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 time for focused work early in
Speaker 1: the day. We have all heard about the value of
Speaker 1: scheduling time for heads down, deep work free from interruptions.
Speaker 1: This is time when you are not available for meetings,
Speaker 1: when your email and Slack notifications are turned off, and
Speaker 1: when your door is literally and metaphorically closed. Focused work
Speaker 1: time lets you produce more work, and generally better work
Speaker 1: than if you are never able to give a challenging
Speaker 1: project the full attention it deserves. Deep work can be fun.
Speaker 1: It feels great to get law in a project rather
Speaker 1: than playing whack a mole responding to the messages that
Speaker 1: come in through various channels. It all sounds great, but
Speaker 1: the question of when to schedule such deep work arises
Speaker 1: For many people. It's going to be good to schedule
Speaker 1: this early in the day. Indeed, you might even aim
Speaker 1: to schedule your most important focused work before breakfast. If
Speaker 1: you work for yourself or set your own hours, or
Speaker 1: work from home, early in the morning has many upsides.
Speaker 1: People are less likely to interrupt you, even if sometimes
Speaker 1: interruptions are the work. As we learned in a recent episode,
Speaker 1: there are fewer emails and slack messages coming in at
Speaker 1: say six thirty in the morning than later, which means
Speaker 1: that turning off notifications is generally going to be less problematic.
Speaker 1: Almost no one is going to set a meeting with
Speaker 1: you at six am, and if they do, you you
Speaker 1: probably gave your consent for it to be there, And
Speaker 1: this is a very different matter. If you get your
Speaker 1: focused work done early, then perhaps you could end work
Speaker 1: early too, And for people who have school age kids,
Speaker 1: being around for the afternoon shift might be a real upside. Now,
Speaker 1: if you work for a larger organization, I am not
Speaker 1: saying you need to work more hours logging hours before breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you have general set hours, what you could do
Speaker 1: is just aim to get in on the earlier side
Speaker 1: of what is acceptable and use this as focused time.
Speaker 1: Years ago, I worked in a place where most people
Speaker 1: got in around ten am. By getting in closer to nine,
Speaker 1: I had time to work in the quiet, and since
Speaker 1: I was catching a specific express bus home, no one
Speaker 1: really questioned my walking out the door to meet it.
Speaker 1: In general, people drift in and drift to work at
Speaker 1: most organizations. Over a period of time in the morning,
Speaker 1: you might be easily able to get an hour or
Speaker 1: even more of focus time before people start looking for you. Plus,
Speaker 1: many people have more ability to focus in the morning.
Speaker 1: After that first cup of coffee, we feel like we
Speaker 1: can take on the world now. Protecting this time might
Speaker 1: sometimes be challenging, but maybe sometimes not. In a lot
Speaker 1: of cultures, there might be a general practice against scheduling
Speaker 1: meetings before nine or even nine thirty, given the drifting
Speaker 1: in factor. If you are asked to meet at nine,
Speaker 1: you could try moving it a little later. I might
Speaker 1: have something at nine, you could say, and if the
Speaker 1: person is flexible, potentially you can move the meeting to
Speaker 1: later in the day. There may also be a great
Speaker 1: many days when you just naturally don't have something before
Speaker 1: ten or eleven because no one has scheduled it. If
Speaker 1: you look at your calendar, perhaps the day before, and
Speaker 1: see this open time, then plan on those being your
Speaker 1: focused mornings, get your coffee, take a quick calendar check,
Speaker 1: and then dive in. You can break at nine forty
Speaker 1: five to go grab some breakfast as a mid morning break,
Speaker 1: and you may feel like you have already won the
Speaker 1: day before Breakfast right. The length of your focused work
Speaker 1: times and their frequency will vary depending on your job,
Speaker 1: but I would venture to guess that almost everyone needs
Speaker 1: at least some focus work time every week, and most
Speaker 1: of us would probably benefit from more focused time than
Speaker 1: we are currently getting. I am not saying you need
Speaker 1: to work longer, but sometimes doing this work early and
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier than most people are at work
Speaker 1: will buy you a lot of flexibility later in the
Speaker 1: day that might be worth changing your schedule a little bit.
Speaker 1: In the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.