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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to amortize time. We only

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Speaker 1: get twenty four hours a day, but it might be

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Speaker 1: possible to spread out a time debt over a more

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Speaker 1: reasonable period of time. Today's tip comes from my friend

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Speaker 1: Catherine Lewis, who is a freelance journalist, author, and conference organizer.

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Speaker 1: She is usually juggling several projects. She told me that

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Speaker 1: she knew she would be getting a project back to

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Speaker 1: her in the next month or two, and when she did,

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Speaker 1: it would immediately take several days to deal with. The problem,

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Speaker 1: of course, is that how on earth can you build

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Speaker 1: an open four days into a busy life when you

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Speaker 1: don't know exactly in that time payment will come do

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Speaker 1: But as we were talking about this, I realized that

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Speaker 1: there are some interesting parallels to money, both in this

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Speaker 1: scenario and in how she was dealing with it. When

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Speaker 1: it comes to money, many people wind up with large

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Speaker 1: expenses that we take on at times we wouldn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: have that much cash sitting there. It is great to

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Speaker 1: pay cash for a car, but if that is not

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Speaker 1: going to happen, it is usually possible to borrow the

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Speaker 1: money and pay it off in smaller regular chunks over

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Speaker 1: a period of say three years, same with buying business

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Speaker 1: equipment or property amortized over a longer period of time.

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Speaker 1: It turned out that Catherine was doing something similar, basically

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Speaker 1: amortizing her upcoming time debt. She told me that she

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Speaker 1: was blocking off three hours every Friday for her big project.

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Speaker 1: Of course, the project itself was going to take longer

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Speaker 1: than three hours, but she had been doing this for

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Speaker 1: a month from the very beginning of knowing it was

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Speaker 1: going to come back. At some point. When the project

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Speaker 1: didn't land back in her lap on a given week,

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Speaker 1: she would use those three hours to work ahead unknown

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Speaker 1: future projects. This in turn would give her lighter weeks

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Speaker 1: in the future, so as the likelihood of the project

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Speaker 1: landing on any specific week increased, she was in fact

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Speaker 1: getting later weeks in terms of her other workload. When

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Speaker 1: the project did finally land, it was still going to

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Speaker 1: require some scrambling, but not nearly as much scrambling as

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Speaker 1: it would have if she hadn't been using that weekly

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Speaker 1: three hour chunk of time. A four day time dead,

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Speaker 1: say thirty two working hours could theoretically be paid off

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Speaker 1: in about ten weeks of three hour chunks if you

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Speaker 1: are careful about how you organize your workload and have

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Speaker 1: things you could do ahead of time. Now, I know

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Speaker 1: not all work works like this, but I still think

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Speaker 1: this is worth thinking about. If your work, or any

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Speaker 1: other things you do, tends to fluctuate in terms of business,

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Speaker 1: when you know the scope of your future time debts,

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Speaker 1: you can make plans to pay off those debts in

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Speaker 1: more reasonable chunks that might make life feel more calm.

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Speaker 1: So today, think about what future time debts might be

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Speaker 1: waiting for you. Will a big project need a lot

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Speaker 1: of work at some future time? What can you do

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Speaker 1: now to make those future weeks less full so you

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Speaker 1: have the space to deal with it. You can do

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Speaker 1: this in your personal life too, carving out time for

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Speaker 1: planning vacations or thinking about the holidays far ahead of time.

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Speaker 1: You are moving some of that work out of weeks

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Speaker 1: that might be busier. You are amortizing time. I mean

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Speaker 1: not really, but to a degree. Time isn't exactly like money,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes when we think of it that way, we

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Speaker 1: can make smart choices in the meantime. This is Laura,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of

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Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.

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Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then breakfast

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Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email

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Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com

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Speaker 1: that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks,

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Speaker 1: so should. I look forward to staying in touch. Before

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Speaker 1: Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: Yea