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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is that it is a bad idea to turn

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Speaker 1: a thirty minute task into an hour long one. You

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Speaker 1: are almost universally better off focusing on one task fully

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Speaker 1: rather than trying to fit it into something else. So,

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Speaker 1: as I am recording this episode, people are marking the

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Speaker 1: fourth anniversary of COVID uprooting daily life for so many

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Speaker 1: of us. At this point four years ago, my kids

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Speaker 1: had been out of school for a few weeks already

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Speaker 1: we were starting to realize that they weren't going back

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Speaker 1: for the rest of the school year. I know so

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Speaker 1: many parents had to work remotely with their kids around

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Speaker 1: them for many months. Wise families soon figured out that

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Speaker 1: if it was at all possible to swap coverage for

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Speaker 1: little kids between parents, or with older kids or other relatives,

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Speaker 1: or with neighbors that you decided to form a pod

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Speaker 1: with everyone was going to get more done. You can

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Speaker 1: get more done in four focused hours, then you can

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Speaker 1: get done in eight hours when you are being interrupted

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Speaker 1: every few minutes. Plus, there are no good ways to

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Speaker 1: meet the needs of a four year old and a

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Speaker 1: client simultaneously. You wind up feeling frustrated and cranky. No doubt,

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Speaker 1: the four year olds and the clients get frustrated and

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Speaker 1: cranky too. Better to switch off and be fully present

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Speaker 1: for one at a time. I mention this because I

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Speaker 1: spent a lot of time pre COVID trying to convince

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Speaker 1: people that while working from home was great, it was

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Speaker 1: not a smart way to save money on childcare. I

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Speaker 1: would see parents trying to build businesses with toddlers underfoot,

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Speaker 1: and in many cases they would wind up feeling like

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Speaker 1: they were failing at everything, so they would come to

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Speaker 1: me and ask me for help with time management. But

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Speaker 1: I would note that this wasn't a time management problem,

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Speaker 1: it was a focus problem. Even if money was a

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Speaker 1: little tight, it was best to figure out this focus

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Speaker 1: problem first by paying for a few hours of childcare

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Speaker 1: each day. These entrepreneurial parents could focus on building their

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Speaker 1: businesses to the point where the revenue could pay for

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Speaker 1: the childcare and then some. Thanks to that focus, they

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Speaker 1: could also be more relaxed and play with the kids

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Speaker 1: when they weren't working, rather than trying to respond to

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Speaker 1: client emails at the same time. So it goes for

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Speaker 1: much in life. Trying to manage too many things at

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Speaker 1: once is a great way to turn a thirty minute

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Speaker 1: task into an hour long one. If you are trying

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Speaker 1: to answer a few emails while you're on a zoom call,

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Speaker 1: it is going to take twice as long to get

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Speaker 1: through those emails. If you are trying to write a

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Speaker 1: report while answering slack messages as they come in, that

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Speaker 1: report is going to take twice as long. I know

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Speaker 1: that it often feels efficient to try to cross two

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Speaker 1: things off the list at once, particularly if you are

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Speaker 1: stuck in a really boring meeting. Sometimes the problem is

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Speaker 1: that we don't want to acknowledge what we are doing.

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Speaker 1: We need to catch up with work on the weekend,

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Speaker 1: but we don't really want to be officially working on

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Speaker 1: the weekend, so we try to flit in and out

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Speaker 1: of it. Then our families are annoyed and we have

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Speaker 1: taken twice as long to get everything done. Better to

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Speaker 1: go to a coffee shop for two hours and then

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Speaker 1: come home and be present verse being on your phone

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Speaker 1: for the entire day while you are theoretically with your family.

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Speaker 1: There is absolutely nothing efficient about having something take longer

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Speaker 1: than it should. Just because you can theoretically manage more

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Speaker 1: than one thing at once doesn't mean it's a great idea.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes we have no choice, as happened for many people

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Speaker 1: during COVID, but when we do have a choice, fully

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Speaker 1: focusing is the way to go. In the meantime, this

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Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the

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Speaker 1: most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

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Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach

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Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,

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Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.