1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,840
Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and

2
00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:07,000
Speaker 1: Matt and today we're talking about valuing time with Laura Vanderkamp.

3
00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:27,800
Speaker 1: That's right, Joel. Today we are talking about time, and

4
00:00:27,880 --> 00:00:29,880
Speaker 1: you know, this is a topic that we've talked about

5
00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:33,479
Speaker 1: before with Grant Sabatier. But you know what is interesting

6
00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:35,640
Speaker 1: is that time and money they share a lot of

7
00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:38,599
Speaker 1: similar characteristics, right, a lot of similar properties, And so

8
00:00:38,720 --> 00:00:40,960
Speaker 1: I'm excited to dive into that with our guest today,

9
00:00:41,159 --> 00:00:43,680
Speaker 1: Laura here in a few minutes. Yeah, she's a complete

10
00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:46,800
Speaker 1: expert and just really interesting all around person to talk to.

11
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:49,239
Speaker 1: So yeah, that should be a really fun conversation real quick.

12
00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:51,720
Speaker 1: Today on the show, we're drinking a beer called Infinity

13
00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:54,920
Speaker 1: Bloom by New Grass Brewing Company, And Matt, your mother

14
00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:56,960
Speaker 1: in law picked this up for us, right, that's pretty sweet. Yeah.

15
00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,000
Speaker 1: This is out of Shelby, North Carolina. This is her

16
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:01,360
Speaker 1: hometown where she grew and Kate, my wife, she actually

17
00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:04,320
Speaker 1: grew up there for a few years as well. So

18
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:06,360
Speaker 1: you know what's so cool is that all these small towns,

19
00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:08,280
Speaker 1: they all have their their own brewery now, so you

20
00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:12,119
Speaker 1: can find amazing craft beer pretty much anywhere, which is awesome. Yeah,

21
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:14,160
Speaker 1: I love that you can find great craft breweries in

22
00:01:14,240 --> 00:01:16,840
Speaker 1: small towns like all across the United States. Now used

23
00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:18,760
Speaker 1: to be like reserve for major cities, and that's just

24
00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:21,280
Speaker 1: not the case anymore. So there's are a change in Yeah,

25
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:23,600
Speaker 1: tiny craft breweries are where it's at all right, So

26
00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:26,760
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and introduce our guest for today, Laura Vandercam.

27
00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:29,600
Speaker 1: She helps people spend more time on what matters and

28
00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:32,720
Speaker 1: less on what doesn't matter. She is the author of

29
00:01:32,800 --> 00:01:37,440
Speaker 1: several time management and productivity books, including Juliet's School of Possibilities,

30
00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:39,880
Speaker 1: Off the Clock, I Know how she does it, What

31
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,279
Speaker 1: the most successful people do Before Breakfast and a hundred

32
00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,880
Speaker 1: and sixty eight hours. That's a lot of books. She's prolific.

33
00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:50,400
Speaker 1: She is the host of the podcast Before Breakfast and

34
00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:53,320
Speaker 1: the co host with Sarah hart Unger, of the podcast

35
00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,000
Speaker 1: Best of Both Worlds. And she lives outside Philly with

36
00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:58,400
Speaker 1: her husband and four children. That's also a lot of

37
00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:02,640
Speaker 1: children and blah over at Laura Vanderkam dot com. Laura

38
00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:05,360
Speaker 1: truly is a time management expert and we're excited to

39
00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:07,280
Speaker 1: have her on the show. So Laura, welcome to the show.

40
00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:09,480
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. All right, We're

41
00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:11,079
Speaker 1: so glad to have you, Laura. This is gonna be

42
00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:14,120
Speaker 1: a really fun conversation. And as you know, Matt and

43
00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:17,240
Speaker 1: I drink a craft beer every week on our show,

44
00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:21,200
Speaker 1: and for us, it's this realization that, you know, we

45
00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:24,400
Speaker 1: are very intentional about how we spend and save our money,

46
00:02:24,639 --> 00:02:27,000
Speaker 1: but we do realize that it's important to to use

47
00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:29,560
Speaker 1: our money on things that we enjoy in the here

48
00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:31,760
Speaker 1: and now today too, and so craft beer kind of

49
00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 1: reflects that for us, and we're wondering, like, what's your

50
00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:37,560
Speaker 1: craft beer? In particular in relation to how you use

51
00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:40,480
Speaker 1: your time, where do you use your time potentially like

52
00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:43,840
Speaker 1: ineffectively that people might be surprised that you splurage on

53
00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,480
Speaker 1: your time in that way. Yeah, I love the comparison

54
00:02:46,560 --> 00:02:49,720
Speaker 1: between time and money and the sense that we we

55
00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:51,679
Speaker 1: aren't always just going to try and save a few

56
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:53,960
Speaker 1: minutes here and there, like sometimes it's worth spending a

57
00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:56,440
Speaker 1: ton of time on stuff that you really enjoy. I

58
00:02:56,480 --> 00:03:00,280
Speaker 1: actually sing in a choir and among the times large

59
00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:02,800
Speaker 1: as I am making in this week, which is a

60
00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,000
Speaker 1: little bit ridiculous in terms of the sheer number of

61
00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:09,560
Speaker 1: like kids sports and school activities, and work activities and

62
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:11,600
Speaker 1: other such things that have to happen. But I'm um

63
00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:15,079
Speaker 1: singing with my choir. We're doing a Maller's second Symphony.

64
00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:16,880
Speaker 1: We're singing with an orchestra out in New Jersey, so

65
00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 1: I've been going out there for rehearsals. But you know,

66
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:21,760
Speaker 1: singing with the choir takes a ton of time, but

67
00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,680
Speaker 1: it's really fun, and so it's not the sort of

68
00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:26,640
Speaker 1: thing like, oh, well, could I spend less time on

69
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:28,320
Speaker 1: this somehow a little? Why on earth would I want to?

