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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to think of time as a blank slate. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it will be filled with something, but what it is

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Speaker 1: filled with is largely up to you. I have been

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Speaker 1: tracking my time on weekly spreadsheets for over five years now.

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Speaker 1: The spreadsheets have half hour blocks running down the left

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Speaker 1: hand side from five a m. To four thirty a m.

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Speaker 1: With the days of the week Monday to Sunday along

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Speaker 1: the top. Every Monday, for more than five years now,

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Speaker 1: I have finished the previous spreadsheet and opened a new one.

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Speaker 1: When I do, I notice something interesting. The new spreadsheet

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Speaker 1: is blank. The next week is completely blank. It hasn't

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Speaker 1: happened yet. Eventually it will. Of course, eventually I will

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Speaker 1: be on the other side of the next one hundred

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Speaker 1: sixty eight hours, But that blank spreadsheet is not yet filled.

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Speaker 1: What I fill the cells with will depend on the

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Speaker 1: choices I make, both now and in the future, and

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Speaker 1: of course they will be filled based on choices I

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Speaker 1: have made in the past. That doesn't mean all of

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Speaker 1: it is discretionary by any means. Life also deals us

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Speaker 1: things that we have to deal with. However, sometimes those

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Speaker 1: surprises show us how elastic time can truly be. I

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Speaker 1: have had thousands of people track their time for me

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Speaker 1: over the years, and one particular log really showed this

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Speaker 1: to me. So forgive me if you've heard me tell

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Speaker 1: the story before. This busy woman who tracked her time

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Speaker 1: for me worked in finance and had two young too.

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Speaker 1: One she went out for a Wednesday night for something

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Speaker 1: and came home to find that her water heater had broken.

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Speaker 1: There was now water all over her basement. Her time

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Speaker 1: log showed her dealing with this giant wet mess, the plumbers,

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Speaker 1: the cleaning crew. All this took seven hours of her week,

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Speaker 1: which is quite a bit of time. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: like finding an extra hour in the day. We talked

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Speaker 1: about this afterwards and said, well, hey, at the start

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Speaker 1: of the week, do you think you would have been

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Speaker 1: able to find those seven hours. Let's say you needed

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Speaker 1: to find seven hours to train for a triathlon, or

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Speaker 1: mentor your younger colleagues at work, or read a fifth

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Speaker 1: of War and Peace. Would you have been able to

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Speaker 1: do it? Well, of course not. We can all see

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Speaker 1: how busy she was. But when she had to find

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Speaker 1: seven hours because there was water all over her basement.

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Speaker 1: She found seven hours. Time is highly at last stick.

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Speaker 1: We cannot make more time, but time stretches to accommodate

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Speaker 1: what we need or want to put into it. And

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Speaker 1: so the key to time management is treating our priorities

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Speaker 1: as the equivalent of that broken water heater. We choose

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Speaker 1: to put them into the blank slate of time first,

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Speaker 1: we put them in with urgency. Now, of course, this

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Speaker 1: seldom works perfectly, since time keeps passing. It has a

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Speaker 1: way of getting away from us. But I find this

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Speaker 1: image of the blank slate hopeful. My blank spreadsheet is

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Speaker 1: full of possibility. I can dream and plan about how

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Speaker 1: I will arrange the tiles. Every week is a new opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Every week offers a new chance to ask if I

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Speaker 1: am spending my time as I wish to be spent

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Speaker 1: in my time. Every week offers a new chance to

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Speaker 1: fill that blank slate with hard work toward meaningful goals,

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Speaker 1: towards creating new things, and to fill the slate up

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Speaker 1: with joy. So as you look forward to the next week,

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Speaker 1: and the next month, and the next year, and to

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Speaker 1: the coming decades, remember how much of this time is

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Speaker 1: a blank slate. It will be filled with something. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: all time will pass. But what this time will be

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Speaker 1: filled with is still open. It can be shaped, it

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Speaker 1: can be changed. Even if you believe that all of

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Speaker 1: our days are preordained in some place, we don't yet

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Speaker 1: know that script, and so we can still approach time

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Speaker 1: as if it were that blank slate. How about we

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Speaker 1: all fill it with some ng marvelous in the meantime.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,

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Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four,

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Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me

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Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all

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Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying

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Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.

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