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 to schedule cyclical plus linear time. Recurring
Speaker 1: tasks like laundry and cooking meals do have to be done,
Speaker 1: so you are wise to allocate time for them, But
Speaker 1: if you don't dedicate other time to forward progress, you
Speaker 1: won't reach your goals. It is good to find the
Speaker 1: right balance. I have recently encountered some interesting research by
Speaker 1: Anne Burnett about women and dizziness. One of the points
Speaker 1: she makes is that women in particular tend to be
Speaker 1: responsible for a lot of repetitive, cyclically recurring tasks in
Speaker 1: their house holds. Since these tasks always have to be done,
Speaker 1: that contributes to the sense of dizziness. Of course, I
Speaker 1: have plenty of male listeners who wind up doing a
Speaker 1: great many of these tasks too. So let's just say
Speaker 1: that I know a lot of people listening to this
Speaker 1: are going to be spending their mornings getting kids dressed,
Speaker 1: cooking breakfast, packing lunches, unloading the dishwasher, walking the dog,
Speaker 1: driving kids to school, filling cars with gas, cleaning up
Speaker 1: the kitchen, watering plants, and other such things that are
Speaker 1: never truly done. You do them once, and then soon
Speaker 1: enough you have to do them all over again. And
Speaker 1: all of these things do indeed need to happen. The
Speaker 1: trouble is that, because they always do need to be done,
Speaker 1: it can be easy to spend all of our time
Speaker 1: on them. This is true for cyclical recurring work tasks
Speaker 1: as well. You tell yourself you'll get to that big
Speaker 1: speculative project once you have sent out the agenda for
Speaker 1: tomorrow's weekly check in meeting, and sent in this month's
Speaker 1: expense reports and so forth. But since these things will
Speaker 1: all need to be done again soon enough, it is
Speaker 1: hard to ever feel truly on top of them. If
Speaker 1: you are waiting to feel free of these things to
Speaker 1: start something big, you are going to be waiting for
Speaker 1: a long time. So how do we escape this trap?
Speaker 1: We can certainly spend less time on a great many
Speaker 1: recurring tasks. We can share them with other people in
Speaker 1: our households or our colleagues, or we can outsource some
Speaker 1: of them. We can do them to a lesser standard,
Speaker 1: think a rotisserie chicken plus a bagged salad for dinner.
Speaker 1: Or you can just skip them. My bed doesn't get
Speaker 1: made many a morning, I pull up the top blanket
Speaker 1: and then I just make sure the pillows are where
Speaker 1: I like them when I get back in at night.
Speaker 1: But since cyclical tasks do need to be done to
Speaker 1: some degree, my advice is to carve out time that
Speaker 1: is specifically for them. Give recurring chores a window. Like
Speaker 1: you do as many recurring work tasks as possible on
Speaker 1: Friday morning from ten thirty to lunch. You give yourself
Speaker 1: a chore window on weekends, maybe ninety minutes on a
Speaker 1: Saturday afternoon to get through the most critical stuff. And
Speaker 1: then this is key. You also carve out time specifically
Speaker 1: for linear progress too. These are the things that move
Speaker 1: your career or your personal life forward. Drafting a book proposal,
Speaker 1: writing up a pitch for a new client, learning to
Speaker 1: use software that is in demand in your field, starting
Speaker 1: a neighborhood volunteering project. It designate time on your schedule
Speaker 1: specifically for these linear tasks. I like Monday morning. It's
Speaker 1: nice to start the week moving your career forward, or
Speaker 1: if you're not working for pay, moving your other big
Speaker 1: projects forward. You will get to the cyclical stuff during
Speaker 1: the time designated for that. There is a time for that,
Speaker 1: but now is not that time, So you don't need
Speaker 1: to feel guilty for not doing your expense report on
Speaker 1: Monday morning, that time is spoken for. Same with personal tasks.
Speaker 1: Maybe you decide that Saturday morning is for a personal
Speaker 1: linear time. That's when you train for your marathon or
Speaker 1: organize the neighborhood association. When we designate time for tasks,
Speaker 1: we tend to do them. We are going to do
Speaker 1: the cyclical stuff for the most part because it has
Speaker 1: to get done. You have to eat a again, you
Speaker 1: need clean clothes. At some point. It is harder to
Speaker 1: get to the linear stuff. But when we never do,
Speaker 1: we feel busy all the time, but like we are
Speaker 1: not getting anywhere. Best to schedule time for both in
Speaker 1: the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's b the number
Speaker 1: four than breakfast p o D. You can also shoot
Speaker 1: me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart media
Speaker 1: dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letter U. Thanks so much, I look forward to
Speaker 1: staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I
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