70
00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say that that singing is is

71
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 1: my equivalent of craft beer. Joel loves to drink the beer,

72
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:38,160
Speaker 1: but you do not want to hear him singing. Well,

73
00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:40,200
Speaker 1: the reason I'm not having a beer with you guys,

74
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:43,240
Speaker 1: I could pretend, I guess for purposes of the podcast,

75
00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:45,880
Speaker 1: since no one can see me, but I'm I'm singing tonight,

76
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,240
Speaker 1: And in general, if I drink before I sing, it's

77
00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:50,800
Speaker 1: general it's just a disaster. Well cool, So let's go

78
00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:52,800
Speaker 1: ahead and dive into time a little bit now. So

79
00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:55,400
Speaker 1: you're obviously really interest in time, and we wanted to

80
00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:57,480
Speaker 1: know before we kind of start talking about your book,

81
00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 1: is how did that begin like, how did your fascination

82
00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:02,960
Speaker 1: with time begin. Was there a pivotable moment that sort

83
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,720
Speaker 1: of shifted how you view time and sort of it's

84
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:08,960
Speaker 1: finite nature, or was it always something that you were

85
00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:11,240
Speaker 1: aware of? As I look back on my life, I've

86
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:14,080
Speaker 1: always been interested in productivity. I was probably that nerdy

87
00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:16,040
Speaker 1: kid in school who was planning out her week and

88
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:18,000
Speaker 1: had it, you know, when the tests were going to happen,

89
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:19,840
Speaker 1: all written in ahead of the time that they were

90
00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:22,480
Speaker 1: actually happening, which I know it makes me sound like

91
00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:26,360
Speaker 1: all kinds of fun, but it kind of became more

92
00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:29,960
Speaker 1: of an intense personal interest when I became a parent

93
00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 1: for the first time twelve years ago, when my oldest

94
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,440
Speaker 1: child was born. And you know, anyone who's been through

95
00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:37,880
Speaker 1: this transition, any of your listeners, know that it does

96
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,480
Speaker 1: change how you spend your time. Not only that the

97
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 1: children themselves need time and attention, but it's more broader

98
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:45,840
Speaker 1: question of like am I spending my time in the

99
00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:47,560
Speaker 1: ways that I wish to? Am I still, you know,

100
00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:49,680
Speaker 1: maintaining time for all the other things I want to do.

101
00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:52,440
Speaker 1: If my spending enough time with my kid, you're accountable

102
00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 1: for it in a way that you might just not

103
00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:58,200
Speaker 1: be if you don't have intense personal responsibilities. And so

104
00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,760
Speaker 1: I began sort of studying how other people were spending

105
00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:04,800
Speaker 1: their time to make the most of their lives, both

106
00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:08,160
Speaker 1: professionally and personally, and over time I began writing about that,

107
00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 1: and that's where my time management books have come from. Okay,

108
00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:14,799
Speaker 1: speaking of time management books, you recently released a book

109
00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:18,920
Speaker 1: called Juliette School of Possibilities and I read it in

110
00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 1: I think one and a half sitting, so I like

111
00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:23,240
Speaker 1: almost and I had to finish it quickly. Um the

112
00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:24,920
Speaker 1: quick read for sure next night. But yeah, it's a

113
00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,880
Speaker 1: super super quick read. But I love to the fact

114
00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 1: that this it's a story. It's not like do these

115
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:33,320
Speaker 1: ten things, here's all these tips and how to manage

116
00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:35,719
Speaker 1: your time better. But it's this really great story that

117
00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,039
Speaker 1: kind of by us mosis. As you read it, you

118
00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:40,560
Speaker 1: accumulate some of these tips on how to manage your

119
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:42,760
Speaker 1: time better. And so the main character in the book

120
00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:46,719
Speaker 1: is Riley, and she's someone who just reminds me of

121
00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:49,159
Speaker 1: a lot of people I see around me in daily life,

122
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:53,039
Speaker 1: right like constantly connected, so consumed with tasks that she

123
00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:57,960
Speaker 1: doesn't have the time for work and relational opportunities. And

124
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:00,560
Speaker 1: so do you think of Riley, does she you represent

125
00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:04,160
Speaker 1: to you kind of mainstream modern culture and how we

126
00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:06,880
Speaker 1: can't turn it off? Oh, definitely. I mean I wanted

127
00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:09,640
Speaker 1: Riley to be a character that a lot of people

128
00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:12,520
Speaker 1: could see themselves in. And this is always the thing

129
00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:15,039
Speaker 1: with a fable and the books out there, they're in

130
00:06:15,080 --> 00:06:18,680
Speaker 1: the genre of same business fables. The whole hope is

131
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,640
Speaker 1: that you will see yourself in the main character, and

132
00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:24,200
Speaker 1: in the course of the main character's journey will also

133
00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:27,080
Speaker 1: learn things that you can put into place in your

134
00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:29,840
Speaker 1: own life. And so, yeah, Riley's just a wreck. Um,

135
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:31,760
Speaker 1: so hopefully people aren't quite as much a wreck as her,

136
00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:35,480
Speaker 1: but her her personal life is falling apart. That might

137
00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:37,440
Speaker 1: be okay if her career was going great, but it

138
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:40,120
Speaker 1: also is not going great because she can't figure out

139
00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:42,359
Speaker 1: what is important for her to spend her time on.

140
00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:44,279
Speaker 1: And in the past, she always got ahead by just

141
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:46,840
Speaker 1: doing everything, you know, being the person who could get

142
00:06:46,839 --> 00:06:49,200
Speaker 1: it all done. But once you move into management it

143
00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:51,359
Speaker 1: becomes a lot more difficult. You can't just do everything.

144
00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:54,000
Speaker 1: You have to think about what is most important for

145
00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:55,880
Speaker 1: you to be doing, and there may not be a

146
00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:57,880
Speaker 1: right answer, but that's kind of a risk you have

147
00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,520
Speaker 1: to take, and she just has completely no ability to

148
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:04,080
Speaker 1: do this. So she's given an ultimatum by her company

149
00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:06,039
Speaker 1: that she's got thirty days to turn things around or

150
00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:08,640
Speaker 1: she's out. And of course of this, she winds up

151
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,960
Speaker 1: at a retreat at a rather strange sounding place called

152
00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:16,000
Speaker 1: Juliette School of Possibilities, where she meets this mentor figure, Juliette,

153
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,559
Speaker 1: who shows her different visions for her life. It actually

154
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:22,200
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of the Double Worst Product, uh,

155
00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:24,440
Speaker 1: sort of that character, the sort of NonStop it's like

156
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:27,160
Speaker 1: a cross between that and like a Christmas Carol sort of.

157
00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:30,080
Speaker 1: So I can only imagine that in the middle of

158
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:32,200
Speaker 1: that type of lifestyle that that it can be hard

159
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:34,440
Speaker 1: for you to see yourself needing to make a change.

