WEBVTT - Broaden your time horizons

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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<v Speaker 1>This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>tip is to expand your time horizon. Anytime you are

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<v Speaker 1>feeling crunched for time, or like you are neglecting one

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<v Speaker 1>area of your life, you might try looking at time

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<v Speaker 1>a little more broadly. It is quite possible that you

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<v Speaker 1>will feel like time is more abundant. So whenever someone

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<v Speaker 1>wants to talk about how pressed for time they are,

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<v Speaker 1>they tend to recount a crowded weekday as evidence for

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<v Speaker 1>this narrative. They're up early to get ready for work.

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<v Speaker 1>This is then followed by a commute, It's a long day,

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<v Speaker 1>making dinner, maybe getting kids to bed. Then, if the

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<v Speaker 1>person's going to do anything else, like exercise, or write

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<v Speaker 1>a novel, or learn French or talk with a partner,

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<v Speaker 1>it's going to need to happen alongside the tidying up

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<v Speaker 1>in that forty five minutes before lights out. No wonder

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<v Speaker 1>people feel starved for time, and trust me, I get it.

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<v Speaker 1>My life looks like that plenty of days too. Yet

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<v Speaker 1>I know that that is only one way we can

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<v Speaker 1>look at time. I remember when I first figured out

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<v Speaker 1>that a week has one hundred sixty eight hours. That

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<v Speaker 1>is twenty four times seven, something people say all the

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<v Speaker 1>time twenty four to seven and yet don't multiply it

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<v Speaker 1>through twenty four time seven is one hundred sixty eight hours.

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<v Speaker 1>Looking at time in terms of one hundred sixty eight

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<v Speaker 1>hours rather than twenty four suggests a slightly different arithmetic.

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<v Speaker 1>We are not looking at slivers of forty five minutes. Instead,

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<v Speaker 1>we might note that if you work forty hours and

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<v Speaker 1>commute even an hour each way, that comes out to

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<v Speaker 1>fifty hours. If you sleep eight hours per night, that

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<v Speaker 1>is fifty six hours per week. Subtract fifty and fifty

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<v Speaker 1>six from one hundred sixty eight and we get sixty

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<v Speaker 1>two hours for other things, and that sounds like quite

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<v Speaker 1>a bit of time. It suggests that at least it

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<v Speaker 1>might be possible to exercise for three hours and maybe

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<v Speaker 1>devote two hours to a hobby alongside one's other responsibilities.

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<v Speaker 1>Broadening the time horizon helps us see possibilities. Here's another

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<v Speaker 1>number to remember, eight thousand, seven hundred sixty That is

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<v Speaker 1>the number of hours in a normal year. There are

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<v Speaker 1>eight thousand, seven hundred eighty four hours in a leap year.

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<v Speaker 1>So in a regular year, if you work two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>hours and sleep two thy nine hundred twenty hours, that

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<v Speaker 1>leaves three thousand, eight hundred forty hours for other things.

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<v Speaker 1>Even if you subtract a case mute and showering and

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<v Speaker 1>whatever else, starts to seem like a fair chunk of time.

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<v Speaker 1>But it's not just about the math. It's about recognizing

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<v Speaker 1>that life isn't just lived in the crunched moments. Parts

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<v Speaker 1>of life are more expansive too. What seems typical is

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<v Speaker 1>often more of a story than anything else in the

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<v Speaker 1>context of life. I see this all the time in

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<v Speaker 1>the laments people share about their business. Consider someone who

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<v Speaker 1>needed to travel for work Monday to Thursday two weeks

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<v Speaker 1>a month. Now, that might feel like a fairly heavy

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<v Speaker 1>travel schedule. At first glance, it looks like fifty percent

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<v Speaker 1>of your work time, and so this story can become

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<v Speaker 1>that I am never home, and I agree it is

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<v Speaker 1>a pretty heavy travel schedule. But on the other hand,

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<v Speaker 1>three nights per week twice a month is about six

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<v Speaker 1>nights per month, or seventy two per year, maybe a

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<v Speaker 1>bit less if you exempt holiday and vacation weeks. Out

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<v Speaker 1>of three hundred and sixty five nights you are actually

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<v Speaker 1>home or with your family, pretty close to three hundred

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<v Speaker 1>of them. That is the vast majority. Everything feels different

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<v Speaker 1>when you zoom out or consider people who have very

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<v Speaker 1>busy phases of the year. Someone who teaches might find

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<v Speaker 1>the month of September to be frenzied, but perhaps July

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<v Speaker 1>is less so. An accountant might find February in March

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<v Speaker 1>to feel like a marathon run at a sprinting pace,

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<v Speaker 1>but November feels more open. A year contains all these multitudes.

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<v Speaker 1>Even very intense and big projects feel smaller in the

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<v Speaker 1>context of big chunks of time. Lots of folks will

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<v Speaker 1>participate in National Novel Writing Month in November, when people

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<v Speaker 1>attempt to writ a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days. Generally,

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<v Speaker 1>people spend about two hours each day on this undertaking,

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<v Speaker 1>so sixty hours. But in the context of three thousand,

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<v Speaker 1>eight hundred and forty non working waking hours in a year,

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<v Speaker 1>sixty hours doesn't really sound like that much. Maybe you

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<v Speaker 1>can even write more than one novel, who knows. When

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<v Speaker 1>it comes to time. On the one hand, it makes

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<v Speaker 1>sense that everything is a trade off. Time is absolutely limited.

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<v Speaker 1>We have eight thousand, seven hundred sixty hours in a year.

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<v Speaker 1>Time spent on one thing is often time not spent

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<v Speaker 1>on something else. But when we view time from a

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<v Speaker 1>limited perspective, like only looking at twenty four hours, we

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<v Speaker 1>often pit things against each other as trade offs that

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<v Speaker 1>in the grand scheme of things, really aren't. You know

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<v Speaker 1>how this goes. If I go out to drinks with

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<v Speaker 1>my team, then I am not putting my kid to bed.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm a terrible parent. But if I don't go out,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm a terrible team member. No one can have it all.

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<v Speaker 1>But if we look at a week and you're going

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<v Speaker 1>out one night and home six nights, this seems a

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<v Speaker 1>little less harsh. You can be a social team member

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<v Speaker 1>and be the kind of parent who is home almost

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<v Speaker 1>every night. And if we're talking going out with the

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<v Speaker 1>team twenty times a year or so, well, we get

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<v Speaker 1>to truly build relationships with our colleagues. But out of

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<v Speaker 1>three hundred and sixty five days, the vast majority are

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<v Speaker 1>spent doing the bedtime routine. Broaden the horizon and trade

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<v Speaker 1>offs don't look the same at all. In the meantime,

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<v Speaker 1>this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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<v Speaker 1>the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

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<v Speaker 1>If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach

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<v Speaker 1>me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

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<v Speaker 1>is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,

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