Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to plan in a different place. By moving
Speaker 1: yourself physically to a different location, you can create a
Speaker 1: little psychological space for thinking about how you'd like to
Speaker 1: spend your time in the future. Longtime listeners know that
Speaker 1: I recommend having a designated weekly planning time when you
Speaker 1: think about your professional and personal priorities for the upcoming week.
Speaker 1: Longtime listeners also know that I recommend doing this on
Speaker 1: Fridays if that happens to be a low key day
Speaker 1: for you, or maybe even Thursday if that works better
Speaker 1: for your schedule. Lately, I have been doing this planning
Speaker 1: on Thursdays to get a little ahead of things and
Speaker 1: so I can come back to the planning on Friday
Speaker 1: if I have forgotten something. Anyway, every other Thursday morning,
Speaker 1: our cleaning service tackles the first floor of our house,
Speaker 1: which is where my home office is located, so I
Speaker 1: need to leave my office and go elsewhere for an
Speaker 1: hour or so. Sometimes I just go upstairs or outside.
Speaker 1: Other times I go to the library or a coffee shop.
Speaker 1: I started moving out of necessity, so I'm not a
Speaker 1: nuisance when people are trying to vacuum. But I have
Speaker 1: found that I really enjoy doing my weekly planning during
Speaker 1: this little field trip, even if I am only in
Speaker 1: a different part of my house. I am not at
Speaker 1: my desk, so I find myself able to think a
Speaker 1: little more creatively about what I should do over the
Speaker 1: next week, or how I should structure my schedule. I
Speaker 1: come up with ideas for my podcasts and newsletters. I
Speaker 1: think about potential long term plans and what I might
Speaker 1: want to tackle in the near term. I am guessing
Speaker 1: that you might find the same thing. The first and
Speaker 1: most important step is to do some sort of weekly planning.
Speaker 1: It absolutely doesn't matter if you have a fancy planner
Speaker 1: or pen, or where or when you do your planning,
Speaker 1: as long as you do it.
Speaker 2: So commit to that first. But once you have made
Speaker 2: that commitment, you might want to experiment with getting slightly
Speaker 2: outside of your usual execution zone. If you do most
Speaker 2: of your work at your desk and you have space
Speaker 2: in your office for a chair, you might just go
Speaker 2: sit in that chair, or go sit in a conference
Speaker 2: room or at the kitchen table. If you're normally at
Speaker 2: a desk in a home office elsewhere, if the weather
Speaker 2: is nice, you could go sit at a table outside,
Speaker 2: or take a quick field trip to a nearby sandwich
Speaker 2: place where you buy yourself lunch and write down your
Speaker 2: intentions for the next week. I think this relocation works,
Speaker 2: at least in part because you're less likely to be distracted.
Speaker 2: I mean, sure, you can see emails coming in on
Speaker 2: your phone just the same as you can at your desk,
Speaker 2: but somehow it can feel less like this is what
Speaker 2: you are supposed to be doing with your time. If
Speaker 2: people tend to come talk to you at your desk,
Speaker 2: they might be less likely to do that if you
Speaker 2: are elsewhere. Even just seeing different scenery can put you
Speaker 2: in a different frame of mind. Planning and execution are
Speaker 2: different things. They are both important, but it makes sense
Speaker 2: that we draw on slightly different skills and parts of
Speaker 2: our brain to do them. By separating these out a
Speaker 2: bit physically, we can be a bit more intentional about both.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 2: here's to making the most of our times. Thanks for
Speaker 2: listening to before breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 2: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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