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 about how to amortize time. We only
Speaker 1: get twenty four hours a day, but it might be
Speaker 1: possible to spread out a time debt over a more
Speaker 1: reasonable period of time. Today's tip comes from my friend
Speaker 1: Catherine Lewis, who is a freelance journalist, author, and conference organizer.
Speaker 1: She is usually juggling several projects. She told me that
Speaker 1: she knew she would be getting a project back to
Speaker 1: her in the next month or two, and when she did,
Speaker 1: it would immediately take several days to deal with. The problem,
Speaker 1: of course, is that how on earth can you build
Speaker 1: an open four days into a busy life when you
Speaker 1: don't know exactly in that time payment will come do
Speaker 1: But as we were talking about this, I realized that
Speaker 1: there are some interesting parallels to money, both in this
Speaker 1: scenario and in how she was dealing with it. When
Speaker 1: it comes to money, many people wind up with large
Speaker 1: expenses that we take on at times we wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have that much cash sitting there. It is great to
Speaker 1: pay cash for a car, but if that is not
Speaker 1: going to happen, it is usually possible to borrow the
Speaker 1: money and pay it off in smaller regular chunks over
Speaker 1: a period of say three years, same with buying business
Speaker 1: equipment or property amortized over a longer period of time.
Speaker 1: It turned out that Catherine was doing something similar, basically
Speaker 1: amortizing her upcoming time debt. She told me that she
Speaker 1: was blocking off three hours every Friday for her big project.
Speaker 1: Of course, the project itself was going to take longer
Speaker 1: than three hours, but she had been doing this for
Speaker 1: a month from the very beginning of knowing it was
Speaker 1: going to come back. At some point. When the project
Speaker 1: didn't land back in her lap on a given week,
Speaker 1: she would use those three hours to work ahead unknown
Speaker 1: future projects. This in turn would give her lighter weeks
Speaker 1: in the future, so as the likelihood of the project
Speaker 1: landing on any specific week increased, she was in fact
Speaker 1: getting later weeks in terms of her other workload. When
Speaker 1: the project did finally land, it was still going to
Speaker 1: require some scrambling, but not nearly as much scrambling as
Speaker 1: it would have if she hadn't been using that weekly
Speaker 1: three hour chunk of time. A four day time dead,
Speaker 1: say thirty two working hours could theoretically be paid off
Speaker 1: in about ten weeks of three hour chunks if you
Speaker 1: are careful about how you organize your workload and have
Speaker 1: things you could do ahead of time. Now, I know
Speaker 1: not all work works like this, but I still think
Speaker 1: this is worth thinking about. If your work, or any
Speaker 1: other things you do, tends to fluctuate in terms of business,
Speaker 1: when you know the scope of your future time debts,
Speaker 1: you can make plans to pay off those debts in
Speaker 1: more reasonable chunks that might make life feel more calm.
Speaker 1: So today, think about what future time debts might be
Speaker 1: waiting for you. Will a big project need a lot
Speaker 1: of work at some future time? What can you do
Speaker 1: now to make those future weeks less full so you
Speaker 1: have the space to deal with it. You can do
Speaker 1: this in your personal life too, carving out time for
Speaker 1: planning vacations or thinking about the holidays far ahead of time.
Speaker 1: You are moving some of that work out of weeks
Speaker 1: that might be busier. You are amortizing time. I mean
Speaker 1: not really, but to a degree. Time isn't exactly like money,
Speaker 1: but sometimes when we think of it that way, we
Speaker 1: can make smart choices in the meantime. This is Laura,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You 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 the number four, then breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com
Speaker 1: that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks,
Speaker 1: so should. I look forward to staying in touch. Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For more
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Speaker 1: Yea