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: tip is that full time doesn't mean all of the time.
Speaker 1: Recognizing that even a full time job generally leaves a
Speaker 1: lot of space for other things can help make a
Speaker 1: full and happy life possible. So certain phrases really don't
Speaker 1: convey situations accurately, and the phrase full time is one
Speaker 1: of the worst culprits. Full time implies the full amount
Speaker 1: of your time, but in many cases, a full time
Speaker 1: job amounts to approximately thirty five to forty hours a week.
Speaker 1: I remember when I first did the math and realized
Speaker 1: that a week has one hundred sixty eight hours. If
Speaker 1: you sleep eight hours a night, so that is fifty
Speaker 1: six hours per week, and subtract fifty six and forty
Speaker 1: from one hundred sixty eight, you get seventy two hours
Speaker 1: left over. Now, some folks do work more than forty
Speaker 1: hours a week, but not that many. The tail on
Speaker 1: this normal distribution gets thin really quickly. People go around
Speaker 1: saying things like you spend the majority of your waking
Speaker 1: hours at work, but for the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: that is not true. At all. Unfortunately, using the word
Speaker 1: full to describe thirty five to forty hours per week
Speaker 1: of work causes all sorts of issues. For instance, some
Speaker 1: folks assume that they should work part time because they
Speaker 1: have a family, and because they don't want work to
Speaker 1: get the full amount of their time, they want their
Speaker 1: families to get part time too. But if full time
Speaker 1: work isn't actually full time, this story gets less clear cut.
Speaker 1: Working forty hours and having seventy two hours for other
Speaker 1: things is already tilted more toward life than work. It's
Speaker 1: unclear what would be more balanced about working twenty hours
Speaker 1: and having ninety two hours for other things. There may
Speaker 1: be reasons for this, but it isn't more balanced. The
Speaker 1: other problem with the word full is that folks who
Speaker 1: do work full time often assume they have no time
Speaker 1: for other things. I mean, how could they work is
Speaker 1: consuming the full amount of their time, except that it isn't.
Speaker 1: In seventy two waking non working hours, it is quite
Speaker 1: possible to find three to four hours to exercise or
Speaker 1: two to three hours to voluntier, in addition to spending
Speaker 1: lots of time with family members and friends. If you
Speaker 1: have never tracked your time before, I suggest trying it.
Speaker 1: One of the first things people see is how much
Speaker 1: time they have outside of work, even if they are
Speaker 1: working full time hours. If you are home from work
Speaker 1: at five thirty pm and go to bed at ten
Speaker 1: thirty pm, that is five hours each day Monday to
Speaker 1: Friday to attend to the rest of your life. Plus
Speaker 1: there's likely some time in the morning too. If you
Speaker 1: are up at six thirty am and leave for work
Speaker 1: at eight, that's another ninety minutes that can be acknowledged
Speaker 1: as existing. You probably don't spend all of it in
Speaker 1: the shower. And then there's weekends. There are thirty six
Speaker 1: waking hours between six pm Friday and six am Monday.
Speaker 1: That is almost the equivalent of a full time job
Speaker 1: right there. Once you recognize that full time work still
Speaker 1: leaves a lot of time for other things, this opens
Speaker 1: up possibilities. Instead of assuming you have no time, you
Speaker 1: can start to assume that you do have time, and
Speaker 1: you can start asking what you'd like to do with it. Personally,
Speaker 1: I think this is a much more useful mindset. You
Speaker 1: start to see that it might be possible to get
Speaker 1: up and run for thirty minutes two mornings a week
Speaker 1: and read for forty five minutes at night most nights.
Speaker 1: You might be able to go play in a pickleball
Speaker 1: league on Tuesdays and still have space for lots of
Speaker 1: just hanging out. Full time isn't full time at all.
Speaker 1: It is some amount of time, but generally there is
Speaker 1: space for everything else in the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.