are incredibly hard to use well. People check
Speaker 1: email or read headlines, They check the comments on social
Speaker 1: media posts. If you are just looking for the quick
Speaker 1: dopamine hit that these things create. Then when you have
Speaker 1: bits of time that are hard to use well, you
Speaker 1: may as well do the things that you know you're
Speaker 1: going to need to do at some point, so not us.
Speaker 1: When you have one of these awkward gaps, keep a
Speaker 1: list near you. Then you can make your minutes matter.
Speaker 1: Don't try to cram in too much. I don't want
Speaker 1: people to be late. If you have a tendency to
Speaker 1: be late places, then don't do this at all, because
Speaker 1: you are probably misjudging how much time you have. That said,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons people wind up working later than
Speaker 1: they want to is that they don't make the minutes matter.
Speaker 1: During the day, small bits of time get wasted on
Speaker 1: things that didn't really have to happen. As for things
Speaker 1: that do have to happen at some point, the temptation
Speaker 1: to clear the decks first during uninterrupted stretches of time
Speaker 1: can be strong, So then there are no actual uninterrupted
Speaker 1: stretches of time. For important work that requires focus, you
Speaker 1: have to wait until all your meetings are done, and
Speaker 1: then things take longer than you want because if very
Speaker 1: few people are at their best at say five pm.
Speaker 1: Better to treat your minutes like they matter. Use low
Speaker 1: opportunity cost time for the things that must get done.
Speaker 1: Then you can keep other stretches open for things that
Speaker 1: move you forward. In the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or where however you listen to your favorite shows.