160
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:37,360
Speaker 1: So what questions can we ask ourselves to determine if

161
00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:39,200
Speaker 1: we are struggling with some of those same things as

162
00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,360
Speaker 1: Riley and even just recognize that need for change, Like,

163
00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:45,000
Speaker 1: how do we self examine to see if we're in

164
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:47,200
Speaker 1: a place where we need to do that? Yeah, well,

165
00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:48,840
Speaker 1: partly it is about how you feel. I mean, if

166
00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:51,160
Speaker 1: you feel like life is in a crisis, then you

167
00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:53,360
Speaker 1: feel like you probably need to make a change. But

168
00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:55,560
Speaker 1: what I often tell people is you really want to

169
00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:58,920
Speaker 1: see where your time is going, because sometimes people have

170
00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:02,080
Speaker 1: made crises that aren't actually there. Uh this is this

171
00:08:02,160 --> 00:08:04,200
Speaker 1: is something I see a lot that people tell themselves

172
00:08:04,200 --> 00:08:07,040
Speaker 1: all sorts of stories like I'm I'm failing in every

173
00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:09,360
Speaker 1: which direction, and then they track their time and realize, hey,

174
00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:11,600
Speaker 1: I'm actually doing a lot of really cool stuff. It's

175
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:13,360
Speaker 1: not nearly as bad as I thought it was. But

176
00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:15,080
Speaker 1: if it is bad, then we should know. So I

177
00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:17,400
Speaker 1: always have people track their time. I mean a couple

178
00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:20,800
Speaker 1: of days is good, ideally a week and look at

179
00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,679
Speaker 1: it and say, well, how does this time match up

180
00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:27,400
Speaker 1: with my priorities in life? Because you know, I'm sure

181
00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:30,800
Speaker 1: this this happens all the time. Life gets busy, time

182
00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:32,719
Speaker 1: keeps passing, whether we think about how we're spending it

183
00:08:32,800 --> 00:08:35,079
Speaker 1: or not. People say with a straight face like, oh,

184
00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:37,320
Speaker 1: you know, being healthy, being physically fit, it's such a

185
00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:39,760
Speaker 1: priority for me, and then you look at their time

186
00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:45,080
Speaker 1: and guess what's not happening so or even just you know,

187
00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:47,920
Speaker 1: my relationship with my spouse would be a priority. But

188
00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:51,960
Speaker 1: like between the kids and the job, everything else takes takes, uh,

189
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:53,839
Speaker 1: you know, first DIBs at the time, and so it's

190
00:08:53,880 --> 00:08:56,280
Speaker 1: good to see these things like as it pertains to money.

191
00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:59,200
Speaker 1: What that sounds a lot like is tracking or spending, right,

192
00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:00,880
Speaker 1: And so obviously we talk about money all the time

193
00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:02,880
Speaker 1: on the show. And if you don't know where your

194
00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:05,200
Speaker 1: money is going, then how can you make changes To

195
00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:08,720
Speaker 1: begin that self examination sort of process, you need to know, yeah,

196
00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:10,640
Speaker 1: like you said, where your hours are going, where your

197
00:09:10,679 --> 00:09:12,440
Speaker 1: minutes are going. In the same way that if you're

198
00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:14,280
Speaker 1: trying to turn your finances around, you need to know

199
00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:16,480
Speaker 1: what you're actually spending your money on. And like like

200
00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:19,040
Speaker 1: you said, you might say that exercise is important, or

201
00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:21,800
Speaker 1: your health is important. Someone that's putting a budget together

202
00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:23,920
Speaker 1: might say, oh, it's important for me to save. But

203
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:25,960
Speaker 1: if in reality you look at your spending and instead

204
00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:28,720
Speaker 1: all your money is going out to the restaurants, well,

205
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:31,719
Speaker 1: you know your actual spending. Your behavior is not reflecting

206
00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:34,560
Speaker 1: the reality of it. So how do you actually suggest

207
00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:37,000
Speaker 1: the folks to track her time? So I track my

208
00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:40,920
Speaker 1: time on these weekly spreadsheets. Again, I'm sure makes me

209
00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:43,320
Speaker 1: sound like a lot of fun, but it gets worse.

210
00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:46,040
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for four years now, which nobody

211
00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:48,200
Speaker 1: else needs to do. But I have tracked my time

212
00:09:48,240 --> 00:09:50,880
Speaker 1: for four straight years. These weekly spreadsheets have the days

213
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:53,240
Speaker 1: of the week across the top, so Monday through Sunday

214
00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:55,600
Speaker 1: half hour blocks down the left hand side, going five

215
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,120
Speaker 1: am to four thirty am, So it is a three

216
00:09:58,520 --> 00:10:01,679
Speaker 1: thirty six self spreadsheet representing a hundred sixty eight hour

217
00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:04,480
Speaker 1: a week. I just write down what I'm doing, and

218
00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:06,760
Speaker 1: I'm not constantly checking in. I probably check in like

219
00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:08,880
Speaker 1: three times a day, and I write down what I've

220
00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:11,360
Speaker 1: done since the last time I checked in. The goal

221
00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:13,480
Speaker 1: is not to be perfect, like I don't write down,

222
00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:15,000
Speaker 1: you know, every time I got up and got a

223
00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,920
Speaker 1: glass of water or anything like that. I am trying

224
00:10:17,960 --> 00:10:21,040
Speaker 1: to get broadly the outlines of my life because even

225
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:24,040
Speaker 1: if it's not perfect, you can see so much from

226
00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:27,320
Speaker 1: from where the time truly goes. And you mentioned some

227
00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:31,400
Speaker 1: of the mismatches people have in terms of, you know,

228
00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:34,000
Speaker 1: how they're spending their money. They're probably huge blind spots

229
00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:35,960
Speaker 1: people have in terms of how they're spending their money,

230
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,000
Speaker 1: Like I had no idea I was spending that amount

231
00:10:39,120 --> 00:10:41,920
Speaker 1: on on X and and people do that with time

232
00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:46,439
Speaker 1: as well. You know, we are often lead to believe

233
00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:48,920
Speaker 1: that we spend more time working than we actually do.

234
00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:52,640
Speaker 1: There's some some funny data about this. But work tends

235
00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:55,880
Speaker 1: to be structured, and it tends to involve sort of

236
00:10:55,880 --> 00:10:57,960
Speaker 1: commitments to other people, and so it kind of expands

237
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,080
Speaker 1: in our brain, even if the members themselves are not

238
00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:04,160
Speaker 1: as big as we are imagining. People have a tendency

239
00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,960
Speaker 1: to remember their longest days in their longest weeks as typical,

240
00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:10,200
Speaker 1: and so, you know, you learn all kinds of interesting stuff.

