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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 that weekends are real days too. Even

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Speaker 1: if you only do something on weekends, that means you

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Speaker 1: are doing it regular When it comes to life, Tuesday

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Speaker 1: is not more important than Saturday, and knowing that opens

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Speaker 1: up all sorts of possibilities. I have studied time and

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Speaker 1: the time narratives we tell ourselves for a great many years.

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Speaker 1: One of the most common narratives I encounter is that

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Speaker 1: if you have a full time job, you probably don't

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Speaker 1: have much time for other things, such as seeing your family.

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Speaker 1: People throw around on statements like that, like, oh, if

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Speaker 1: you work full time, you will never see your kids,

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Speaker 1: and maybe on the surface, it seems to make sense.

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Speaker 1: After all, doesn't full time mean the full amount of

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Speaker 1: your time? But there are one hundred sixty eight hours

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Speaker 1: in a week. If you work forty hours a week,

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Speaker 1: so a standard full time job, and sleep eight hours

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Speaker 1: a night, which is fifty six hours per week, that

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Speaker 1: leaves seventy two hours for other things. To be sure,

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Speaker 1: there is commuting and chores and showering, but presumably you

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Speaker 1: see your family for fairly large chunks of this seventy

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Speaker 1: two hours too. Even if it's only for part of

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Speaker 1: the seventy two hours, it is a long way from nothing.

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Speaker 1: When I first made this argument many years ago, someone

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Speaker 1: countered with this statement, well, maybe, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: that time occurs on the weekend. I pause through this

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Speaker 1: critique for a while. Was the implication that weekend hours

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Speaker 1: aren't real hours, that if you want credit for spending

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Speaker 1: time with your family, the only hours that count our

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Speaker 1: ten o'clock on Tuesday. I don't know, but I do

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Speaker 1: know that many people are walking around with these types

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Speaker 1: of assumptions. If you do something on the weekend, well

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Speaker 1: that's just the weekend. It's Monday to Friday that matter.

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Speaker 1: This narrative plays out in all sorts of funny ways.

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Speaker 1: Someone who goes to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday

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Speaker 1: might talk about their regular exercise routine and share how

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Speaker 1: they make time for it. Someone who goes to the

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Speaker 1: gym on Saturday and Sunday is a weekend warrior, only

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Speaker 1: doing it on the weekend. But that is only one

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Speaker 1: fewer times per week than the other person. If our

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Speaker 1: weekend warrior managed to exercise at some point on Friday,

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Speaker 1: they would be doing it just as many times as

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Speaker 1: our regular Jim goer. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are real days.

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Speaker 1: What you do on these days counts as much toward

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Speaker 1: your life as whatever you do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

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Speaker 1: One of the rules I talk about in Tranquility by Tuesday,

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Speaker 1: my most recent time management book, is that three times

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Speaker 1: a week is a habit. Whatever we do three times

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Speaker 1: a week is happening frequently in our lives enough so

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Speaker 1: to be part of our identities. Three is often more

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Speaker 1: doable than every single day, which most people don't do.

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Speaker 1: In any case, people talk about doing something every day,

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Speaker 1: but what they often mean is Monday to Friday, and

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Speaker 1: that is not every day. It is only five days

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Speaker 1: a week. Okay, we are skipping two real days. What

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Speaker 1: all this means is that if there is something you

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Speaker 1: want to have fit into your life and you seem

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Speaker 1: to come up short during the workweek, simply aimed to

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Speaker 1: do it Friday, Saturday and Sunday, many times people have

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Speaker 1: at least somewhat more discretionary time on these days. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: there is some benefit to spacing things out, but there

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Speaker 1: is even more benefit to just doing things whenever it works.

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Speaker 1: If that happens to be on the weekends, well so

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Speaker 1: be it. I was thinking of this during the past

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Speaker 1: week when I got to Thursday and I realized I

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Speaker 1: hadn't managed to run at all. I could have lamented

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Speaker 1: this that my busy schedule left me no time to run,

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Speaker 1: but instead I decided to run when I could do

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Speaker 1: it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And just like that,

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Speaker 1: I had run three times a week. I still felt

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Speaker 1: like a runner. It didn't happen every day, and it

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Speaker 1: didn't happen Monday to Thursday, but it didn't have to.

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Speaker 1: So many other things can benefit from this same mindset.

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Speaker 1: Even if you can't have family meals Monday through Thursday,

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Speaker 1: maybe you could have pizza together on Friday, a Saturday

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Speaker 1: pancake breakfast, and hamburgers together on Sunday, and just like that,

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Speaker 1: you are a family that eats together. Maybe you often

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Speaker 1: travel during the week, but you could be the person

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Speaker 1: putting your kids to bed and reading them bedtime stories Friday,

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Speaker 1: Saturday and Sunday, and just like that, you are a

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Speaker 1: person who does this regularly, even with all you have

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Speaker 1: going on. Weekends are real days too, and when we

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Speaker 1: see that, it opens up possibilities even in very full lives.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod

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Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.

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

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Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,

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

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: my heart Radio. Is it the I heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite ships. Yeah,