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 the best way to allocate your
Speaker 1: work hours so you don't have to work around the clock.
Speaker 1: I recently got a letter from a Before Breakfast listener
Speaker 1: who had listened to this split Shift episode. That episode
Speaker 1: looked at strategies for preserving family and personal time if
Speaker 1: you needed to work long hours. This listener wondered about
Speaker 1: the right length for a work week. She worked her
Speaker 1: forty hours, she wrote, which is a normal full time job,
Speaker 1: but she was hearing on this podcast of people wanting
Speaker 1: to work fifty or sixty hour weeks. She wondered if
Speaker 1: this was common and if working long hours was necessary
Speaker 1: for success. This listener noted that she was protective of
Speaker 1: her personal life and didn't want to work at night
Speaker 1: or weekends, but she wondered if those barriers made her
Speaker 1: seem like a bad worker. Well as someone who works
Speaker 1: about forty hours a week as my long term average,
Speaker 1: I certainly hope that doesn't make us seem like bad workers.
Speaker 1: I do think it's possible to do a lot in
Speaker 1: forty hours a week. The key is being very strategic.
Speaker 1: That's because success isn't about just doing the work in
Speaker 1: front of you. You have to build your skills, you
Speaker 1: have to dream up future projects, you have to build
Speaker 1: your career capital. All this takes time, they're The good
Speaker 1: news is that it doesn't take an infinite amount of time.
Speaker 1: In a well planned work week, you can find space
Speaker 1: for all of it. Since I've seen thousands of time
Speaker 1: logs over the years, I've learned that many successful people
Speaker 1: do not work around the clock. Indeed, work hours by
Speaker 1: themselves often have nothing to do with how important you are.
Speaker 1: I was reminded of this when inc Magazine had me
Speaker 1: study the schedules of several high profile entrepreneurs on a
Speaker 1: single day in November. Since I tracked my time, I
Speaker 1: also knew how I spent that day in November of
Speaker 1: And guess what, I wound up working more hours on
Speaker 1: that day than most of these famous successful people. I
Speaker 1: can tell you for sure that the demand from my
Speaker 1: time is not as high as the demand for their time.
Speaker 1: Work hours are not a sign of how important you are. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we have data that CEOs in general don't work around
Speaker 1: the clock. In a future episode, I'll talk more about
Speaker 1: a large CEO time diary study, but for the purposes
Speaker 1: of this episode, this particular study found that the average
Speaker 1: work week for these people was about sixty hours. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a hundred hours a week. I also find that
Speaker 1: different people work in different ways. I recently finished reading
Speaker 1: Mason Curry's new book about the daily rituals of women artists.
Speaker 1: He also wrote another book a few years ago that
Speaker 1: covered the daily rituals of famous men and women. Some
Speaker 1: of these successful creative sorts worked long, strange hours. I
Speaker 1: guess we all love tales of that sculptor who works
Speaker 1: best at two am, but others had much more normal routines.
Speaker 1: A common one might be to go to the studio
Speaker 1: or office from eight am to noon and do intense
Speaker 1: creative work after a lunch break. Research, emails, meetings, and
Speaker 1: phone calls might consume one to five pm or so.
Speaker 1: That's eight hours a day, but spent wisely, it can
Speaker 1: be enough. The key is being intentional. Planning a strategic
Speaker 1: forty hour work week means knowing what you intend to
Speaker 1: accomplish and leaving plenty of space for stuff to come up.
Speaker 1: A smart work week requires doing the stuff of your
Speaker 1: job of course, just like an artist planting herself in
Speaker 1: her studio from eight to twelve each day to work
Speaker 1: on her commissions would do. Then there will likely be
Speaker 1: administrative tasks. If you reach a certain point, you can
Speaker 1: delegate some of this, but it's hard to get that
Speaker 1: down to zero. Then there's the stuff you do as
Speaker 1: race car driver. Sarah Fisher once put it in an interview,
Speaker 1: that increases our exposure and broadens our scope. I really
Speaker 1: love this phrase because it neatly sums up the idea
Speaker 1: of building career capital. Part of broadening one's scope means
Speaker 1: practicing skills. One reason I still blog multiple times per week,
Speaker 1: even though no one's paying me to do it, is
Speaker 1: that it's a great way to hone my writing technique.
Speaker 1: I practice making arguments, I practice telling stories, and I
Speaker 1: see what people like and what they don't or what
Speaker 1: they ignore. Broadening your scope can also mean taking on
Speaker 1: speculative work. You try something new even though you don't
Speaker 1: know what will come of it, because you think it
Speaker 1: might lead to big things in the future. You spend
Speaker 1: time thinking of new ideas and seeing what's out there
Speaker 1: that other people are doing that you could augment or
Speaker 1: iterate on. In some way. As for increasing your exposure,
Speaker 1: this is yet another way to think of networking. How
Speaker 1: can you share your ideas with an ever expanding, ever
Speaker 1: more influential audience. You can get to know people one
Speaker 1: on one and through mass channels like being a guest
Speaker 1: on a podcast or giving a talk at an industry conference.
Speaker 1: All these things are necessary for long term success. Some
Speaker 1: hours are just spent and done, but hours spent increasing
Speaker 1: your exposure and broadening your scope our investments. They have
Speaker 1: a long term payoff in terms of advancing your career.
Speaker 1: These things also take time, of course, they don't need
Speaker 1: to take a ton of time. If you faithfully split
Speaker 1: ten hours per week among various skill building, speculative and
Speaker 1: networking activities, you would build a ton of career capital.
Speaker 1: If you can make space for those ten hours within
Speaker 1: a normal work week, then sure you can conquer the
Speaker 1: world working from nine to five. If you don't make
Speaker 1: space for these things, though, then it's going to be
Speaker 1: a lot harder. It's not about the hours themselves, it's
Speaker 1: about how you spend them. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: the flexibility to be able to use normal working hours
Speaker 1: for these time investments, then you might have to do
Speaker 1: them on top of your normal job, and that's when
Speaker 1: the hours start stacking up. But even so, they don't
Speaker 1: have to stack up too far. If you could do
Speaker 1: your normal work in thirty five to forty hours a week,
Speaker 1: then ten additional hours of career capital work just takes
Speaker 1: us to forty five to fifty hours. This is still
Speaker 1: pretty reasonable. There are a hundred sixty eight hours in
Speaker 1: a week. If you work fifty and sleep eight hours
Speaker 1: a night or fifty six hours per week, this still
Speaker 1: leaves sixty two hours for other things. So take some
Speaker 1: time today and think about where you could find space
Speaker 1: in your professional schedule for ten hours a week or
Speaker 1: two hours a day to increase your exposure and broaden
Speaker 1: your scope. Over time, these career building hours can transform
Speaker 1: how you spend every other hour at work, whether that's
Speaker 1: thirty hours, forty hours a week, or whatever number works
Speaker 1: for you. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod.
Speaker 1: That's b E. The number four then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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