WEBVTT - The first step to spending your time better 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.200 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning, 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:15.800 This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.560 episode is going to be a longer one, just like 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:23.520 we do every Wednesday, only because this episode is first 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.040 running on New Year's Day. Today, we are going to 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.160 do something just a little bit different. I am going 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.600 to be sharing my thoughts on the first step to 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.960 spending your time better. Lots of people resolve to be 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.960 better about managing their time and their life in the 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.960 new year. I have some thoughts about how to do 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:49.760 just that. I'll also be sharing some news about a 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.360 challenge that I am running in mid January that will 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.200 help you make the most of your time. My goal 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.960 is that by the end of listening to today's episode, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.440 you will have a plan for getting some data, celebrating 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.360 what is worth celebrating, and making some changes in your 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.400 life if that is what you would like to do. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.640 I am excited to talk about this topic, so thank 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:21.480 you for listening. All right, Well, here we go. So 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.760 people sometimes say to me, Laura, I would like to 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.560 spend my time better. What is the first thing I 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.080 should be doing? And I always say, well, let's figure 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.240 out where the time is going now, Because if you 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.520 don't know where the time is going now, how do 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.800 you know if you're changing the right thing. Maybe something 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:48.560 you thought was a problem really isn't. Maybe something you 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.880 haven't even considered is taking more time than you've imagined. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:55.800 We want to make sure that we are working from 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.600 good data. Same as any business decision. Right if you're 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.960 figuring out where to open a new store, you'd be 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.040 looking at foot traffic and how neighboring retailers are doing, 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.640 and anything else you could figure out. You wouldn't just decide, well, 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:12.959 I think this is a good spot, so here we go. 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:15.720 You want to make sure you're working from good data, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.360 and it is the exact same thing with our time. 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.640 We want to figure out where the time really goes, 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.680 and the only way to do that is to actually 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.320 try keeping track of our time. There are lots of 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:37.080 ways to do this. I track my time on weekly spreadsheets. 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.680 I know that makes me sound like a ton of fun, 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.360 but I'm sure there are a few people listening to 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.120 this podcast who really enjoy a good spreadsheet. Kind of 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.200 an art form. It gets even worse. I've been doing 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.120 this since April of twenty fifteen, tracking my time, but 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.800 I promise it is not too onerous and you don't 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:56.799 have to do it for ten years. Just a week 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.840 would be good. But I track on weekly spreadsheets with 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.679 the days of the week across the top Monday through 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.800 Sunday half hour blocks down the left hand side five 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.200 am to four thirty am, so we have three hundred 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.720 thirty six cells representing the one hundred and sixty eight 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.400 hour week. If you'd like to use one of these 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.400 spreadsheets yourself, you can just go to my website, Laura 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.320 vandercam dot com and you'll be able to find and 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.359 download one. But that's not the only way you can 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.080 track your time. Some people use one of dozens of 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.720 time tracking apps that are on the market these days. 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.520 Or you could even walk around with a little notebook 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.040 if you want to look all artsy writing down what 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:44.560 you are doing. The tool itself doesn't actually matter. What 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:49.000 matters is that you do it. And when I suggest 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.720 that people track their time for a week, you may 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.360 or perhaps may not be surprised to hear that I 0:03:55.400 --> 0:04:00.200 get a little bit of pushback to this idea, Like, hmm, right, 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:01.840 if that is the first thing I should do to 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.080 spend my time better, What is the second thing I 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.800 should be doing? So I have explored this resistance with 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:11.960 people over the years, and I think it's a couple 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:16.799 of things. Sometimes people have worked in legal or accounting 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.839 fields and other places where they have to track their 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.560 time and six minute increments, and the experience has left 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.200 them a little bit traumatized. But I promise you don't 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.960 have to do it forever, and it will be helpful 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.640 to even look at your time outside of work. You 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.240 may know exactly where your work time goes in those 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.200 six minute increments, but my guess is that you don't 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.880 know where the other you know, one hundred some plus 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.160 hours of the week happened to go, and that might 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.360 be useful information for you to figure out. So, even 