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 to remember the tulips. You can become
Speaker 1: the kind of person who remembers things when you need
Speaker 1: to remember them by building a very simple weekly planning
Speaker 1: practice into your life. Make this work and you will
Speaker 1: always have tulips blooming come spring. In my part of
Speaker 1: the world, the tulips bloom at some point in April.
Speaker 1: These gorgeous flowers turn the world into a burst of
Speaker 1: primary colors. I've even been a tulip tourist sometime. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite experiences ever was seeing kuckenhof gardens in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands in April. Wow, what a moment to be
Speaker 1: thankful for the extravagant beauty the planet and its people
Speaker 1: offers up. When we see tulips blooming in spring, we
Speaker 1: might think I'd love to have some more of those
Speaker 1: blooming in my yard. But here's the challenge. Tulip bulbs
Speaker 1: generally need to be planted in fall. You need to
Speaker 1: buy the bulbs and dig the holes and say October
Speaker 1: when there is no obvious nudge to do so. The
Speaker 1: nudge to plant tulips. That flowers are blooming all around you.
Speaker 1: Happens in spring when it's not the right time to
Speaker 1: make that desire happen. So how do we reconcile this? Well,
Speaker 1: it's actually quite simple to guarantee that you will remember
Speaker 1: things when you want to remember them. You simply need
Speaker 1: to build a designated weekly planning session into your life
Speaker 1: and have a calendar that you know you will look
Speaker 1: at during that planning session. I planned my weeks on
Speaker 1: Friday afternoons. I heartily recommend that slot, though I know
Speaker 1: at other people like Sunday evenings or Monday mornings. The
Speaker 1: actual time doesn't matter so much is that you know
Speaker 1: it will happen. You need to trust that once every
Speaker 1: week you will look at your life and your time
Speaker 1: and your commitments and figure out what you need to
Speaker 1: do and what you want to do. As for the calendar,
Speaker 1: you need to know that if you put a note
Speaker 1: on it for a future time, there will be a
Speaker 1: time when you look at it and plan with that
Speaker 1: in mind. So, for instance, if you plan on Fridays
Speaker 1: on some April day when you see the tulips and think, hey,
Speaker 1: I'd like some tulips next year, you can write a
Speaker 1: note on your calendar for some Friday in the fall
Speaker 1: about the tulips. Then come that Friday you will see
Speaker 1: the note. You will either put tulip bulb planting on
Speaker 1: your calendar for some point in the next week that
Speaker 1: you are currently planning, or you will push it to
Speaker 1: the next Friday to reconsider. But either way you will
Speaker 1: remember the tulips in the fall, even though this is
Speaker 1: not the obvious time to remember it. The calendar and
Speaker 1: the weekly planning session allow you to send a note
Speaker 1: securely to your future self. This is how I managed
Speaker 1: to occasionally make reservations for things that quickly sell out.
Speaker 1: We've stayed at Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone, eating at
Speaker 1: French Laundry in California, gotten tickets to eat breakfast with Santa,
Speaker 1: some pretty hot commodity places, and so forth. When I
Speaker 1: think of these things, I put a note to myself
Speaker 1: on the calendar for the friday ahead of the slot
Speaker 1: when the reservations open, and I note the window on
Speaker 1: my calendar too. Then when I plan my upcoming week,
Speaker 1: I can build the reservation window into my model. I
Speaker 1: know not to take a phone call at eight a m.
Speaker 1: Tuesday if that is when the window opens. In any case,
Speaker 1: there aren't that many occasions when I need to get
Speaker 1: a reservation for stuff in a specific two minute time frame.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of things in life that
Speaker 1: are worth thinking about ahead of time. For instance, a
Speaker 1: few months ago, a blog reader recommended that I go
Speaker 1: visit a particular tulip farm in New Jersey that, while
Speaker 1: not Kuckenhof, is supposed to be pretty awesome. I want
Speaker 1: to go when the tulips are at their peak, so
Speaker 1: I put that on a Friday on my calendar for
Speaker 1: early April. On that Friday coming up, I will look
Speaker 1: at my upcoming days and weeks and figure out where
Speaker 1: that can go. I sent this message to my future self,
Speaker 1: and I know my future self will see it. This
Speaker 1: increases the chances of having more fun. I am guessing,
Speaker 1: as a before Breakfast listener that you probably do have
Speaker 1: a weekly planning time. But maybe you mostly use this
Speaker 1: to figure out your upcoming work assignments. And that's fine,
Speaker 1: but you could expand your use of this practice to
Speaker 1: build more exciting things into your life professionally and personally too.
Speaker 1: Start thinking about what messages you could send to your
Speaker 1: future self and get in the habit of putting these
Speaker 1: notes on your calendar for your future planning times, you
Speaker 1: won't forget things you want to do, and you will
Speaker 1: have access to those reminders when they are most worth remembering.
Speaker 1: This is an incredibly useful breakthrough. It's the kind that
Speaker 1: has you enjoying your own tulips rather than just hoping
Speaker 1: you'll remember 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 the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled
Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look
Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.