241
00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:12,840
Speaker 1: So what are some of the common culprits then for

242
00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:15,120
Speaker 1: someone filling out a time log where they're likely to

243
00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:18,200
Speaker 1: see that they're wasting time, that they're just not using

244
00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:21,120
Speaker 1: your time effectively. Yeah, well, there's a couple of spots

245
00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:22,920
Speaker 1: that tend to happen to lots of people. You know,

246
00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,360
Speaker 1: what do you do at night before bed? A lot

247
00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:28,520
Speaker 1: of people, it is puttering around the house. It's being

248
00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:31,200
Speaker 1: on social media. It's watching TV, but not with any

249
00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:34,199
Speaker 1: real purpose. If you've saved a favorite show to watch

250
00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:36,040
Speaker 1: in the evening after your kids go to bed, that's great,

251
00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:38,440
Speaker 1: But for many people that's not actually what's happening. It's

252
00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:41,160
Speaker 1: sort of just one thing after the flipping around you know,

253
00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:44,560
Speaker 1: and you're tired. You're you're tired, and you you don't

254
00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:46,120
Speaker 1: know what you want to do, and so you do

255
00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:48,559
Speaker 1: whatever is easiest. And I'm not saying you're gonna go

256
00:11:48,679 --> 00:11:50,559
Speaker 1: run a marathon at that time. But let's say you've

257
00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:52,920
Speaker 1: been telling yourself, I'd really like to read and I'd

258
00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:55,120
Speaker 1: really like to connect with my spouse. Well, guess what,

259
00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:58,960
Speaker 1: here's some time that you've been clicking around two shows

260
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:01,400
Speaker 1: you do not care about that you could read a

261
00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:03,840
Speaker 1: book and you could connect with your spouse, so that

262
00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:06,160
Speaker 1: you know, it's that sort of thing. Another thing I

263
00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:09,360
Speaker 1: see a lot of on weekends. I've been a prefaces

264
00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:11,640
Speaker 1: by saying nobody needs to plan every second of a

265
00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:14,439
Speaker 1: weekend like that. That's not what I'm saying. But if

266
00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:17,120
Speaker 1: we don't think about how we want to use this

267
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:21,440
Speaker 1: block of potential family and leisure time, it's going to

268
00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:24,199
Speaker 1: get away from you in doing things that you don't

269
00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:27,800
Speaker 1: actually care about. So being being a little bit intentional

270
00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:31,280
Speaker 1: about it, you can vastly increase the chances that you

271
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:34,079
Speaker 1: spend this time on things that are meaningful or important

272
00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:36,280
Speaker 1: for you or the people you care about. I want

273
00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:37,840
Speaker 1: to swing back to the book for a second, now

274
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:41,120
Speaker 1: you mentioned how Juliet, the character there was able to

275
00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:44,079
Speaker 1: show Riley to possible futures that she had. Yeah, it

276
00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:46,200
Speaker 1: totally made me think of Charles Dickens at Christmas Stories

277
00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:47,480
Speaker 1: for sure when I was reading that part of it.

278
00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:50,960
Speaker 1: But like, how does thinking ahead like that? Like what

279
00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:52,880
Speaker 1: kind of impact does that how on you as a

280
00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:55,680
Speaker 1: person when it comes to goal setting? Why is that

281
00:12:55,760 --> 00:12:58,080
Speaker 1: so important? And what do you think is most important

282
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:00,120
Speaker 1: to focus on or to look for when you are

283
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:03,320
Speaker 1: looking ahead, Like what aspects of your life? Yeah, well

284
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:05,319
Speaker 1: I would I'm not disappointed to be compared to a

285
00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:07,120
Speaker 1: Christmas Caroll. I mean, that's a wonderful book, one of

286
00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:12,440
Speaker 1: my favorites. So Juliet shows Riley to potential future visions

287
00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:14,959
Speaker 1: for her life, and one is if she continues as

288
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:18,760
Speaker 1: everything is going now, always going after whatever seems brightest

289
00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,640
Speaker 1: and most blinking in front of her, and not making

290
00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:24,079
Speaker 1: time for the important things, And it's basically that life

291
00:13:24,080 --> 00:13:26,040
Speaker 1: has just kind of slips away from her, that she's

292
00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:28,320
Speaker 1: worked so hard for so many years and has no

293
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:32,080
Speaker 1: impact that she can actually point to. The other future

294
00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:34,720
Speaker 1: is is far more positive when she has made time

295
00:13:35,160 --> 00:13:37,360
Speaker 1: professionally for the things that matter to her for doing

296
00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:41,440
Speaker 1: the big projects, the important, long reaching things that she

297
00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:43,160
Speaker 1: keeps saying she wants to do, but she just never

298
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:45,520
Speaker 1: makes time for amid all the emails and such. And

299
00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:48,760
Speaker 1: personally too that when she actually really invests time in

300
00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,600
Speaker 1: the relationships that she says matter to her, both her

301
00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:55,600
Speaker 1: friendships and and potential you know, spouse and children as well.

302
00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:59,000
Speaker 1: So it's a very different future. And the future she's

303
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:01,680
Speaker 1: seeing in that second more positive vision, it's at a

304
00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:04,960
Speaker 1: dinner given in her honor twenty five years in the future.

305
00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:08,160
Speaker 1: And I think this is actually a good practical idea

306
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:11,680
Speaker 1: for people to think about that if you're trying to identify, like,

307
00:14:11,679 --> 00:14:13,640
Speaker 1: what are my long term priorities, what are the things

308
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:15,480
Speaker 1: that matter to me? What should I be spending my

309
00:14:15,559 --> 00:14:18,840
Speaker 1: time on, picture yourself maybe at a dinner given in

310
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:20,760
Speaker 1: your honor. Let's say, you know, ten years in the future.

311
00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:22,320
Speaker 1: We don't have to go twenty five and my my

312
00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:24,320
Speaker 1: heroin is very young, so she can go twenty five

313
00:14:24,360 --> 00:14:26,280
Speaker 1: years in the future. Many of us would would not

314
00:14:26,320 --> 00:14:27,840
Speaker 1: be wanting to, you know, be in the midst of

315
00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:29,800
Speaker 1: all this stuff in twenty five years. But um, so

316
00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:31,960
Speaker 1: let's say ten years from now, a dinner, people are

317
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,480
Speaker 1: getting up to give toasts about the impact you have

318
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:37,600
Speaker 1: had on them personally and on the larger world. What

319
00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:40,000
Speaker 1: would they be saying? You could go ahead and write

320
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,200
Speaker 1: those toasts now if you wanted. And by thinking about

321
00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:46,000
Speaker 1: what those toasts would be, you start to say like, oh, well,

322
00:14:46,040 --> 00:14:49,040
Speaker 1: these are the things I could really see myself doing,

323
00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:51,440
Speaker 1: Like this is the change I'd like to bring to

324
00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:53,240
Speaker 1: the world, This is how I'd like other people to

325
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,160
Speaker 1: think of me. Now let me take this. Let me

326
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:59,000
Speaker 1: then say, what are some ways I can start spending

327
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,120
Speaker 1: my time so that I am making steps towards these

328
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:05,320
Speaker 1: this future. Yeah, And interestingly, in in the book, I

329
00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:09,040
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, Riley is so consumed with her

330
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: inbox right, her her emails piling up. And I found

331
00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:16,880
Speaker 1: myself certainly in that situation to where that concept of

332
00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:19,320
Speaker 1: inbox zero, where it's like trying to get everything done

333
00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:22,480
Speaker 1: and reply to everyone, feels like that's maybe the best

334
00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:25,000
Speaker 1: way for me to attack things. But then I found

335
00:15:25,040 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 1: myself when I am in that mind frame not actually