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.400 if you have had to bill your time in excruciating 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.080 detail for work, just try this for a week. I 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.240 promise it will be useful. Sometimes people tell me, well, 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:02.279 I'm too busy to try time, and I guess that 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.080 is its own special problem. But I really really promise 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.279 it is not that difficult. I would not have stuck 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.359 with this for almost ten years now if I found 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.440 it challenging. What I tend to do is just check 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.800 in three times a day write down what I've done 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.240 since the last time I checked in, and it's fine 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.080 to use broad strokes, or even if you forget, sometimes 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:28.680 you just approximate and keep going on. Three minutes a 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.400 day to do this is the exact same amount of 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.560 time that I spend brushing my teeth. That is an 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.360 activity that I have yet to declare myself too busy 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.200 to do. But I think that the most common reason 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.159 that people resist tracking time, it's the exact same thing. 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.120 If anyone has ever resolved to lose weight or to 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.880 eat more healthfully, you know that a nutritionist will tell 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.800 you to keep a food journal, and that is because 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:05.080 it works. Like there is pretty good evidence studies and 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.159 pure reviewed journals finding that people who write down what 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.680 they eat lose significantly more weight than people who do not. 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:18.080 So you think we'd be all over that, but the 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.960 truth is that we often don't want to know. We 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.600 don't want to know that we grabbed six chocolate chip 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.120 cookies from the kitchen next to our home office over 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.920 the course of a day, which is purely a hypothetical example, 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.080 and it is the same thing with time. We don't 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:40.479 want to know how much time we are wasting. So 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.839 let's get this out of the way right now. We 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:49.400 all waste time. Everybody wastes time. I waste tons of time. 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.599 No one spends all their time on things that are 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:57.000 meaningful or enjoyable for themselves or the people they care about. 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.599 Figuring out where the time really goes is not about 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.520 making sure that we're not wasting time here or there, 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.880 like oh you think you are so busy and I 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.280 saw you watch Netflix. It's not about playing gotcha. It 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:12.840 is about making sure that we are not telling ourselves 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.640 stories about our lives that aren't actually true. And when 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.480 it comes to time, we have all sorts of stories 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.080 we tell ourselves, not all of which are one hundred 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.960 percent accurate. So We're going to take a quick ad 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.120 break and then I'm going to come back and talk 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.760 a little bit more about what people find when they 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:39.840 actually track their time. Well, I am back. This is Laura, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.160 and this is a longer episode of Before Breakfast as 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.880 we run every Wednesday these days. But instead of bringing 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.800 you a guest this week because it is New Year's Day, 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.200 and decided to do something a little bit different talking 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.720 about the first step to spending our time better, which 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:02.040 is figuring out where the time really goes. So before 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.080 the break, I mentioned that keeping track of our time 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.480 is not about figuring out how much time we are wasting, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.800 because all of us waste time. It's about making sure 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.600 we are not telling ourselves stories about our lives that 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.840 aren't actually true. When it comes to time, we have 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.520 all sorts of these stories. I've seen many of these 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.000 over the years as I have explored thousands of people's 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:30.240 time logs. One of the most common stories we tell 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.360 ourselves that may not be one hundred percent accurate is 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:39.480 how many hours people are working. Now. To be clear, 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.160 I know everybody is working hard, everybody is working long. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.440 But we also live in a competitive world, and so 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.400 often there is a tendency to try to one up 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.600 each other over just how many hours we happen to 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.040 be working. Perhaps you have I've heard some of these 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.440 scintillating conversations over the years. People are comparing how many 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.360 hours they happen to be working, like, oh, I worked 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.920 sixty hours last week, ooh sixty, I wish I work sixty. 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.959 I work seventy, ooh, seventy is my light season, and 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.200 so on it goes. I once met a young man 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.319 at a party who told me he was working one 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.000 hundred and eighty hours a week at his startup. Now 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.520 that is pretty impressive if you actually multiply twenty four 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:37.040 times seven. There was once a study comparing people's estimated 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.719 work weeks with time diaries. I found that people who 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:45.120 were claiming seventy five plus hour work weeks were off 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.160 by about twenty five hours. And you can guess in 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.560 which direction they were off. Now, I find this all 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.920 a little funny, although it's also a little tragic at 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.280 times too, because I'm sure there are jobs that people 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.400 have not taken because everyone says, oh, it's an eighty 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.920 hour a week job. Now, if you knew it was 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.720 actually a fifty five to sixty hour week job, maybe 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.480 people would consider things differently. But even though I laugh 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.200 about it, I know I am guilty of this too. