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 small things done repeatedly truly do add up.
Speaker 1: Even just a few minutes per day over the long
Speaker 1: haul can add up to a significant amount of time.
Speaker 1: This means that over the long haul, even big projects
Speaker 1: can become doable if you just keep going. So when
Speaker 1: people decide they need to tackle some huge project, let's say,
Speaker 1: organizing their homes, they often get into the mindset that
Speaker 1: they need big, concentrated amounts of time. Honestly, I just
Speaker 1: need to take three weeks off work and get caught up.
Speaker 1: If only I could take three weeks off work. Of course,
Speaker 1: you can immediately see the problem with this line of thought.
Speaker 1: You are unlikely to get three weeks off of work,
Speaker 1: and if you do, you are not going to want
Speaker 1: to spend that time organizing your home or doing any
Speaker 1: other big life administration project. You are going to want
Speaker 1: to go on vacation. Europe sounds nice, right, So setting
Speaker 1: that out as a requirement means you stay stuck. But
Speaker 1: let's say that a project really does require the equivalent
Speaker 1: of three weeks off of work, presuming that the rest
Speaker 1: of your life doesn't disappear. Three weeks of work is
Speaker 1: about one hundred twenty hours. That is forty hours a
Speaker 1: week for three weeks. So a different question is whether
Speaker 1: you can find one hundred twenty hours in your life
Speaker 1: to do something if you stretch out your time horizon
Speaker 1: long enough. I'm guessing that you can. Here's something to
Speaker 1: think about. There are three hundred and sixty five days
Speaker 1: in a year. That adds up to eight thousands, one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty hours. If you spend twenty minutes each
Speaker 1: day on a project, that is the equivalent of one
Speaker 1: hundred twenty hours over the course of a year. Now,
Speaker 1: that is a much more reasonable ask. Most of us
Speaker 1: can find twenty minutes a day. If we tried, we
Speaker 1: spend twenty minutes on random things all the time, doing
Speaker 1: something consistently for twenty minutes a day would be the
Speaker 1: exact equivalent of taking three weeks off work without actually
Speaker 1: having to do that. Now, I understand that the equation
Speaker 1: isn't quite that simple. Getting in and out of things
Speaker 1: takes time, so there might be some efficiencies to concentrating
Speaker 1: one's time on a project. An eight hour day is
Speaker 1: not the exact same thing as twenty four twenty minute chunks.
Speaker 1: Sometimes things take more than twenty minutes, and even if
Speaker 1: you could break an individual component of a project into
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, you might have to leave things out in
Speaker 1: the middle, which could be discouraging. Many a would be
Speaker 1: organizer has started taking things out of a cupboard, only
Speaker 1: to have something come up. Now your kitchen looks even
Speaker 1: worse than it did before. But I think these logistical
Speaker 1: issues are solvable. One could do a lot while still
Speaker 1: following a personal rule not to do anything that will
Speaker 1: look worse after twenty minutes. You can spend twenty minutes
Speaker 1: throwing away trash and a room looks better. You can
Speaker 1: spend twenty minutes putting stuff in a donation box or
Speaker 1: then moving the box to where it's supposed to go
Speaker 1: out the door, and the room will look better. And
Speaker 1: let's be honest here, if you did take forty hours
Speaker 1: a week for three weeks to organize your house, my
Speaker 1: guess is that you would take breaks during that time.
Speaker 1: You'd still need to eat, there would be periods of
Speaker 1: more or less intensity. By only aiming to do twenty
Speaker 1: minutes a day, you might be able to achieve an
Speaker 1: intensity that you wouldn't otherwise, you simply have to stick
Speaker 1: with it. So it goes for many things in life.
Speaker 1: You could read War and Peace and Anna Karenina in
Speaker 1: Middle March and Moby Dick in a year by reading
Speaker 1: twenty minutes a day, as those books are mostly readable
Speaker 1: in thirty hours each. A lot of creative things can
Speaker 1: be done in twenty minutes a day, sowing a quilt
Speaker 1: block by block, for instance. Maybe other things like oil
Speaker 1: painting require longer stretches of time, but if you scratch
Speaker 1: that creative itch by sketching for twenty minutes a day,
Speaker 1: you just might be motivated to find longer stretches of time.
Speaker 1: I know, I've written some fiction and bits here and there,
Speaker 1: and then when I've got something more substantial, I feel
Speaker 1: motivated to make a writing retreat fit into my life.
Speaker 1: Even big things can be done in small steps. Doing
Speaker 1: something for twenty minutes a day for a year is
Speaker 1: the equivalent of taking three weeks off of work. If
Speaker 1: you are telling yourself that you need that for something,
Speaker 1: maybe reconsider how you could configure that time. You might
Speaker 1: be surprised at what is possible in the meantime. This
Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the
Speaker 1: most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.