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 that every calendar needs a good spring. Cleaning
Speaker 1: Your closets and freezer aren't the only things that need
Speaker 1: airing out. A smart schedule requires some maintenance as well.
Speaker 1: So I hear all the time from people that their
Speaker 1: lives feel too busy. And there's nothing wrong with having
Speaker 1: a lot of good things going on, But when people
Speaker 1: complain of being too busy, it's often because their lives
Speaker 1: feel stuffed with things that they are not so excited about.
Speaker 1: Workdays feature tedious meetings stacked back to back. There might
Speaker 1: be various volunteer committee meetings or kid activities taking up
Speaker 1: evenings and weekends. Some things are what they are for
Speaker 1: most people. It's going to be hard to create a
Speaker 1: schedule where every moment feels blissful. But just as even
Speaker 1: a generally clean house can build up clutter over time,
Speaker 1: so a schedule can start to feel a little heavy.
Speaker 1: In general, it is easier to add activities than to
Speaker 1: get rid of things. Consequently, things accumulate, so just as
Speaker 1: even a well run house might need a big clean out,
Speaker 1: from time to time, it's wise to think about whether
Speaker 1: everything that exists on your calendar should be there, even
Speaker 1: if it theoretically fits. When we're scrambling to fit in
Speaker 1: the essentials in between everything else, you can wind up
Speaker 1: with a few problems. First, you might be spending time
Speaker 1: on the wrong stuff. If you compare your current needs
Speaker 1: and priorities to scheduled commitments, you may realize they no
Speaker 1: longer a line. Perhaps you agreed to things years ago
Speaker 1: for very good reasons, but life is different now. The
Speaker 1: weekly boot camp that used to provide structure for getting
Speaker 1: cardio may be less necessary now that you have a
Speaker 1: treadmill at home and a strongly ingrained exercise habit. Or
Speaker 1: maybe your business has held on to a long term
Speaker 1: client even though you've mostly gone in a different direction
Speaker 1: and they're not really paying what you are charging new folks.
Speaker 1: Everything needs to end at some point. If your calendar
Speaker 1: is full with your past priorities, you may be giving
Speaker 1: inadequate attention to what you care most about now. Another
Speaker 1: issue with being too tightly scheduled is that stuff comes up.
Speaker 1: Maybe everything fits during a perfect week, but what if
Speaker 1: you break a tooth? What if you get a last
Speaker 1: minute request from an important client. When there is no
Speaker 1: open space in your schedule, anything unusual will leave you scrambling.
Speaker 1: But maybe most important, if you don't have open space
Speaker 1: in your schedule, you end up missing out on opportunities.
Speaker 1: That's because open space invites opportunities in a way that
Speaker 1: a cluttered calendar can't. If you don't have to race
Speaker 1: off to the next thing, you might spend a little
Speaker 1: longer chatting with people at that conference and wind up
Speaker 1: landing an important new client. Or maybe open space might
Speaker 1: mean the opportunity to think about things like why did
Speaker 1: your company have such high utility bills last year? And
Speaker 1: some open space you might come up with a way
Speaker 1: to save a big chunk of cash. Or maybe with
Speaker 1: white space, you accept a spontaneous invitation to go out
Speaker 1: to lunch with a senior colleague and you get some
Speaker 1: helpful mentoring. If your calendar is too cluttered, you might
Speaker 1: push these things off because, well, you're busy, but you
Speaker 1: don't have to be busy, so this spring, let your
Speaker 1: calendar be part of your spring cleaning. In an upcoming episode,
Speaker 1: i'll talk about how to do that, but I think
Speaker 1: this is a helpful tip in general, life is not
Speaker 1: a set it and forget it phenomenon. Everything requires maintenance.
Speaker 1: That is true for physical objects, but it's true for
Speaker 1: more nebulous things like relationships and of course, a schedule.
Speaker 1: It is wise to build in a regular time to
Speaker 1: make sure that you are spending your time on what
Speaker 1: makes sense. Spring cleaning a schedule creates an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do just that. In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.