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.720 So many years ago I used to talk about my 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.800 fifty hour work weeks, and that is because I had 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.319 tracked my time here and there various points over the 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.640 years when I was writing my books or in solidarity 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.760 with other people as they were tracking their time, and 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.120 I usually worked about fifty hours a week. But then 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:39.400 I started tracking my time continuously in April of twenty fifteen, 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.600 and I realized something quite quickly, which is that in 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.800 the past I had chosen very specific weeks to track, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.000 namely weeks when I was working fifty hours a week, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.640 because I wanted to see myself as the kind of 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.760 person who was working fifty hours a week. When I 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.640 tracked all my time, all my weeks, I saw that 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.360 it was just as likely that I might have a 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:08.880 short week. I was off for some reason, there was 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.640 a vacation day, somebody was sick and I was dealing 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:13.920 with it. There was something that had to happen during 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.600 the workday, so many weeks were shorter, which means that 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.760 the long term average was a lot closer to forty. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.280 I now know, over ten years or so, that my 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.160 average is pretty solidly between thirty five and forty. When 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.200 I look at all fifty two weeks of the year, 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.200 I think if I subtracted three or four vacation weeks, 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.400 it would be a little closer to forty. But it 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.720 is not fifty. And here I write and speak about 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.559 time management, and there were ten hours going somewhere completely 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.000 different than I thought there was. And again, this is 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.400 not about playing gotcha, Ooh, you thought you worked fifty 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.200 hours a week and you were working thirty eight. It's 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.800 that when we are trying to decide how to spend 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.720 our work weeks, if we don't know what a work 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.480 we can, truly looks like we're just guessing with how 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.520 much time we assign to different things. How much time 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:12.400 should you spend on administration? How much time should you 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.560 spend on the stuff of your job, or on drumming 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.400 up new work, or on mentoring younger colleagues or anything 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.400 like that. I don't know what the answer is, but 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.360 if you don't know the denominator for your work week, 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.320 it's pretty hard to make rational choices of what the 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.200 numerators should be. Of these different proportions of things that 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.600 we are assigning to different tasks. We want to make 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:40.559 sure that we are working from good data. Incidentally, people 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.480 do this in the opposite direction. With free time. People 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.600 will tell you I have absolutely no free time whatsoever, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.520 and you can be having this conversation at a party. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:58.319 It's like, okay, maybe just a tiny amount of free time. 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.840 But what people mean when they say I have no 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.720 free time whatsoever is that they don't have as much 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:12.360 free time as they want. Now, that is a true story. Absolutely, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.680 we don't have as much free time as we want, 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.160 but not as much as I want is a very 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:24.080 very different story from none. Not as much as I 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.160 want implies some very good questions right there, like how 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.480 could I scale this up over time? How could I 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.959 make good choices within the limited leisure time I do 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:40.800 have so I feel most rejuvenated, whereas none is just defeatist. 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.800 Everyone has some amount of discretionary time, even if it 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.480 isn't much. Sometimes people get a little bit funny about this. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.920 One of my favorite examples of this is someone who 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.680 wrote in Too Real Simple many years ago. Real Simple 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.400 magazine asked their time starved readers to tell what they 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.000 would do if they had an extra fifteen minutes in 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.760 the day, and someone wrote in that fifteen minutes of 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:10.520 uninterrupted writing time would be a priceless gift, which of 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.920 course left me wondering how she found fifteen minutes to 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.440 write Real Simple with this elusive dream of hers. Right, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.600 we have some amount of leisure time, but it's probably 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:23.960 not as much as I want, and that's fine. But 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.360 when we track our time and see how much time 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.400 we do have, we can make good choices with this 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.040 limited time. We're going to take one more quick break 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.480 and then I'll be back talking a little bit more 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:45.440 about how we can track our time. Well, I am back. 