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: episode is going to be a slightly longer one, but
Speaker 1: instead of interviewing someone fascinating about how they take their
Speaker 1: days from great to awesome, I am going to be
Speaker 1: talking about some of the best tips I have heard
Speaker 1: over the years and that have been shared on Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast so all of us can make our days a
Speaker 1: little better. Before Breakfast launched in March of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so this episode is celebrating seven years of the show.
Speaker 1: This is a daily podcast, and yes, there's been a
Speaker 1: new episode every weekday morning for the past seven years.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of episodes, and it is a
Speaker 1: lot of morning It's a lot of ideas on how
Speaker 1: to do life better. For the first five or so years,
Speaker 1: the show was only short episodes, approximately four to six
Speaker 1: minutes each. Then in late twenty twenty four, I began
Speaker 1: adding one interview episode a week so we could hear
Speaker 1: from other people about their expertise and their strategies. It's
Speaker 1: been fun for me to talk with all kinds of
Speaker 1: amazing people and to share these conversations with you. Anyway,
Speaker 1: today I'm going to be talking through some of my
Speaker 1: favorite ideas from the first year of the show. If
Speaker 1: you just joined us in the past year or so,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to go back through the archives see
Speaker 1: what you missed. But here is some very practical advice
Speaker 1: from twenty nineteen that I think still holds up now.
Speaker 1: For instance, on March twenty ninth, twenty nineteen, I suggested
Speaker 1: listeners plan something fun for Sunday nights. Even people who
Speaker 1: like their jobs can often feel a sense of trepidation
Speaker 1: those Sunday scaries by Sunday afternoon. One way to avoid
Speaker 1: those scaries is to plan in something you can anticipate
Speaker 1: for later in the weekend. After all, if you are
Speaker 1: meeting friends for dinner on Sunday night, you will be
Speaker 1: thinking about your dinner rather than Monday morning for much
Speaker 1: of Sunday afternoon, and that is a lot more fun. Yes,
Speaker 1: Sunday night is a school night, so you might want
Speaker 1: to do something simple and not plan on being out
Speaker 1: too late. But there is no reason to lose Sunday
Speaker 1: mentally to Monday. Enjoy every second of Sunday that you can.
Speaker 1: Here's another twenty nineteen idea that is related to weekends.
Speaker 1: On May third, twenty nineteen, I did an episode saying
Speaker 1: don't grocery shop on weekends. Now, I know, I know
Speaker 1: that really feels like the time it fits for a
Speaker 1: lot of people with full time jobs. But grocery stores
Speaker 1: are often very busy on weekends since everybody shops in,
Speaker 1: so it will take a lot of time to get
Speaker 1: in and get out and battle the crowds. Grocery shopping
Speaker 1: on weekends also reinforces the idea that weekends are for
Speaker 1: chores and errands. But are they? I think it might
Speaker 1: be wise to keep the focus on family time and
Speaker 1: rejuvenating leisure. Maybe chores and errands can be done during
Speaker 1: the week when you are already in work mode. A
Speaker 1: lot of grocery stores are open late. If you've got
Speaker 1: a fly, maybe one parent does bedtime and the other
Speaker 1: goes out grocery shopping. Or if you work from home
Speaker 1: on occasion, maybe you could use what would have been
Speaker 1: the commute time someday to shop. The shopping will take
Speaker 1: less time during the week than during the madness of
Speaker 1: a Saturday afternoon, and you will be able to use
Speaker 1: the weekends for other things. On June sixth, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the before Breakfast tip was to schedule a mental health morning. Now.
Speaker 1: This was a listener's suggestion. Someone noted that it was
Speaker 1: often hard to take a full day of PTO if
Speaker 1: you had various responsibilities, and when people do take PTO,
Speaker 1: they often want to use it for longer vacations. But
Speaker 1: it might be possible to take half a day off
Speaker 1: and use that time for something restorative. For instance, if
Speaker 1: you had a dentist appointment at eleven am, you might
Speaker 1: purposefully take the morning off until then and do something
Speaker 1: that would soothe your soul, reading hobbies, maybe seeing a
Speaker 1: friend with some flexibility in their schedule. Even a little
Speaker 1: break can go a long way toward making life feel
Speaker 1: more sustainable. If you schedule your mental health morning and
Speaker 1: for a week or two ahead of time, then you
Speaker 1: can look forward to it, and I believe that anticipation
Speaker 1: is one of the best forms of self care out there.
