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 you are looking to reduce the
Speaker 1: time spent on life maintenance, experiment with whether you can
Speaker 1: stretch the cadence on some recurring tasks. My hunt is
Speaker 1: that life will go on if certain things happen a
Speaker 1: bit less often. Longtime listeners know that my planning is
Speaker 1: focused on weeks, that is, one hundred and sixty eight hours.
Speaker 1: Much of our life happens in weekly rhythms. Work, school, exercise, classes,
Speaker 1: religious services, many volunteer commitments, and even some social engagements
Speaker 1: have a weekly rhythm. So it might seem to make
Speaker 1: sense to tuck chores into the hardescape of our weekly
Speaker 1: calendars around the other recurring fixed points. I know that
Speaker 1: many people absorb the idea that certain chores need to
Speaker 1: be done weekly when they're growing up. If your parents
Speaker 1: did laundry every Monday, grocery shopping every Tuesday, cleaning every Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and so forth, you may assume that this rhythm is right,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a weekly cadence for life maintenance tasks works well.
Speaker 1: But if you are trying to spend less of your
Speaker 1: time on chores. One way to do that is to
Speaker 1: stretch the cadence of some tasks. Are there some tasks
Speaker 1: that can be done less frequently than weekly. A lot
Speaker 1: of tasks take about the same amount of time, even
Speaker 1: if more time has elapsed since you last did them.
Speaker 1: Not all, I mean, I wouldn't let the dishes stack up.
Speaker 1: But in many cases, by stretching the cadence of the task,
Speaker 1: you spend less time on the task overall. Maybe you
Speaker 1: have a rhythm of picking up and dropping off dry
Speaker 1: cleaning on Saturday morning on the way to take your
Speaker 1: daughter to ballet. Could you handle dry cleaning every other
Speaker 1: Saturday instead? Or instead of grocery shopping every Sunday afternoon,
Speaker 1: could you do a big shop every other week and
Speaker 1: then fill in with a quick trip for produce and
Speaker 1: milk in between. Cleaning tasks can often be stretched if
Speaker 1: you run a cordless vacuum in the kitchen is needed.
Speaker 1: You may not need to vacuum your whole house or
Speaker 1: apartment every week. Maybe every ten days could work, possibly
Speaker 1: even less if you don't have pets or little people
Speaker 1: making messes. Vacuuming takes the same amount of time if
Speaker 1: you do it weekly or every ten days so over
Speaker 1: the course of a year. Stretching the cadence lets you
Speaker 1: reclaim time for something more fun than vacuuming. It takes
Speaker 1: only a little more time to do a full load
Speaker 1: of laundry than it does to do a partial load,
Speaker 1: so instead of doing laundry weekly or on another rhythm
Speaker 1: determined by the calendar, try waiting till you have a
Speaker 1: full load to do it. The lawn may likewise be
Speaker 1: okay if you let it grow a little longer before cutting.
Speaker 1: Your hair might be fine if it gets a little
Speaker 1: longer too. While you probably should go to the dentist
Speaker 1: every six months, if it happens every eight months, that
Speaker 1: is better than it not happening at all. Stretching the
Speaker 1: cadence can give you a little breathing room in life,
Speaker 1: and for many things, the downsides won't be disastrous, so
Speaker 1: it's worth a shot. Are there tasks you have discovered
Speaker 1: don't have to be done quite as often as you
Speaker 1: used to think? You can let me know at Laura
Speaker 1: at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. 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.