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.520 This is Laura. This is one of the longer episodes 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.920 of Before Breakfast as we run every Wednesday, but today, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.760 since it is New Year's Day, instead of bringing you 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.800 a guest, I'm talking a little bit about one of 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.640 the best ways to spend your time better in the 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.800 new year, and that is to figure out where the 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.040 time really goes. We're going to try tracking our time 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.760 for a week. In the last segment I talked about 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.400 all the stories that people tell themselves about their time 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.840 that may not be entirely true. We want to make 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.160 sure we are working from good data. So it's not 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.600 about playing gotcha. It's about making sure that we really 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.680 know what our lives look like. I think the truth 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.440 sets us free. So if you decide to do this, 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:33.600 and I really hope you will, that is tracking your 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.160 time for a week. It's pretty simple. You can just 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.160 write down what you're doing as often as you remember, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.720 in as much detail as you think will be helpful. 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:45.440 You try to keep going for a week and then 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.720 at the end. You can add it up if you 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:49.680 would like. How much time do you spend on the 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:54.600 major categories? How much time do you spend working, sleeping 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:01.880 in the car, hanging out with family members, watching television, reading, exercising, volunteering, 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.040 doing housework, errands, all the things you happen to do. 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.560 If you'd like, you can make really cool pie charts 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:10.680 of all this. But I promise you don't actually have 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.000 to make pie cart charts for it to look decent. 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.160 But anyway, keep going for a week and see what 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.960 you think. I really hope you will try this, And 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.040 if you would like a little bit of accountability, then 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:30.640 you might consider participating in my annual time tracking challenge 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:36.160 Every January. Thousands of people usually track their time together 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:41.240 for a week. This year, the challenge will be running 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:48.080 from Monday January thirteenth to Monday January twentieth. You can 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.120 sign up to get a time tracking spreadsheet and daily 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:55.240 emails from me at my website, Laura vandercam dot com. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.000 Just go right to the homepage and there will be 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.880 a big box where you can sign up. You will 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.880 also be able to read my time logs by following 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.920 along on my blog that week. Each day I will 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:12.000 post how I am spending my time and you can 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:16.600 read it and comment and see what you think. Now, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.960 of course, if you'd like to track your time before 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.600 January thirteenth to January twentieth, you are welcome to do that. 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.879 You could certainly track the week starting Monday, January sixth, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.800 and then you will be a real pro by the 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.280 time January thirteenth rolls about. I can tell you from 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.800 doing this for ten years now that it absolutely does 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.320 get a lot easier over time. Many people are not 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.400 used to describing time in words, and so the first 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.320 few days are a little bit rough. But that's why 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.160 it might be helpful to be getting those reminder emails 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.520 from me. I will have lots of tips, and I'll 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.400 also be reminding you to check in. You might want 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.639 to set an alarm a couple times a day so 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.159 that you know to go back to your spreadsheet. It 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.159 can be a little bit challenging on the weekends. I 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.199 definitely suggest people track their time on the weekends, because 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.760 weekends are real days too, and this time really counts. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.399 But of course you might not be with your spreadsheet 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:15.960 all the time on the weekend. I often just jot 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.280 down notes somewhere or email parts of my time log 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.320 to myself, just notes on what I was spending my 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.600 time doing, and then I can reconstruct it after the fact. 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.320 It absolutely does not need to be perfect. If you 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.679 forget what you are doing for a while, it's okay. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.800 You can just approximate it later. It is far better 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.879 to keep going for a week than to only have 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.520 a day or two because you are obsessed with it 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.800 being perfect. I really hope you will try it after 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.639 you do. After the week, you add up the questions, 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.320 you know the categories, how much time did I spend 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.359 on all these different things? And then you can ask 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:59.200 yourself a few questions about your time. First, what do 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:04.200 I like most about my schedule? It is your life. 