Speaker 1: In that same vein of taking small breaks, on June twelfth,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, we talked about how Wednesday is the best
Speaker 1: day to work from home now. This episode aired long
Speaker 1: before COVID, when working from home became a lot more common.
Speaker 1: Yes before Breakfast was around before the pandemic. Back in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, people were writing whole think pieces on the
Speaker 1: angst of negotiation to work from home just one day
Speaker 1: a week. Then, as now, the most common day people
Speaker 1: would ask for was Friday, And on some level it
Speaker 1: makes sense, as Fridays tend to be slower, people thought
Speaker 1: their managers would be most likely to approve Fridays as well,
Speaker 1: people often work less on Fridays, or maybe leave a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier, and so the perceived opportunity cost is lower.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that buys into the idea that
Speaker 1: people who are working from home aren't really working. Choosing
Speaker 1: Friday just limits the damage. Now you and I both
Speaker 1: know this isn't true. Many of us work quite hard
Speaker 1: from home. So I suggested that people consider negotiating to
Speaker 1: work from home on Wednesdays. That way, if you have
Speaker 1: a long commute, you will only have to do it
Speaker 1: twice in a row. Wednesday provides a nice mid way
Speaker 1: week break from the usual routines. You could use Wednesday
Speaker 1: to hunker down and work on all the deliverables coming
Speaker 1: out of the meetings on the other days. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how many people took me up on this idea
Speaker 1: to negotiate to work from home on Wednesday, but I
Speaker 1: still think it's a good one. So We're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick ad break and then I will be
Speaker 1: back with some more historic Before Breakfast ideas from the
Speaker 1: first year. Well we are back. I am sharing some
Speaker 1: of my favorite tips from the first year of Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast as we celebrate the show's seventh anniversary. So, speaking
Speaker 1: of dealing with long commutes, as we were talking about
Speaker 1: before the break on July tenth of twenty nineteen, I
Speaker 1: suggested people try to commute with a friend. Not every day,
Speaker 1: of course, but given how much people hate their commutes
Speaker 1: and how many people say they wish they could see
Speaker 1: their friends more, I am surprised at how little this
Speaker 1: actually happens. For a lot of people. Commuting time is
Speaker 1: almost entirely wasted. Turning it into relationship building time would
Speaker 1: massively upgrade the experience. Now, I know that carpooling involves
Speaker 1: a fair amount of planning and coordination, not everyone lives
Speaker 1: near each other or works in similar places. Even for
Speaker 1: people who do live near each other or even live
Speaker 1: with each other and who work near each other, it
Speaker 1: might be a little inconvenient. It might add a few
Speaker 1: minutes onto the trip. You might lose a sense of
Speaker 1: absolute flexibility on when you can leave. But what an upside.
Speaker 1: If a friend, their family member, or partner works anywhere
Speaker 1: near you, it would be worth trying even just one
Speaker 1: day a week or one day every two weeks as
Speaker 1: a way to reclaim a few minutes and make something
Speaker 1: that is not fun feel a lot more fun. On
Speaker 1: July twenty fifth of twenty nineteen, our Before Breakfast episodes
Speaker 1: suggested that people read at lunch. When people take a
Speaker 1: lunch break, the temptation is often to read headlines or
Speaker 1: scroll around on social media if they're not with somebody else,
Speaker 1: and it feels kind of relaxing. But reading a real
Speaker 1: book would feel even more indulgent. And this reading time
Speaker 1: does add up. If you read for fifteen minutes at
Speaker 1: lunch five times a week, that's another one point two
Speaker 1: five hours of reading per week. A lot of books
Speaker 1: take about three to four to read, so if you
Speaker 1: do the math, that's like adding another book every three
Speaker 1: to four weeks right there. That gives you an extra
Speaker 1: fourteen to seventeen extra books per year without really giving
Speaker 1: anything up. That certainly sounds like a win to me.
