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 in a different place. By moving
Speaker 1: yourself physically to a different location, you can create a
Speaker 1: little psychological space for thinking about how you'd like to
Speaker 1: spend your time in the future. Longtime listeners know that
Speaker 1: I recommend having a designated weekly planning time when you
Speaker 1: think about your professional and personal priorities for the upcoming week.
Speaker 1: Longtime listeners also know that I recommend doing this on
Speaker 1: Fridays if that happens to be a low key day
Speaker 1: for you, or maybe even Thursday if that works better
Speaker 1: for your schedule. Lately, I have been doing this planning
Speaker 1: on Thursdays to get a little ahead of things and
Speaker 1: so I can come back to the planning on Friday
Speaker 1: if I have forgotten something. Anyway, every other Thursday morning,
Speaker 1: our cleaning service tackles the first floor of our house,
Speaker 1: which is where my home office is located, so I
Speaker 1: need to leave my office and go elsewhere for an
Speaker 1: hour or so. Sometimes I just go upstairs or outside.
Speaker 1: Other times I go to the library or a coffee shop.
Speaker 1: I started moving out of necessity, so I'm not a
Speaker 1: nuisance when people are trying to vacuum. But I have
Speaker 1: found that I really enjoy doing my weekly planning during
Speaker 1: this little field trip, even if I am only in
Speaker 1: a different part of my house. I am not at
Speaker 1: my desk, so I find myself able to think a
Speaker 1: little more creatively about what I should do over the
Speaker 1: next week, or how I should structure my schedule. I
Speaker 1: come up with ideas for my podcasts and newsletters. I
Speaker 1: think about potential long term plans and what I might
Speaker 1: want to tackle in the near term. I am guessing
Speaker 1: that you might find the same thing. The first and
Speaker 1: most important step is to do some sort of weekly planning.
Speaker 1: It absolutely doesn't matter if you have a fancy planner
Speaker 1: or pen, or where or when you do your planning,
Speaker 1: as long as you do it. So commit to that first.
Speaker 1: But once you have made that commitment, you might want
Speaker 1: to experiment with getting slightly outside of your usual execution zone.
Speaker 1: If you do most of your work at your desk
Speaker 1: and you have space in your office for a chair,
Speaker 1: you might just go sit in that chair, are go
Speaker 1: set in a conference room or at the kitchen table.
Speaker 1: If you're normally at a desk in a home office elsewhere,
Speaker 1: if the weather is nice, you could go sit at
Speaker 1: a table outside, or take a quick field trip to
Speaker 1: a nearby sandwich place where you buy yourself lunch and
Speaker 1: write down your intentions for the next week. I think
Speaker 1: this relocation works, at least in part because you're less
Speaker 1: likely to be distracted. I mean, sure, you can see
Speaker 1: emails coming in on your phone just the same as
Speaker 1: you can at your desk, but somehow it can feel
Speaker 1: less like this is what you are supposed to be
Speaker 1: doing with your time. If people tend to come talk
Speaker 1: to you at your desk, they might be less likely
Speaker 1: to do that if you are elsewhere. Even just seeing
Speaker 1: different scenery can put you in a different frame of mind.
Speaker 1: Planning and execution are different things. They are both important,
Speaker 1: but it makes sense that we draw on slightly different
Speaker 1: skills and parts of our brain to do them. By
Speaker 1: separating these out a bit physically, we can be a
Speaker 1: bit more intentional about both. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our times. Thanks for listening to before breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. M