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 that everybody wastes time. There is no
Speaker 1: point feeling guilty about this. Instead, the goal is to
Speaker 1: get curious so you can spend your time better in
Speaker 1: the future. Whenever people ask me how they can spend
Speaker 1: their time better, I suggest figuring out where the time
Speaker 1: is going now. If you don't know where the time
Speaker 1: is going now, how do you know if you're changing
Speaker 1: the right thing. You want to be sure that you
Speaker 1: are working from good data, and the best way to
Speaker 1: get that data is to actually keep track of your time.
Speaker 1: It is really not that hard, and yet I know
Speaker 1: from long experience that many people simply do not want
Speaker 1: to do this. That is fine, I don't like tracking
Speaker 1: what I am eating or what I'm spending, but it
Speaker 1: is important to understand this resistance. I find that often
Speaker 1: the reason people don't want to write down how they
Speaker 1: are spending their time is the same reason that I
Speaker 1: don't want to write down the two dozen crackers I've
Speaker 1: grabbed from the pantry over the course of a day.
Speaker 1: We don't want to know about all the choices we
Speaker 1: are making. In the case of time, we don't want
Speaker 1: to know how much time we are wasting. So that's
Speaker 1: why I want people to know that everybody wastes time.
Speaker 1: I waste time, You waste time. We all waste time.
Speaker 1: When we accept that we can keep track of our
Speaker 1: time with a little less judgment, we can look where
Speaker 1: the time really goes without feeling bad or guilty. Instead,
Speaker 1: we can ask good questions. What do we like about
Speaker 1: our schedules? What do we want to spend more time doing,
Speaker 1: What do we want to spend less time doing? So Yes,
Speaker 1: I have been procrastinating doing some important editing work by
Speaker 1: spending hours reading comments sections on the internet. I have
Speaker 1: made extra trips to Target because I forgot to make
Speaker 1: a list of what I needed to buy during the
Speaker 1: first trip. I once had to make a second trip
Speaker 1: to the notary public because I made a clerical error
Speaker 1: on a very important document. All of that was wasted time.
Speaker 1: So what You've probably done similar things. When we recognize
Speaker 1: that we all waste time, we can ask other questions
Speaker 1: like did I make progress on my personal and professional
Speaker 1: goals despite all this wasted time? If so, awesome? If not,
Speaker 1: what do I intend to do about it. We can
Speaker 1: ask if we are spending enough time on things we'd
Speaker 1: find genuinely fun. Are we checking Facebook to see how
Speaker 1: many likes a friend's post has gotten instead of, you know,
Speaker 1: actually calling that friend. Are we reading the same email
Speaker 1: ten times in a row in some distorted sense of
Speaker 1: productivity rather than taking a real break. Good to know
Speaker 1: and good to do something about. So as you think
Speaker 1: about how you spend your time, I know that everybody
Speaker 1: wastes time. It is the human condition. What matters more
Speaker 1: is whether you do still carve out time for what matters,
Speaker 1: and if you are not doing that, what you intend
Speaker 1: to change to make that happen. Asking those questions isn't
Speaker 1: wasting time at all. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the number four then
Speaker 1: breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast Podcast at i heeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: That before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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