Speaker 1: Instead of losing time in general to small things, collecting
Speaker 1: these bits of time ephemera and focusing them on one
Speaker 1: thing can make life feel a lot more fulfilling. On
Speaker 1: August twelfth of twenty nineteen, a listener suggested a hack
Speaker 1: which became an episode called Create a Better to Do List.
Speaker 1: The idea was to give all tasks on your to
Speaker 1: do list an actual time. The basic idea here is
Speaker 1: that tasks take time, so if there is not a
Speaker 1: designated time to do the tasks, they are probably not
Speaker 1: going to happen. This is a very simple idea, but
Speaker 1: it is so true, and so many people try to
Speaker 1: ignore it. They put things on the to do list
Speaker 1: with no available time to do them, and then get
Speaker 1: frustrated when they don't make it through their to do list. Now,
Speaker 1: some of us have reasonably flexible jobs and so we
Speaker 1: don't have to be quite as rigid about exact times
Speaker 1: for everything on our to do lists. But if you
Speaker 1: do happen to have a job or a situation where
Speaker 1: time is tight, as you are making your to do
Speaker 1: list for the next day, figure out when you will
Speaker 1: do each task, where on your calendar will it go.
Speaker 1: Maybe you will need to move things around, or maybe
Speaker 1: you will need to limit your to do list. You
Speaker 1: might have to make some hard choices, but you know
Speaker 1: that is not a bad thing. Choices lead to a
Speaker 1: to do list that is actually doable. On September twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, I suggested something that could make email more fun.
Speaker 1: Reach out to someone you admire. If someone has done
Speaker 1: something cool in the world, send them an email and
Speaker 1: let them know that you thought it was cool or
Speaker 1: if it had an impact on you. Now, if the
Speaker 1: particular person is really well known or famous, they might
Speaker 1: not respond, but a lot of these emails do in
Speaker 1: fact get read. You will feel good sending it, and
Speaker 1: most likely the person will feel good reading it, or
Speaker 1: at least someone on the person's team will feel good
Speaker 1: knowing that they are doing good in the world. There's
Speaker 1: really no downside. This is true for sending positive emails
Speaker 1: in general. Let an old friend or colleague know your
Speaker 1: thinking about them. I'm guessing that you couldn't mind getting
Speaker 1: a similar email from someone else, so that can be
Speaker 1: your guiding principle for whether to send these things. On
Speaker 1: September twenty sixth, twenty nineteen, I shared one of my
Speaker 1: favorite suggestions for how people with young kids can have
Speaker 1: more real leisure time. Give each parent one night off.
Speaker 1: The idea is that if you are in a two
Speaker 1: parent family, or at least your co parenting with someone,
Speaker 1: each of you gets one night off from caregiving duties
Speaker 1: to go do something that is not work and is
Speaker 1: not taking care of family members, but is fun for you.