336
00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:31,200
Speaker 1: doing the things that matter at my work. And and

337
00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:33,200
Speaker 1: really I think probably a lot of us find ourselves

338
00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 1: in that situation where we think replying to emails becomes

339
00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:39,440
Speaker 1: the most essential part of our job, and we're missing

340
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:41,920
Speaker 1: out on some of the more important aspects of what

341
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,920
Speaker 1: we should be doing. So like, how, in particular do

342
00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:48,440
Speaker 1: you think people should consider managing their email inbox because

343
00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:50,920
Speaker 1: that's such an important part of how we work right now. Yeah,

344
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:53,200
Speaker 1: I mean, the key thing to remember is that email

345
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:56,440
Speaker 1: expands to fill all available space. So if there is

346
00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:59,200
Speaker 1: anything you want to do other than email, you have

347
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:01,400
Speaker 1: to make sure you carve out the time for that

348
00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:03,920
Speaker 1: and let email fit around that. As opposed to saying, well,

349
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:05,680
Speaker 1: I'll get to those other things as soon as I'm

350
00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:08,320
Speaker 1: caught up with email, because you will never be caught

351
00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:10,080
Speaker 1: up with email. I mean, people who are trying to

352
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:12,520
Speaker 1: get down to inbox zero, as they're sending responses to

353
00:16:12,560 --> 00:16:15,520
Speaker 1: get themselves down, people respond to that and so it

354
00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:17,920
Speaker 1: comes right back in and and then you're you're stuck.

355
00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:19,760
Speaker 1: You're back up from where you were. You know, it's

356
00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:22,640
Speaker 1: it's impossible to stay there, and so it will take

357
00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:25,080
Speaker 1: any time you give it. You have to choose to

358
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:27,560
Speaker 1: spend less time on it. And I'm gonna say, like

359
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:30,280
Speaker 1: email is a wonderful tool. Email, I mean, that's how

360
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:34,080
Speaker 1: we've communicated until we've had this this podcast recording. I

361
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,200
Speaker 1: have on my to do list today to send an

362
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,600
Speaker 1: email to somebody that's gonna be a well crafted, thought

363
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:40,240
Speaker 1: through thing that I want her to, you know, talk

364
00:16:40,280 --> 00:16:43,440
Speaker 1: to me about something like that's an important email. You know,

365
00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:45,640
Speaker 1: that's something that I'm choosing to spend time on. An

366
00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:48,720
Speaker 1: email is a good vehicle for it to happen. But

367
00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:50,480
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that comes in a stuff

368
00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:54,520
Speaker 1: you didn't seek out. It's the stuff expectations that are

369
00:16:54,560 --> 00:16:56,800
Speaker 1: are there, but you didn't ask for them, Like you

370
00:16:56,840 --> 00:17:00,560
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily actively choose to bring these into your lives.

371
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 1: So I think you have to, you know, recognize that

372
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 1: it may not always be the most important thing to do.

373
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,200
Speaker 1: I know this is very hard um to put email

374
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:11,840
Speaker 1: off when it is they're kind of looking at you like,

375
00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:15,280
Speaker 1: this is undone stuff you have to get to, but

376
00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:17,520
Speaker 1: it will still be there and still be undone later

377
00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:20,320
Speaker 1: in the day, whereas your big projects may just not

378
00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:21,919
Speaker 1: get done if you do that. So once when I

379
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: was I was deep in the edits on Juliet uh

380
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:26,680
Speaker 1: and I was like, I gotta get through this. I

381
00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:28,760
Speaker 1: I know I could really make progress today and I'm like,

382
00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:31,240
Speaker 1: the emails are stacking up, including some from people that

383
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:34,040
Speaker 1: I would generally respond to very quickly or you know,

384
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:37,320
Speaker 1: offers of speeches. You know, I'd like to say to

385
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:39,240
Speaker 1: my client, like, yes, of course I can take that

386
00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:41,080
Speaker 1: on for you. But I'm like, it will be there

387
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,120
Speaker 1: this afternoon. They will still love me if I respond

388
00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:47,320
Speaker 1: at six pm. I can carve out eight to one

389
00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 1: or two to do this and to give my best

390
00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:54,320
Speaker 1: to this project that actually is my top priority right now.

391
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:57,960
Speaker 1: And so I did, and you know, everyone still deals

392
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: with me. You know, nobody's said like I will never

393
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:03,439
Speaker 1: talk with you again because you responded to my email

394
00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:06,080
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours as opposed to Yeah, I think

395
00:18:06,119 --> 00:18:08,520
Speaker 1: email is a classic case of you know, something that's

396
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:11,240
Speaker 1: urgent versus something that's important, right, And you actually set

397
00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:13,439
Speaker 1: a line that I think he actually was in the book, right,

398
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,040
Speaker 1: like the email will still be there, it will still

399
00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:17,919
Speaker 1: be undone. Yeah, that's all. They recognize that from one

400
00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:20,120
Speaker 1: of the characters in the book. But something else that's

401
00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:22,240
Speaker 1: awesome about the book as well, as you mentioned your

402
00:18:22,240 --> 00:18:25,479
Speaker 1: your time log that you have on your computer in Excel,

403
00:18:25,560 --> 00:18:27,639
Speaker 1: but in the back of the book you actually have

404
00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:30,880
Speaker 1: some tools there for folks to actually start tracking their time.

405
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:33,600
Speaker 1: You've got some great questions there for folks to talk

406
00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:36,280
Speaker 1: about it in small groups or with their friends, and

407
00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:39,199
Speaker 1: so you totally dive into the more practical ways that

408
00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:41,959
Speaker 1: folks can start thinking about what it is that they

409
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:44,040
Speaker 1: want to focus on. Like you mentioned the speeches like that,

410
00:18:44,119 --> 00:18:46,680
Speaker 1: if you can actually think through the speeches that folks

411
00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:49,359
Speaker 1: will be giving you, you know, hopefully at the towards

412
00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:51,600
Speaker 1: the end of your life Horenton fifteen years to think

413
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:53,520
Speaker 1: through those things. I mean, that's essentially what you have

414
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:55,399
Speaker 1: listed out in the back. You have tools there to

415
00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,760
Speaker 1: encourage the reader to think about what is truly important.

