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 busyness is about the ratio of commitments
Speaker 1: to space. If you want to feel less busy, you
Speaker 1: can change either side of the equation, and it might
Speaker 1: be worth exploring both options. So there are certain stretches
Speaker 1: of life where we are just going to feel busier
Speaker 1: than others. The end of the school year is often
Speaker 1: one such time for people. December tends to be busy too,
Speaker 1: with various holiday celebrations. Some workplaces have a busy season,
Speaker 1: like tax time for accountants, and there is nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with life feeling a little full. But if you are
Speaker 1: feeling a little too busy for a little too long,
Speaker 1: I think it is helpful to realize exactly what busyness is.
Speaker 1: Busyness reflects the ratio of commitments you have to the
Speaker 1: space available to do them. You can see how this
Speaker 1: ratio plays out. Work feels busy when you have extra
Speaker 1: work but you don't have extra space to do it
Speaker 1: in because it is not like the rest of your
Speaker 1: life has suddenly stopped. Your home life can feel really
Speaker 1: busy when you have end of your performances and celebrations,
Speaker 1: and yet you still need to work the same number
Speaker 1: of hours you always do and deal with random things
Speaker 1: like the roof leaking or the dog getting sick. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we just have to roll with it. But if you
Speaker 1: are feeling chronically busy in some aspect of your life,
Speaker 1: or in all aspects of life, then it is good
Speaker 1: to look at both sides of the equation, how many
Speaker 1: commitments you have and how much space you have to
Speaker 1: do the man The first side is probably obvious. If
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of commitments, maybe you can scale
Speaker 1: some of them back when things get crunched. For me,
Speaker 1: I might sign my kids up for fewer activities that
Speaker 1: can open up some space on the workfront. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: time to delegate a project that you normally do, or
Speaker 1: maybe it turns out that no one is excited about
Speaker 1: a certain project and it's time to let it snooze
Speaker 1: for a while. Maybe you can scale back on something
Speaker 1: like a monthly brown bag lunch discussion you'd lead. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it could become quarterly, or it too could pause for
Speaker 1: a while. This is easy enough if you have some
Speaker 1: discretionary stuff. The problem, of course, is when everything on
Speaker 1: your plate feels like something you want to do, or
Speaker 1: you lack the ability to not do it within the
Speaker 1: current parameters of your job. Perhaps the things you really
Speaker 1: want to do are in your personal life and you
Speaker 1: don't see a way to jettison those. If that is
Speaker 1: the case, then it is time to look at the
Speaker 1: other side of the equation space available. Maybe work is
Speaker 1: such that you really need to work some extra hours
Speaker 1: for at least a little while. I will go ahead
Speaker 1: and say that there are ways to add extra shifts
Speaker 1: that don't destroy the rest of your life or make
Speaker 1: everyone mad at you. I have done what I call
Speaker 1: a split shift of consciously working for ninety minutes or
Speaker 1: so after my kise go to bed A few nights
Speaker 1: per week. My husband and I will sometimes trade off
Speaker 1: on the weekends so I can get a few extra
Speaker 1: hours in, Especially if my work hours have been curtailed
Speaker 1: during the week because of kid activities or kid emergencies,
Speaker 1: those weekend hours can become necessary, and I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything unbalanced about that. In fact, that is work
Speaker 1: life balance. To actually have enough space to work. It
Speaker 1: is always a possibility to hire extra childcare for a
Speaker 1: little while, and sometimes I find that people have not
Speaker 1: structurally created enough space to work. Just because you work
Speaker 1: from home doesn't mean you can fit a forty hour
Speaker 1: work week into the thirty hours that your kids are
Speaker 1: at school. You are going to need to figure something
Speaker 1: else out. It might turn out that you need more
Speaker 1: space in your personal life for things. This is why
Speaker 1: some people try to trim their hours at work when
Speaker 1: they are maybe really busy in these small kid years.
Speaker 1: Though there might be other options too. I suggest tracking
Speaker 1: your time for a few weeks. Maybe you see that
Speaker 1: household chores and errands are consuming a lot of time.
Speaker 1: You might be able to spend less time on that
Speaker 1: with some strategic outsourcing, minimizing or ignoring things that could
Speaker 1: open up more space. This is broadly what happened on
Speaker 1: a society wide level from the nineteen sixties to now.
Speaker 1: Time diary studies show that women began spending more time
Speaker 1: working for pay and more time interacting with their children.
Speaker 1: How is that possible, Well, women started spending a lot
Speaker 1: less time on housework. That is one way to change
Speaker 1: the busyness equation. Time isn't always set. Sometimes it is malleable,
Speaker 1: and how we feel about it depends on what we
Speaker 1: have agreed to do and how much space we have
Speaker 1: for those tasks. If you want to feel less busy,
Speaker 1: understanding that busyness is about the ratio of commitments to
Speaker 1: space can help you make wise choices. You want to
Speaker 1: be sure to look at all the options in the meantime.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's b E the
Speaker 1: number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can also
Speaker 1: shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia
Speaker 1: dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, should I look forward to
Speaker 1: staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio.
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