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 if there is a decision you need
Speaker 1: to make but you can't make it at this moment,
Speaker 1: commit to a specific time in the future when you
Speaker 1: will make the decision. In other words, decide when you'll decide.
Speaker 1: This means you won't forget and you can hopefully stop
Speaker 1: ruminating about it until then. So sometimes there are plans
Speaker 1: or decisions that have to be made, but something else
Speaker 1: has to happen first before you can make your plans.
Speaker 1: For instance, maybe you would like to renovate your kitchen,
Speaker 1: but you want to know for sure that you are
Speaker 1: getting that raise before you sign a contract. You know
Speaker 1: you'll need to rework your childcare schedule well once the
Speaker 1: school year starts, but you don't know when all your kids'
Speaker 1: activities will be, so you don't know the exact hours
Speaker 1: you will need help. You need to know whether your
Speaker 1: whole family will be traveling for all of Thanksgiving or
Speaker 1: whether your spouse will be home for some of the
Speaker 1: time to know what days you're going to need pet care.
Speaker 1: Even if you are ready to make plans other people
Speaker 1: may not be inexplicably. Some medical practices and specialties where
Speaker 1: you are supposed to go annually don't let you make
Speaker 1: appointments more than six months in advance, so you need
Speaker 1: to remember to call and decide on an appointment in
Speaker 1: six months. Or maybe you would be fine scheduling dinner
Speaker 1: with a friend a month in advance, but your friend
Speaker 1: operates on more of a three days out sort of
Speaker 1: planning cadence. There is not a lot of upside to
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time thinking about these exact logistics
Speaker 1: in these scenarios because you don't have enough information to
Speaker 1: move forward. I mean, you can do prep work. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you are thinking of doing a major kitchen renovation,
Speaker 1: you can start getting recommendations on contractors and talking with
Speaker 1: a few of them to get a sense of what
Speaker 1: this would all cost and what the timeline would be.
Speaker 1: You can figure out which doggy daycares tend to have
Speaker 1: space over Thanksgiving. But you probably won't make exact locked
Speaker 1: in plans right now, so decide when you will decide.
Speaker 1: You will know on that raise one way or another
Speaker 1: by October first, and so that is when you will
Speaker 1: decide on your kitchen. You will have a conversation with
Speaker 1: your babysitter the first week of September about what the
Speaker 1: school schedule is looking like. You can estimate when you
Speaker 1: are likely to have the facts you need to make
Speaker 1: the decision, and then set a reminder to revisit the
Speaker 1: decision on that day, put a note on your calendar,
Speaker 1: or create some other way to make sure that this
Speaker 1: is front of mind. Then then once you have decided
Speaker 1: when you will decide and set a reminder, you can
Speaker 1: put the unsettled plans aside for the moment. Now. I
Speaker 1: know this is hard. Personally, I like to close all
Speaker 1: open loops, so I might have gone ahead and just
Speaker 1: booked the doggy day care for all of Thanksgiving and
Speaker 1: figured I could always use fewer days. But in many cases,
Speaker 1: decisions don't have to be made right away. You can
Speaker 1: decide to decide in the future when the appointed time
Speaker 1: for making decisions or plans arrives. If you still can't
Speaker 1: make a decision for some reason, well no worries. Just
Speaker 1: reschedule the decision point and set a new reminder. When
Speaker 1: you decide when you will decide, and set a reminder.
Speaker 1: You avoid stewing over things that you can't do anything about.
Speaker 1: And because of the reminder, you also avoid worrying that
Speaker 1: you will forget to make plans when the time comes.
Speaker 1: Scheduling your decision ensure as you will make the plans
Speaker 1: when you need to and freeze you up for focusing
Speaker 1: on other things 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.