Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to recognize that having no free time
Speaker 1: and having not as much free time as you want
Speaker 1: are very different stories. Telling yourself the correct story can
Speaker 1: change how you view time. Over the years, I've had
Speaker 1: thousands of people track their time for me, often on
Speaker 1: weekly spreadsheets, sometimes in narrative form, and sometimes in apps.
Speaker 1: I have tracked my own time for more than five
Speaker 1: years now, and I've studied various other time diary studies,
Speaker 1: such as the American Time You Survey, in great detail.
Speaker 1: What I have learned is that basically everyone has free time.
Speaker 1: Some people have a lot of free time. My children
Speaker 1: managed to walk a lot of shows and play a
Speaker 1: lot of video games. Others of us have well less.
Speaker 1: Caring for five children and running a business turns out
Speaker 1: to take a reasonable quantity of time. When you look
Speaker 1: at large scale time diary studies, it's no real surprise
Speaker 1: that my particular demographic of folks, working mothers with kids
Speaker 1: under the age of six, have the least amount of
Speaker 1: free time of other demographics. But and this is key,
Speaker 1: we rarely have none and this is an important distinction.
Speaker 1: I don't know why people get wedded to the narrative
Speaker 1: that they have zero leisure time. I mean, sure, we
Speaker 1: all have a lot to do and responsibilities can weigh heavily.
Speaker 1: Talking about how we have no free time is a
Speaker 1: way to show others how hard we are working or
Speaker 1: how tough life can be. And it's definitely true that
Speaker 1: life can be tough, but it's also true that no
Speaker 1: one wins in the Misery Olympics. Claiming to have zero
Speaker 1: free time is just fetist and also self defeating, because
Speaker 1: when leisure time does appear, if you claim to have none,
Speaker 1: then you probably don't think about what you're going to
Speaker 1: do with it, so you do things that aren't particularly rejuvenating,
Speaker 1: like scrolling around online. So let's try a different narrative.
Speaker 1: We don't have zero free time, we just have not
Speaker 1: as much as we want. Not as much as I
Speaker 1: want is a very different story from none. It implies
Speaker 1: some great questions right there, such as how can I
Speaker 1: scale this up over time? And how can I best
Speaker 1: use the limited free time I do have to get
Speaker 1: the most enjoyment out of it. These are far more
Speaker 1: useful questions. They might nudge us to do things such
Speaker 1: as track our time and see how much free time
Speaker 1: usually occurs in any given twenty four hours or any
Speaker 1: given one. If I know I am going to have
Speaker 1: about two hours of free time each day, I can
Speaker 1: decide that I want to spend forty five minutes exercising,
Speaker 1: forty five minutes reading, and thirty nits on a jigsaw puzzle. Great.
Speaker 1: I will know at the end of the day that
Speaker 1: I have had some high quality leisure time, whereas if
Speaker 1: I assume none, I won't think about what to do
Speaker 1: with it, and it will probably all wind up being
Speaker 1: spent staring at coronavirus headlines not as much as I want.
Speaker 1: Helps us see where we might be able to redeploy
Speaker 1: time towards the leisure category too. We might decide to
Speaker 1: ask other adults in our lives for help, or lower
Speaker 1: our standards for housework, or tell any older kids defend
Speaker 1: for themselves from time to time. When it comes to time,
Speaker 1: it is tempting to play the victim I have no
Speaker 1: time for fun, but saying I have some time, just
Speaker 1: not as much as I want puts us back in charge.
Speaker 1: We become the architects of our time. Looking to expand
Speaker 1: and optimize a resource, and when we do that, we
Speaker 1: might be surprised at how much time for fun we
Speaker 1: can find 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 E the number four, then breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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