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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 2: Today's tip is that weekends are real days too. Even

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Speaker 2: if you only do something on weekends, that means you

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Speaker 2: are doing it regularly. When it comes to life, Tuesday

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Speaker 2: is not more important than Saturday, and knowing that opens

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Speaker 2: up all sorts of possibilities. I have studied time and

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Speaker 2: the time narratives we tell ourselves for a great many years.

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Speaker 2: One of the most common narratives I encounter is that

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Speaker 2: if you have a full time job, you probably don't

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Speaker 2: have much time for other things, such as seeing your family.

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Speaker 2: People throw around statements like that, like, oh, if you

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Speaker 2: work full time, you will never see your kids, and

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Speaker 2: maybe on the surface, it seems to make sense. After all,

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Speaker 2: doesn't full time mean the full amount of your time?

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Speaker 2: But there are one hundred and sixty eight hours in

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Speaker 2: a week. If you work forty hours a week, so

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Speaker 2: a standard full time job, and sleep eight hours a night,

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Speaker 2: which is fifty six hours per week, that leaves seventy

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Speaker 2: two hours for other things. To be sure, there is

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Speaker 2: commuting and chores and showering, but presumably you see your

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Speaker 2: family for fairly large chunks of this seventy two hours too.

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Speaker 2: Even if it's only for part of the seventy two hours,

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Speaker 2: it is a long way from nothing. When I first

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Speaker 2: made this argument many years ago, someone countered with this statement, Well, maybe,

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Speaker 2: but a lot of that time occurs on the weekend.

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Speaker 2: Whiled through this critique for a while was the implication

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Speaker 2: that weekend hours aren't real hours, that if you want

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Speaker 2: credit for spending time with your family, the only hours

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Speaker 2: that count are ten o'clock on Tuesday. I don't know,

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Speaker 2: but I do know that many people are walking around

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Speaker 2: with these types of assumptions. If you do something on

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Speaker 2: the weekend, well that's just the weekend. It's Monday to

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Speaker 2: Friday that matter. This narrative plays out in all sorts

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Speaker 2: of funny ways. Someone who goes to the gym Monday,

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Speaker 2: Wednesday and Friday might talk about their regular exercise routine

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Speaker 2: and share how they make time for it. Someone who

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Speaker 2: goes to the gym on Saturday and Sunday is a

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Speaker 2: weekend warrior, only doing it on the weekend. But that

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Speaker 2: is only one fewer times per week than the other person.

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Speaker 2: If our weekend warrior managed to exercise at some point

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Speaker 2: on Friday, they would be doing it just as many

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Speaker 2: times as our regular gym goer. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

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Speaker 1: Are real days.

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Speaker 2: What you do on these days counts as much towards

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Speaker 2: your life as whatever you do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

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Speaker 2: One of the rules I talk about in Tranquility by Tuesday,

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Speaker 2: my most recent time management book, is that three times

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Speaker 2: a week is a habit. Whatever we do three times

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Speaker 2: a week is happening frequently in our lives enough so

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Speaker 2: to be part of our identities. Three is often more

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Speaker 2: doable than every single day, which most people don't do.

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Speaker 2: In any case, people talk about doing something every day,

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Speaker 2: but what they often mean is Monday to Friday, and

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Speaker 2: that is not every day. It is only five days

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Speaker 2: a week. We are skipping two real days. What all

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Speaker 2: this means is that if there is something you want

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Speaker 2: to have fit into your life and you seem to

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Speaker 2: come up short during the work week, simply aim to

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Speaker 2: do it Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Many times people have

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Speaker 2: at least somewhat more discretionary time on these days. Perhaps

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Speaker 2: there is some benefit to spacing things out, but there

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Speaker 2: is even more benefit to just doing things whenever it works.

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Speaker 2: If that happens to be on the weekends, well so

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Speaker 2: be it. I was thinking of this during the past

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Speaker 2: week when I got to Thursday and I realized I

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Speaker 2: hadn't managed to run at all. I could have lamented

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Speaker 2: this that my busy schedule left me no time to run,

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Speaker 2: but instead I decided to run when I could do

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Speaker 2: it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And just like that,

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Speaker 2: I had run three times a week. I still felt

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Speaker 2: like a runner. It didn't happen every day, and it

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Speaker 2: didn't happen Monday to Thursday, but it didn't have to.

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Speaker 2: So many other things can benefit from this same mindset.

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Speaker 2: Even if you can't have family meals Monday through Thursday,

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Speaker 2: maybe you could have pizza together on Friday, a Saturday

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Speaker 2: pancake breakfast, and hamburgers together on Sunday, and just like that,

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Speaker 2: you are a family that eats together. Maybe you often

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Speaker 2: travel during the week, but you could be the person

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Speaker 2: putting your kids to bed and reading them bedtime stories Friday,

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Speaker 2: Saturday and Sunday, and just like that, you are a

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Speaker 2: person who does this regularly, even with all you have

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Speaker 2: going on. Weekends are real days. Too, and when we

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Speaker 2: see that, it opens up possibilities even in very full lives.

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Speaker 2: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 2: here's to making the most of our time.

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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can

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Speaker 1: send me your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just

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Speaker 1: connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before

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Speaker 1: Breakfast Pod. That's b E the number four then Breakfast pod.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled

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Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much. Should I

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Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, is it

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