Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to use bits of time for bits
Speaker 1: of joy. So here's something I believe. Using time well
Speaker 1: means getting the big pieces right. If your work feels
Speaker 1: meaningful and enjoyable, and you're spending your work hours doing
Speaker 1: challenging and interesting things, life is good. If you're spending
Speaker 1: your personal hours nurturing your relationships with family and friends,
Speaker 1: and you're making time for your health and hobbies, this
Speaker 1: is wonderful. It really doesn't matter what else you do
Speaker 1: with your time. However, I've noticed over the years that
Speaker 1: even people doing these expert time management things often ponder
Speaker 1: what to do about the little pieces of time in
Speaker 1: their lives. You know what these are. Five minutes while
Speaker 1: you're waiting for a phone call to start, five minutes
Speaker 1: while you're waiting for the bus or for the car
Speaker 1: pol to bring your kids home. I know what most
Speaker 1: of us do with these little bits of time. We
Speaker 1: pick up our phones and start deleting email. It feels
Speaker 1: so productive to delete those emails right or else, we
Speaker 1: take a quick look through social media sites to see
Speaker 1: if anyone's liked our posts. These things are very easy
Speaker 1: to do, and they fit well in bits of time,
Speaker 1: but they can feel somewhat unsatisfying to do over and
Speaker 1: over again. People who use their time well often want
Speaker 1: to use all their time well, and so they wonder
Speaker 1: what else they can do in bits of time to
Speaker 1: bring bits of joy into their lives. I think it's
Speaker 1: a great question. One of the reasons I started this
Speaker 1: podcast was to give people something they could do in
Speaker 1: little bits of time. You aim to get to your
Speaker 1: train station five minutes before departure, and you listen to
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast in that little chunk of time. Hopefully you
Speaker 1: heard something in an episode that will take your date
Speaker 1: from great to awesome. But if you pay attention to
Speaker 1: your time, you'll notice that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: these chunks through the day. If you're caught up on
Speaker 1: episodes well before, Fist can only fill one of them,
Speaker 1: So what do you do with the rest. Over the
Speaker 1: past few months, Before Breakfast listeners have written to me
Speaker 1: with all kinds of ways that they use little bits
Speaker 1: of time for bits of joy. One listener, who works
Speaker 1: in a hotel and a cold climate, wrote that she
Speaker 1: and her colleagues will go up and down the stairs
Speaker 1: together during five to ten minute breaks. They get exercise
Speaker 1: and social time and return to their work with a
Speaker 1: lot more energy. Another listener wrote in that she uses
Speaker 1: time on the bus to work on a language app.
Speaker 1: It's hard to do focused work with stops and starts,
Speaker 1: and no one's guaranteed to get a seed, which makes
Speaker 1: other activities difficult, but she can use these short chunks
Speaker 1: of time to add to her skills. I have the
Speaker 1: Kindle app on my phone so I can read in
Speaker 1: little bits of time. These bits of time can really
Speaker 1: add up. It's not unusual for me to score an
Speaker 1: extra twenty to twenty five minutes of reading time per
Speaker 1: day when I'm looking at my phone while waiting in
Speaker 1: a checkoutline, or when the gate agent says they're about
Speaker 1: to board the plane, but then we don't board just yet. Sure,
Speaker 1: those emails do need to be deleted at some point,
Speaker 1: but you can delete email constantly and there will still
Speaker 1: be more emails to delete. It's more effective to do
Speaker 1: that in big batches and leave those bits of time
Speaker 1: for something else. So at some point today, make a
Speaker 1: list of things you can do with little bits of time.
Speaker 1: Other than delete email or check social media. Call this
Speaker 1: your bits of joy list? What can you do in
Speaker 1: less than ten minutes to add joy and meaning to
Speaker 1: your life. Maybe it's texting a friend or family member
Speaker 1: to connect. Maybe it's brainstorming fun things to do on
Speaker 1: the weekend. It could be reading a poem, doing a
Speaker 1: quick meditation, coloring in one of those grown up coloring books,
Speaker 1: doing a few entries and a crossword puzzle, looking at
Speaker 1: a great work of art at a museum's website, or
Speaker 1: reading a random Wikipedia entry. See if you can list
Speaker 1: ten or more ideas, then choose a few favorites to
Speaker 1: do as your defaults. Make sure you have the materials handy.
Speaker 1: That way, when you find yourself on hold or waiting
Speaker 1: for someone to call you, you can pull out those
Speaker 1: colored pencils and start working on that coloring book. Life
Speaker 1: will feel so much better then if you spend those
Speaker 1: few minutes de leting emails that seem to regenerate themselves
Speaker 1: before you even close your inbox. So what's on your
Speaker 1: bits of joy list? Please email me and let me know.
Speaker 1: You can write to me at Before Breakfast podcast at
Speaker 1: I heart media dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the number four, then
Speaker 1: Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com that
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, I look forward to staying in touch. Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
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