Speaker 1: For instance, maybe one of you sings an a choir
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and the other person plays in a pickleball
Speaker 1: league on Thursdays. The kids are still with a parent
Speaker 1: on each of these nights, but each parent gets to
Speaker 1: feel like a full person, maybe even keeping up with
Speaker 1: interests they have from before kids. A lot of parents
Speaker 1: feel like they have no time for fun, but I
Speaker 1: find that many times people aren't using all the resources
Speaker 1: that are available to them. Your co parent is a resource,
Speaker 1: and you have a joint pool of hours. Each of
Speaker 1: you can take some time for you, as long as
Speaker 1: you trade off and keep it fair. Now, I know
Speaker 1: all families don't look like this, but maybe you could
Speaker 1: swap nights with someone else in your life to take
Speaker 1: a night for you. A friend, a neighbor, an extended
Speaker 1: family member. I'm betting that it can still work. We're
Speaker 1: going to take one more quick ad break and then
Speaker 1: I will be back with some more historic Before Breakfast advice. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back talking ideas from the first year of
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast as we celebrate this show's seventh anniversary on
Speaker 1: October eighth, twenty nineteen. I suggested that listeners become a
Speaker 1: regular somewhere. A lot of people feel disconnected these days,
Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit lonely. It's good to go
Speaker 1: somewhere where everybody knows your name, as they sang in
Speaker 1: the theme song for Cheers. If you and your family
Speaker 1: like to go out to eat twice a month, maybe
Speaker 1: you make a point of going to the same restaurant
Speaker 1: for one of those times, so you eat at the
Speaker 1: same place twelve times a year and you get to
Speaker 1: know the establishment. Or maybe you always go to the
Speaker 1: same bar with your pickleball league after your games. Maybe
Speaker 1: you and your running buddy stop at the same coffee
Speaker 1: shop for coffee after your run every Saturday morning, and
Speaker 1: so you get to know the people who work there
Speaker 1: at that time and the regulars who are also getting
Speaker 1: their coffee. You can learn people's names. You could say hello,
Speaker 1: and even though you don't have a close relationship with
Speaker 1: these people, you'll feel like someone in the universe knows
Speaker 1: about you and knows you exist. Plus, you develop favorites
Speaker 1: that you could start to tell others about and have
Speaker 1: some knowledge here everyone likes the guacamole at that particular
Speaker 1: Mexican place. You know, that sort of thing. On December sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, we talked about the wisdom of trying forty
Speaker 1: minute meetings. There is no real reason that meetings have
Speaker 1: to default to thirty or sixty minutes. If you might
Speaker 1: be tempted to schedule something for an hour, see if
Speaker 1: you can construct the agenda to be done in forty
Speaker 1: minutes instead. This leaves time for making sure everyone is
Speaker 1: clear on all the next steps, and maybe even doing
Speaker 1: some of those next steps. You can send those emails
Speaker 1: right then. This also lets people go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: or get a cup of coffee and get to their
Speaker 1: next meeting on time. One of the reasons people often
Speaker 1: feel frantic or so behind during the workday is that
Speaker 1: we often don't build in time for transitions. But even
Speaker 1: if you are meeting virtually and not in person, transitions
Speaker 1: don't take zero time. They do take sometime build them
Speaker 1: in and everyone will be a lot more calm and
Speaker 1: a lot happier. Finally, on December sixteenth, I suggested that
Speaker 1: busy people make mornings into family time. Sometimes the time
Speaker 1: after work can be hard to use well. People are tired.
Speaker 1: Young kids might need to go to bed on the
Speaker 1: early side, which limits how much you can see them then.
Speaker 1: But from my experience, many young kids also wake up
Speaker 1: at the crack of dawn. If your kid is up
Speaker 1: at let's say five thirty am, and you don't need
Speaker 1: to leave for work until eight thirty am, this is
Speaker 1: three hours you could potentially be spending together, and my
Speaker 1: guess is you don't need all of it for getting ready.
Speaker 1: With a few exceptions, whatever playing you would have done
Speaker 1: in the evening can be done in the morning. Yep,
Speaker 1: you can go to a playground at seven thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning if you like, even if you don't have
Speaker 1: little kids. Trying a family breakfast or building in enough
Speaker 1: time into a morning to talk with your partner or
Speaker 1: talk with your teenage children can make mornings feel a
Speaker 1: lot more satisfying. They don't just need to be about
Speaker 1: racing out the door. We can take our days from
Speaker 1: g to awesome by being more mindful of the time
Speaker 1: that already exists and moving our mindset from surviving to thriving. Anyway,
Speaker 1: those are some of my favorite tips from the first
Speaker 1: year of the show. Thank you so much for listening
Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. It has been a great seven years
Speaker 1: since March of twenty nineteen, and I hope you will
Speaker 1: continue to tune in every morning for more tips on
Speaker 1: taking days from great to awesome. What have been your
Speaker 1: favorite episodes of Before Breakfast? You can let me know
Speaker 1: or let me know any feedback and what you'd like
Speaker 1: to see more of at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.