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 make time centric decisions. It's easy
Speaker 1: to undervalue time in our choices, but since time is
Speaker 1: the ultimate limited resource, we want to honor its value
Speaker 1: as much as possible. Today's tip, like another this week,
Speaker 1: comes from Ashley Willen's new book Time Smart. Willains argues
Speaker 1: that we need to do a better job building time
Speaker 1: into our mental accounting. Plenty of us focus more on
Speaker 1: another metric, money when choosing jobs. Most of us focus
Speaker 1: too much on salary and prestige, easy to measure metrics,
Speaker 1: and not enough on the value of the time will
Speaker 1: spend in the job, or the ways a job will
Speaker 1: allow us to shape our time outside work. She writes,
Speaker 1: it's not that a time focused person isn't willing to
Speaker 1: work long hours. It's just that this time focused person
Speaker 1: wants to enjoy those hours, and if she somehow winds
Speaker 1: up in work that she doesn't like so much, she's
Speaker 1: careful to limit the time cost so she can enjoy
Speaker 1: her time outside of work. Willand's notes that people also
Speaker 1: make lousy time decisions about where they live. People often
Speaker 1: want big houses and lots of space, but at least
Speaker 1: in the pre COVID world where people went into the
Speaker 1: office every day. In order to have those things and
Speaker 1: high paying jobs, people often have to live on the
Speaker 1: very outskirts of major metropolitan areas, and that can mean
Speaker 1: a long commute. Commutes are the most miserable part of
Speaker 1: the average person's day. Really, there is time use research
Speaker 1: supporting that is, getting an extra bedroom in a bigger
Speaker 1: garage with losing an extra twenty minutes every morning and
Speaker 1: evening for years. Maybe sometimes we have to take factors
Speaker 1: like school districts and our spouses jobs into consideration, and
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe we'll get the opportunity to work from
Speaker 1: home long term, but on the margin we might get
Speaker 1: used to a smaller house, but a commute will be
Speaker 1: misery over and over again. I think there's something to this,
Speaker 1: and I also know that it's easy to undervalue time.
Speaker 1: I write about time, and even so I sometimes find
Speaker 1: it hard to make time centric decisions. I've taken on
Speaker 1: projects I wasn't so excited about because the pay seemed decent.
Speaker 1: I have flown at inconvenient times because the tickets cost less.
Speaker 1: I have stayed inside on nice days out of a
Speaker 1: vague sense that I was behind on email. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: makes sense, but we can make more money, we can
Speaker 1: never make more time. Once a second is gone, all
Speaker 1: the money in the world can't buy it back. And
Speaker 1: while money can do wonderful things, making money centric decisions
Speaker 1: tends to make people less happy. As Willen's rights. In
Speaker 1: her research, students who prioritized time were more likely to
Speaker 1: report that they were working at something they wanted to
Speaker 1: do as opposed to something they had to do. So,
Speaker 1: as you're making your decisions today and going forward, ask
Speaker 1: if you are properly valuing your time. Maybe you are,
Speaker 1: but many people aren't. And that's why we let push
Speaker 1: notifications interrupt our free time for no reason whatsoever. Don't
Speaker 1: just give away something that's valuable. Make time centric decisions
Speaker 1: and you won't. In the meantime. This is Laura, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Ye Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You
Speaker 1: can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the number four. Then
Speaker 1: Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
Speaker 1: email at before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
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