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 to plan for depletion. At some point in
Speaker 1: your life, you start to realize that certain activities are
Speaker 1: always going to exhaust you. When you know that, you
Speaker 1: can be sure to plan in some downtime afterwards, or
Speaker 1: you may wind up even more exhausted or not following
Speaker 1: through on your commitments. I do a lot of public speaking,
Speaker 1: and when I go to an event, it is very
Speaker 1: clear to me that I have done something. I've been
Speaker 1: up on stage. I've often talked with people or signed
Speaker 1: books afterwards. Then I tend to go to the airport
Speaker 1: and fly home. I do some light work on the plane,
Speaker 1: but I generally know that I'll be tired, and since
Speaker 1: I'm unavailable on the plane anyway, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: set meetings shortly after a speech. Virtual speaking, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, is different. Theoretically, I am just in my
Speaker 1: little recording studio speaking into my laptop. I don't have
Speaker 1: to fly anywhere afterwards, so I could just schedule other
Speaker 1: calls or meetings right afterwards. But when I first started
Speaker 1: speaking virtually during COVID. I did so, but I quickly
Speaker 1: realized that a virtual speech takes a lot of energy
Speaker 1: to Even if I'm on a screen, i am still performing.
Speaker 1: I probably need to take a short breather after a
Speaker 1: virtual speech, too, even if I don't have to hop
Speaker 1: in a cab headed toward the airport. So I've gotten
Speaker 1: better about not scheduling anything for the hour or maybe
Speaker 1: even two after a speech. The other day, when I
Speaker 1: did a virtual event, I let myself put her around
Speaker 1: the house for about ninety minutes. Afterward, I made rice,
Speaker 1: putting out of some leftover rice, and read the newspaper.
Speaker 1: It was nice and wasn't really any different productivity wise
Speaker 1: than reading a magazine on a plane. If you too
Speaker 1: have things that take a lot of energy, you might
Speaker 1: want to structure your schedule to allow for that. I know.
Speaker 1: My co host on Best of Both Worlds, doctor Sarah Hartunger,
Speaker 1: has talked about her call weeks being very intense. She's
Speaker 1: often up in the night answering questions and directing care
Speaker 1: plans for very sick children, so she's been trying to
Speaker 1: keep the day or two after her call week's lighter.
Speaker 1: This is challenging, as all the other things she didn't
Speaker 1: get to when she was on call stack up. But
Speaker 1: she knows she'll be exhausted. Best to plan life with
Speaker 1: that in mind. Even if it's not possible to take
Speaker 1: a lot of downtime, it's still worth scanning your schedule
Speaker 1: in advance so you can spot activities that will take
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. Then you can proactively plan in
Speaker 1: at least something that will boost your energy levels. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you're going to have to give tough feedback to someone,
Speaker 1: maybe you can plan in a ten minute break to
Speaker 1: go to for a walk to clear your head. If
Speaker 1: you're going to be presenting to someone who is always critical,
Speaker 1: maybe you can plan to take a slightly longer lunch
Speaker 1: break and go to a favorite restaurant. In any case,
Speaker 1: we aren't machines, and even machines often need scheduled maintenance
Speaker 1: if they've had to run harder than usual. So if
Speaker 1: you know you will be depleted, figure out what you
Speaker 1: can do to take care of yourself. That way, you
Speaker 1: will be your energetic chip yourself soon enough, and you
Speaker 1: can keep going with all the amazing things that you're
Speaker 1: doing in the meantime. This is Laura, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: And here's making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.