416
00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 1: And I find that pertains so well to money as well,

417
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:04,359
Speaker 1: because we talk about the why behind our money a lot,

418
00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:08,080
Speaker 1: which is basically like, what is our driving force that

419
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:09,879
Speaker 1: is causing us to work hard and to want to

420
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:11,879
Speaker 1: earn money. It's not the love of money. It's not

421
00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:14,960
Speaker 1: that we are trying to amass riches to do who

422
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,400
Speaker 1: knows what right. It's not that it's that there are

423
00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:19,879
Speaker 1: certain specific things that I want to be able to

424
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:21,840
Speaker 1: do with this with my kids, or I would love

425
00:19:21,880 --> 00:19:23,520
Speaker 1: to be able to spend this time with my spouse,

426
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 1: not working, but instead with them. So that means say,

427
00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:31,960
Speaker 1: investing that money now versus versus spending it. And so yeah,

428
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:33,600
Speaker 1: I love that you've got some of those tools there

429
00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:35,680
Speaker 1: in the back of your book. It's fantastic. We would

430
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:38,120
Speaker 1: recommend for everyone to check that out. So after the break,

431
00:19:38,119 --> 00:19:41,040
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk more about being efficient at work as

432
00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:52,440
Speaker 1: well as being more intentional in your personal life. Are

433
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:55,440
Speaker 1: we're back with Laura vander Camp. We're talking about valuing

434
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:58,679
Speaker 1: our time and Laura, let's talk about work here for

435
00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:02,879
Speaker 1: a second. Um, you mentioned tackling your toughest work in

436
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,919
Speaker 1: the first hours of your work day. Why do you

437
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:09,199
Speaker 1: think that's so important? Well, first, because people tend to

438
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:11,760
Speaker 1: have more energy. Then, there have been studies looking at

439
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:14,360
Speaker 1: people's reported energy levels through the day and the majority

440
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,080
Speaker 1: of people are most likely to be in a high

441
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:19,639
Speaker 1: energy mood around eight o'clock in the morning. It's when

442
00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:21,720
Speaker 1: we've had that first cup of coffee and you feel

443
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:24,080
Speaker 1: like you can take on the world. Two pm, you

444
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:25,720
Speaker 1: do not feel like you can take on the world.

445
00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: That's when things start to fall apart. Uh, So you

446
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:30,439
Speaker 1: know something that could have taken you an hour at

447
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:32,320
Speaker 1: eight am is going to take you two hours at

448
00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:35,200
Speaker 1: at two pm. As you keep getting distracted and getting

449
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:37,439
Speaker 1: alerts from Facebook on your phone, you're like, oh, let

450
00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:39,560
Speaker 1: me go check that out, and next thing you know,

451
00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: it's it's like four pm and you haven't gotten through

452
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:43,960
Speaker 1: what you said you were going to do in the afternoon.

453
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:48,320
Speaker 1: So mornings we tend to have more focus most people,

454
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,360
Speaker 1: in some real night owls, but most people. It also

455
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:54,320
Speaker 1: it gives you a chance to do things before the

456
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:56,639
Speaker 1: day gets away from you. Because in a lot of

457
00:20:56,680 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 1: people's jobs, stuff will come in. I mean that's the

458
00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:00,480
Speaker 1: nature of it. Things will come in that you'll have

459
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:02,520
Speaker 1: to deal with, or in your personal life, things will

460
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:04,719
Speaker 1: come in that you have to deal with. Whereas if

461
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:08,160
Speaker 1: you start with whatever is most important, then you most

462
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,159
Speaker 1: likely will have done it by the time the emergencies arise.

463
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,159
Speaker 1: Or if the emergencies arise first thing in the morning,

464
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:16,360
Speaker 1: well there's time later in the day to still get

465
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 1: to it. Whereas if you leave it till later in

466
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:21,160
Speaker 1: the day, probably that time is going to get taken

467
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:22,679
Speaker 1: away from you or you're gonna be too tired to

468
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:25,479
Speaker 1: get to it. Productivity is all about self knowledge and

469
00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:27,760
Speaker 1: every time I say that bit about, you know, do

470
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 1: your important work first thing in the morning, somebody raises

471
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:31,640
Speaker 1: their hands and I'm a night all. I'm like, okay,

472
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,640
Speaker 1: you're a night all. Great, that works for you. You

473
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 1: do you and everybody else might be interested to know

474
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 1: that most people have more energy first thing in the morning. So,

475
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 1: speaking of stretching your days, Laura, you've discussed the importance

476
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:46,880
Speaker 1: of taking time to exercise during the work day, how

477
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 1: do you suggest to folks to start incorporating exercise without

478
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:52,680
Speaker 1: ghosting their coworkers or being sort of like that weird

479
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:54,639
Speaker 1: sweaty person in the ddle of the day. You know,

480
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:57,080
Speaker 1: like Joel, he bikes to work every day. You show

481
00:21:57,160 --> 00:22:00,240
Speaker 1: up kind of sweaty and kind of gross. Gross, but

482
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: he is that weird sweaty person at he's got that.

483
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,760
Speaker 1: But how do you suggest the folks to work that in?

484
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing to recognize is that not

485
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 1: all exercise needs to leave you hot and sweaty, and

486
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to take an hour either. So if

487
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 1: you would like to introduce more physical activity into your

488
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 1: work day, the easiest thing is to just go for

489
00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: short walks. Most people take ten to fifteen minute breaks

490
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: here and there anyway, just use that in a intentional way,

491
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:30,720
Speaker 1: go outside, get some fresh air. You can even think

492
00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 1: of it as like a smoke break without the cigarettes,

493
00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:35,959
Speaker 1: Like you're going outside walking around, just don't light up,

494
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:37,919
Speaker 1: and you're all good, like you've done something healthy instead

495
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: of something unhealthy. You know, if you've got a lunch break,

496
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 1: like if it's generally understood that people in your office

497
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: can can take a break, figure out if you could

498
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:48,360
Speaker 1: go out a slightly longer walk some days during that,

499
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 1: or you know, enlist a colleague. You could even turn

500
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:54,320
Speaker 1: one on one meetings into walking meetings. That's a really

501
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: great way to even have better conversations. You know, it's

502
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 1: hard to have an intense conversation across us a conference

503
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: board room with someone that you're really trying to convey

504
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,199
Speaker 1: that you you like them personally. You're just you know,

505
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: have some difficult things to say, whereas walking around you

506
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,880
Speaker 1: might be able to pull that off. So I definitely

507
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: recommend that. I remember that being one of Steve jobs

508
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: classic things in his biography was that he would constantly

509
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 1: go on walks with folks anytime they had some big

510
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: discussions to that needed to be to be done. But

511
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 1: you know, even if you are, you know, you could

512
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 1: go to the gym. I mean people get very concerned

513
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 1: about like what people think. But if your work is

514
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,679
Speaker 1: getting done and your manager doesn't mind, like, then who cares? Right,

515
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: Just go do it and come back and you'll probably

516
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: have enough energy if you go over lunch and come

517
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: back at one pm to actually get through the afternoon

518
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: as opposed to suffering from that two pm slump that

519
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,160
Speaker 1: people who have stayed at their desk and like look

520
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: at me, I'm looking I'm working through lunch, I'm all productive,

521
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 1: and then two pm it's just it's all gone. Yeah,

522
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: I was gonna say two pm. S He was like

523
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: kind of that perfect time of the day to maybe,

524
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: if nothing else, just dropped down and do like twenty

525
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: push ups, you know, just because that can be instead

526
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:58,360
Speaker 1: of getting that extra cup of coffee or just kind

527
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: of completely zoning out in in Facebook or social media

528
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: or something like that, going down uh internet rabbit hole.

