Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is the third in a five part series
Speaker 1: on how to take control of your time in the
Speaker 1: new year. This week, I'll be talking about five strategies
Speaker 1: that I know will help you feel less busy and
Speaker 1: get more done because they've definitely helped me. The first
Speaker 1: strategy was to track your time. The second is to
Speaker 1: build in an extra hour for something you'd really like
Speaker 1: to do. The third strategy honor this phrase first things first.
Speaker 1: My fellow productivity types will no doubt recognize this phrase
Speaker 1: from the late Stephen Covey's famous book The Seven Habits
Speaker 1: of Highly Effective People. Noting that people spent a ton
Speaker 1: of time on things that were urgent but not important,
Speaker 1: Covey urged people to spend more time on things that
Speaker 1: were important but not urgent. By putting what he called
Speaker 1: first things into our schedules first, we would massively increase
Speaker 1: the chances that they'd happen. This is pretty much timeless advice.
Speaker 1: Covey's book came out in nineteen ninety, which was before
Speaker 1: people had smartphones. Digging all day long with group, text
Speaker 1: comments and push notifications from apps. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: was urgent and not important in nineteen but it was
Speaker 1: something people have always managed to waste time. But we
Speaker 1: can choose to waste less time by treating what matters
Speaker 1: to us as if it were urgent. If anyone listening
Speaker 1: to this has watched my ted talk, then you've heard
Speaker 1: me tell a story that's an example of this phenomenon.
Speaker 1: I've seen thousands of time logs over the years, but
Speaker 1: this particular one stood out. It was from a very
Speaker 1: busy lady who worked in finance and had two young children.
Speaker 1: She went out for a Wednesday night for something, only
Speaker 1: to come home to find that her water heater had
Speaker 1: broken and there was now water all over her basement.
Speaker 1: Anyone who has had this happen to them knows it's
Speaker 1: a huge mess, and her time log showed her dealing
Speaker 1: with it, the aftermath, the plumbers, the cleaning crew. All
Speaker 1: this was recorded on her time log and took about
Speaker 1: seven hours of her week, which is quite a bit
Speaker 1: of time. But when we talked about this afterwards, looking
Speaker 1: at her log and discussed it, we said, well, what
Speaker 1: if we'd had this conversation at the start of the week.
Speaker 1: What if at the start of the week, we'd asked,
Speaker 1: could you find seven hours for something that's a priority
Speaker 1: to you, seven hours to train for a triathlon, seven
Speaker 1: hours to set up those coffee dates with the people
Speaker 1: who wanted her to mentor them. Well, no, of course
Speaker 1: she couldn't just find seven hours. I mean, couldn't We
Speaker 1: see how busy she was. But here's the thing. When
Speaker 1: she had to find seven hours because was water all
Speaker 1: over her basement, she found her seven hours. Time is
Speaker 1: highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will
Speaker 1: stretch to accommodate what we need or want to put
Speaker 1: into it. And so the key to time management is
Speaker 1: treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater.
Speaker 1: We choose to get to them first things first. Now
Speaker 1: I know this is easier said than done, but if
Speaker 1: you think about your schedule this week, I want to
Speaker 1: challenge you to look at it through this framework. If
Speaker 1: something crazy happened, good or bad, you'd probably find the
Speaker 1: time to deal with it. If your biggest client asked
Speaker 1: you to come visit because she was about to drop
Speaker 1: contracts for millions of dollars of work in your lap,
Speaker 1: My guess is that you'd go. So what would you
Speaker 1: not do as a result, Well, maybe that meeting about
Speaker 1: office fridge policies would get rescheduled. So here's an idea.
Speaker 1: If you keep saying you want to focus on client development,
Speaker 1: if only you had the time, how about canceling that
Speaker 1: meeting about fridge policies. Now, look at your schedule and
Speaker 1: figure out what you chuck in an emergency, and then
Speaker 1: ask yourself the hard question of whether it deserves a
Speaker 1: place in your life. Now, you might be surprised how
Speaker 1: much time becomes available when you think about putting first
Speaker 1: things first. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and 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 the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled
Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look
Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio for more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.