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:09.840 Hopefully something is going really, really well. Maybe you have 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.720 a regular date night with your spouse. Maybe you love 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:18.240 your early morning exercise routine where you listen to before breakfast. 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.520 Maybe you have good systems for checking in with your 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.080 direct reports and meeting with them regularly and making sure 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:30.080 that nothing goes off the rails. We should celebrate whatever 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.840 is working well in your life. Then you can ask 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.800 the second question, what do I want to spend more 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:45.080 time doing. And then the third question, what do I 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.439 want to spend less time doing? You know, what do 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.640 I want to get off my plate? As I look 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.000 at my schedule, people often have lots of thoughts about 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.120 that things we want to spend less time doing. Whether 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.720 it's emptying the dishwasher even though you'll probably see it 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.480 only takes five minutes each day time, or driving around 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.280 in the car. Maybe there would be ways to shave 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.159 off a trip here or too in the course of 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.520 the week. You know, I think we spend a lot 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.080 of time thinking about that, and both questions are important, 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:16.440 but the first is probably more important. Even the best 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.600 you know email management system for spending less time cleaning 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.120 out our inboxes in the world won't suddenly give you 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.880 an amazing life, right. We don't want to just build 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.160 our lives by spending less time on the bad stuff. 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:30.959 We want to figure out what the good stuff is 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.320 and then put that in first. My experience is that 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.280 when you put the good stuff in first, that will 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:45.919 naturally make the less fun stuff just take less time. 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.240 And I am a big fan of that. So today's 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.320 tip has been to track your time for a week. 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.040 If you want to figure out where the time really goes. 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.800 That will help you spend your time better because you 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.440 will be working from good day and you can make 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.159 rational choices instead of simply assuming that you must be 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.320 spending your time a certain way based on how you feel, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.679 or even based on how you spent today, because today 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:13.480 is not the only day in your life. We tend 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.240 to live our lives in weeks, and so we want 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.000 to track an entire week to see where the time 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.960 really goes. So today we have been talking about time 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.119 tracking and why it is so important and why it 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.680 is the first step to spending our time better. It's 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.600 really not that hard. And here's the thing. You know, 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:33.320 you don't have to do it for ten years like 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:35.399 I have been doing. But the fact that I have 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:37.640 been doing it for ten years now is actually kind 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.360 of cool in its own right, because having a complete 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.399 time log for a week really helps cement your memories 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.480 of that week. If you track your time from January 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.520 thirteen to twenty, or any other week, you will remember 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.239 what happened during that week. When you look at your 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.159 time log in the future, some random date in the future, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.200 you want to pull up January thirteen of the year, 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.840 you can see what you were doing, what did life 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.199 look like. I mean, maybe you'll have particular memories of 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.120 what you did with your family or things that were 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.879 going on with work, and that can be really cool. 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.920 These days, I can call back up a week from say, 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.320 seven years ago, and see what I was doing with 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.520 every half hour. Now. Of course, I know full well 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:23.800 that the rest of the world does not care at 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:25.920 all what I was doing with a half hour on 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.119 January sixth, twenty seventeen, at two thirty pm. But I 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:31.800 guess I could look it up and I could tell you. 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.320 It's just a complete sort of memory keeping that is 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:41.160 turning priceless the longer I keep doing it. But anyway, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:42.880 no one is saying you have to track your time 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:46.560 for ten years. Just do it for a week. I 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.959 promise you will learn something. I've seen thousands of people 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:55.479 doing this now, and everyone finds at least something they 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:57.920 might want to tweak a little. I promise it will 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.000 be helpful, because when you know where the time is 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:05.199 going now, you can make wise choices about how to 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.399 spend your time in the future. So thank you for 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.439 listening to this longer episode, even though it has just 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.639 been me. We we'll be back with guests soon, but 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:20.200 in the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:30.119 here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:34.920 listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:44.560 you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.760 Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:53.399 from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:23:53.400 --> 0:24:05.400 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.