529
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: Doing some sort of physical activity can kind of help

530
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: elevate you to take on those last couple hours of

531
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: work that you need to get done that day. Right, Yeah, definitely, Um,

532
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: exercise I always say makes time like it doesn't take time.

533
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 1: It makes time because your energy levels will go up

534
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: high enough that you can actually get stuff done. Whereas

535
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,119
Speaker 1: if you're telling yourself, you know, I don't need breaks,

536
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,160
Speaker 1: I'm not the kind of person who needs breaks, Well

537
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 1: you do, but your brain will take a fake one.

538
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: It just won't be very productive. And that's what that's

539
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: what happens when people lose, you know, thirty minutes into Twitter.

540
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 1: All right, So let's talk about meetings because meetings are

541
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 1: one of these things that everyone's got a thought about them,

542
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 1: and most of us think that we're in too many meetings.

543
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: They seem to kind of take over a traditional work

544
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: day and sometimes, just just like email, meetings can be

545
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: that time suck where we feel like we haven't actually

546
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: been able to attend to the actual things that we

547
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 1: need to do in our daily job. So you specifically

548
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: talked recently in a podcast episode about not wasting time

549
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: meetings and how we use those tools poorly. So how

550
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 1: can we make meetings more effective in our work day?

551
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,479
Speaker 1: And especially like let's say we're an employee and our

552
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 1: boss is the one who's making us attend these meetings

553
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: that kind of stink, like is there any way that

554
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: we can gently nudge to kind of shake things up. Yeah,

555
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,159
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's all sorts of things you can do.

556
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: One is that sometimes your boss just isn't aware of

557
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 1: how many meetings you're in. This can happen all the time.

558
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: Everyone's in their own little world. Like very rarely are

559
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,680
Speaker 1: people like trying to make life miserable for other people.

560
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: It tends to be more that they just haven't noticed.

561
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: So it might help to say, well, look, you know,

562
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: I am booked into twenty five hours a week of

563
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: meetings that are recurring. Like they don't even have to

564
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: earn their place on my calendar. They just keep showing

565
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: up there and and is this what you would like

566
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: me to be spending my time doing. Could we go

567
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:50,199
Speaker 1: through this list and see, you know, could any of

568
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: these be less frequent, Could they involve fewer people? Could

569
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: they not happen? I don't know. Like these are all

570
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 1: ideas that that are worth looking at. If if you

571
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: are going to have a meeting, the key thing to

572
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: recognize is that something should change in the world as

573
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 1: a result of this meeting taking place, and that meeting

574
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: should require the participation of everyone who is there for

575
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: every minute that they are there, and that they are

576
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: all there to change the thing in the world, like

577
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: they are necessary for this thing that needs to change,

578
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: and if it can't meet that standard, it probably doesn't

579
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: have to happen or be that long or involve that

580
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: many people. You know, people invite folks to meetings because

581
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: it seems nice. It's like, you know, I'm trying to

582
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: get over the traumas of the middle school cafeteria, and

583
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 1: so I'll just invite everyone to come to my meeting.

584
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: But that's that's not actually helpful um or you know,

585
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: trying to keep your boss in the loop. And the

586
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: person doesn't have anything they're doing at the time, so

587
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: they come and everyone's happy because they're there, but it's

588
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: still that wasn't quite what we needed, you know, in

589
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: order for this thing to happen. So just be very

590
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: careful that every minute of the meeting is accounted for

591
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: and that everyone who's there needs to be there. Let's

592
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: shift you is how to being intentional in our personal lives?

593
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: How can we do a better job when it comes

594
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 1: to our family and our personal time goals? Do you

595
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: have some specific strategies that you would recommend to folks. Well,

596
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: I think the word you just use their intentional is

597
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: the most important one, because a lot of people aren't

598
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: intentional about their family or leisure time. And it's the

599
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: rare person who would show up at work at you know,

600
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: eight in the morning and have no idea what they

601
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: were gonna do with the entire day like that. They

602
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: hadn't thought through it. Just something will happen. It'll will

603
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: eventually be at five o'clock and I'll leave like that.

604
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: That's not how people usually approach work, But people approach

605
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: their home life like that all the time and be like, well,

606
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 1: I get home at five thirty and I guess I'll

607
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 1: go to bed at eleven thirty. Something will happen in there.

608
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,880
Speaker 1: I don't know, It's six hours and it's just not

609
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: mindful at all. And again I'm not saying you have

610
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: to plan every you know, in fifteen minute chunks, like

611
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: your work there, or send outlook invites for dinner or

612
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: anything ridiculous like that, but you might want to at

613
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: least put some intention into it, Like wouldn't it be

614
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: fun if the kids and I read this book tonight

615
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: that I love from my childhood, and maybe they will

616
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: like to that's something that's an intention, Or let's go

617
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: for a walk after dinner as a family, or it

618
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: looks like it's light a little bit later, you know,

619
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: maybe we could hit the playground before dinner. And you know,

620
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: if we had a snack what I got home, like,

621
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: we could do that and have a slightly later dinner

622
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 1: or something. But you're thinking it through vastly increases the

623
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 1: chances that this time has spent. Well, that's great, And

624
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: and do you have any thoughts then as far as

625
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: like overall planning, right, so we're talking about the daily

626
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: sort of particulars. I love how what just what you said,

627
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: even just then, how there are you know, there's six

628
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 1: hours between getting home from work and when you go

629
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 1: to bed perhaps and even you just saying that made

630
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: me think, holy crap, six hours, Like there are six

631
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: hours like that I'm potentially burning. From a sort of

632
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: macro level, from like a big picture, how would you

633
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: recommend the folks to think through what they want to

634
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: want their weeks and what their months and year to

635
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: look like? Well, the year, um one exercise I have

636
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: people do, both professionally and personally sort of think at

637
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: the end of the year to the end of the

638
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: upcoming year, what would you like to say you have done?

639
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: Like so, on the professional front, you can picture yourself

640
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 1: giving a professional performance review to yourself and if it

641
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: was like a stunning review at the end of the year,

642
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: like she did, X, Y, and Z, Well, what are

643
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: those things like? What are the things that would make

644
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: it an amazing year? Well, now you know what your

645
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: top professional priorities for the next six months are. And

646
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: same thing with your personal life too. You could picture

647
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: yourself at a holiday party and you're telling friends and

648
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: family you know what you did in your personal life

649
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: over the course of the year. Well, what would those

650
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: things be like if it was going to be an

651
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: awesome year for your family, Like, what would you have done?

