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 think about how many hours we
Speaker 1: have in life, and while that might sound a bit morbid,
Speaker 1: I find it helpful for clarifying what matters and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: You may not have calculated this before, but there are
Speaker 1: eight thousand, seven hundred sixty hours in a year. That
Speaker 1: means that if you live to be ninety, you've got
Speaker 1: about seven hundred eighty nine thousand hours in your life.
Speaker 1: Let's be optimistic and call this eight hundred thousand. It's
Speaker 1: just easier to work with. This makes a life span
Speaker 1: somewhere between ninety one and ninety two years. I imagine
Speaker 1: that for most podcast listeners some proportion of those eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand hours have come and gone. There's no it
Speaker 1: out plenty left. But it's not an infinite amount. It's
Speaker 1: also not trillions or billions or even millions of hours.
Speaker 1: It's probably somewhere in the six figures. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's a number we can picture, a number we can
Speaker 1: get our heads around. And while no one really likes
Speaker 1: to think about the finite nature of our own time.
Speaker 1: This finite number opens up the possibility of more calculated
Speaker 1: decision making. We can think about how we'd like to
Speaker 1: allocate and invest these hours. We can think about what
Speaker 1: deserves to be in these hours and what does not.
Speaker 1: However old you are, I have an encouraging message for you.
Speaker 1: The hours you have left can still hold a lot.
Speaker 1: A two week trip to Australia would be three thirty
Speaker 1: six hours if thirty six of those might be spent
Speaker 1: crammed on an airplane. People who participate in National Novel
Speaker 1: Writing Month in November are cranking out fifty thousand word
Speaker 1: drafts in thirty days. Many people need about three hours
Speaker 1: per day, or ninety hours total to hit that word count. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously you have to rest and recover from that level
Speaker 1: of writing output, and you need to build in a
Speaker 1: lot of time to edit too, to have anything that
Speaker 1: some one would want to read. But still I could
Speaker 1: put a lot of ninety hour chunks into the roughly
Speaker 1: four hundred twenty thousand hours I might have left. I
Speaker 1: might have more books left in me than i'd imagine.
Speaker 1: Training for a marathon is a significant investment of time,
Speaker 1: but it is also a finite investment of time. Most
Speaker 1: regular runners could manage it in about ten hours a
Speaker 1: week for sixteen weeks. That's a hundred sixty hours just
Speaker 1: a tiny fraction of that overall chunk time is plentiful.
Speaker 1: Of course, time is also precious too. Watching two hours
Speaker 1: of TV a day means watching twenty nine thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred hours over forty remaining years. It's shockingly easy to
Speaker 1: clock two hours of mindless internet scrolling per day that
Speaker 1: likewise would be hours, which is a lot of novels
Speaker 1: or trips to Australia. When we think about these numbers,
Speaker 1: we can think about our choices more rationally. We can
Speaker 1: calmly see that there is space for good stuff while
Speaker 1: recognizing that mindless stuff isn't cost less. It all requires
Speaker 1: trade offs. All time requires trade offs. As the heroine
Speaker 1: says in My Time Management Parable Juliet's School of Possibilities,
Speaker 1: expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing
Speaker 1: choose well. Choosing well means seeing these trade offs for
Speaker 1: what they are, rather than assuming they don't exist. In
Speaker 1: an upcoming episode, I'll talk more about the framework for
Speaker 1: choices in our eight hours, but today I just want
Speaker 1: you to keep this number in mind. Spend some time
Speaker 1: today thinking about it. Time passes, whether we think about
Speaker 1: where it goes or not, but knowing the number means
Speaker 1: we're slightly more aware of the constant ticking. I like
Speaker 1: to think of that ticking not as a drumbeat marching
Speaker 1: toward doom, but more of a warm heartbeat. We can
Speaker 1: appreciate it and think about it as a reminder of life,
Speaker 1: even if we know that it doesn't go on forever.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod
Speaker 1: that's b E the number four then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.