652
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know your you ran a ten

653
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: k with your spouse and you took an extended family

654
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: trip to Ireland or you you know, just things like this.

655
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: But if you think about these things, then you can start,

656
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: you know, making them happen. If you have no idea

657
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: what they are, good stuff can still come to you,

658
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: Like I'm not saying it won't, and we should definitely

659
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: leave space open for opportunity. But many things that are

660
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: great require some intention and planning of time as for

661
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: the weekly, because you asked, you know the year, and

662
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: then you also asked the week. I planned my weeks

663
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: on Friday afternoons. And this was a really early episode

664
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: of Before Breakfast that I did that I said, planned

665
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: your week on Friday afternoon. And I think this is

666
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 1: the one that the most people have written into me

667
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: about being like, oh my goodness, that was life changing.

668
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: Because when you take some time on Friday afternoon to

669
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: think about the upcoming week, you can say, well, what's

670
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: important to me? What are my priorities? When can those happen?

671
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: When can I put those on the schedule. Well, now

672
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 1: suddenly you have time on the schedule for things you

673
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: have said that are important to you. How interesting. You

674
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: can also take some time to figure out what is

675
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: already on your calendar for the upcoming week, and you

676
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: can ask yourself, well, are these things that should be

677
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: on my calendar for the upcoming week? Or should I

678
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: get rid of some of them? Or I can I

679
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: minimize some of them? Or can somebody else handle some

680
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: of them? And by doing those two things, putting in

681
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: space for the stuff that does matter to you, getting

682
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: rid of stuff that's wound up on your calendar that

683
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 1: is not important to you. You just vastly increase the

684
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: chances that you have a great week where you make

685
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: progress on your priorities. And then you do it again

686
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: the next Friday, and then again you make progress on

687
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: your priorities, and and this this overtime creates a great

688
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: life quick follow up then right. A lot of times

689
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: when folks hear that, they think, oh, man, she's scheduling

690
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: out her entire next week. It sounds really rigid, And

691
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: life happens. Right, You've got four kids, there's pulls on

692
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: us from work, there's pulls on us from our personal lives.

693
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: And these are things that we want to do. It's

694
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: not like these are things that we're going to put

695
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: the kabash on and say no, we're not going to

696
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: do this. How do you maintain that structure but at

697
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: the same time leave a good bit of flexibility there

698
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: to be able to work those things into your schedule

699
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: while at the same time feeling like that you're still

700
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: being productive and sticking to the schedule. Does that make sense? Yes,

701
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: it definitely does. And I do not schedule every minute

702
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: like I don't put things into every minute of my life,

703
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: and I would say that it's it's a false choice

704
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: to think that you're even planning every minute or planning nothing.

705
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: There is such a huge space between planning every second

706
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: planning nothing at all. Neither one probably serves us very well.

707
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: You want to be somewhere in the middle with a

708
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: bit of time that you know you intend to devote

709
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: to these important things, and then also plenty of open

710
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: space for the stuff comes up. I like to say

711
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: I plan because life doesn't go according to plan. This

712
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: was very apparent to me a certain week at the

713
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: end of October where one of the most random things happened,

714
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: where one of my kids wound up with like multiple

715
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: er visits. Not fun at all. Um, he's fine, but

716
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: you know it was. It was something that had to

717
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: be dealt with. But I still felt at the end

718
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: of the week like I had a really good week,

719
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: and that's because I had identified the Friday before, like,

720
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: these are the three things that absolutely have to happen,

721
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: And so when my life flew completely out of order

722
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: because of this stuff, I knew that these are the

723
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: three things I was going to do. Everything else could go,

724
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: but those three things were still going to happen, and

725
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: I did, Like, in a hundred sixty hours, you can

726
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: probably get to three things, right. But you know, if

727
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,240
Speaker 1: I had had some if I had just had some

728
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: nebulous idea of oh there's stuff I should do, you know,

729
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: and but there's just like a hundred things I should do,

730
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have gotten to it, and then I would

731
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: have felt terrible at the end of the week. Yeah,

732
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: that's those are great thoughts. So all right, you've mentioned

733
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: you mentioned your kid going to the are and you

734
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: have four kids, so you have a busy family life.

735
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: And you know, Matt's wife is pregnant with with their

736
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: fourth child. My wife is pregnant with our third child.

737
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: So we're totally with you on this. Oh yeah, we're there.

738
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: Her family life becomes obviously like the most fun part

739
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: of our lives. But then at the same time, there's

740
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: just a lot that's required inside of that. So how

741
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: do you make wise choices with your time, especially when

742
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: you have a large family, And what does that look

743
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: like to be intentional on the day to day when

744
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: it comes to how you incorporate family time into that

745
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: like hundred sixty eight hours of your week. Yeah, well,

746
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 1: I mean I do the bulk of my work while

747
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: my kids are at school. Um, so then I'm pretty

748
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: much around most of the other time. So so right there,

749
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: there's just a sheer quantity of hours um that, as

750
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: you know, with multiple children, you do wind up spending

751
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: a lot of time with them. There's some of the

752
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: people have this bit of this false notion that if

753
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: if you have a job, you don't see your family.

754
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: I was like, well, hundred sixty eight hours a week,

755
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: you work forty, Like, there's a lot of other time

756
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: if you subtract forty from eight, so you're you're still

757
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: gonna wind up seeing a fair amount of them. But

758
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: you know, in any given moment. One of the phrases

759
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: that comes up a lot in in Juliette's School of

760
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: Possibilities is this idea that expectations are infinite. Time is finite.

761
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: You are always choosing choose well, And so I try

762
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:27,720
Speaker 1: to check in with myself and ask, am I choosing

763
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: well right now? And so if I'm having a good

764
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: conversation with one of my kids at the breakfast table

765
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: and be like, well, maybe a good choice would just

766
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 1: be to sit here, like just keep sitting and probably

767
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: whatever I was gonna do in five minutes, like I

768
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: can do inten, you know, and it will be okay

769
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 1: that that's a good choice in the moment. Of course,

770
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: if I'm on a huge deadline for something, it's it's

771
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: okay to tell the kid. You know, by the way,

772
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 1: you can figure out your own homework right now. I

773
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: already did sixth grade. This is not my problem. Like

774
00:34:58,080 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 1: you know, if you're truly stumped, come back in an

775
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 1: hour or but don't talk to me before then. And

776
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 1: you know, I do try to, especially with a larger family,

777
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: and you guys will appreciate this as your your families

778
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: are growing too, But attempting to spend some one on

779
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,439
Speaker 1: one time with each family member goes a long way.

780
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be daily. It doesn't have

781
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: to necessarily even happen every week, because once you have

782
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: four kids, you wind up batching them to gather for

783
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: all sorts of activities. But I do one on one

784
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: days with each of my kids each year, like in

785
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: the summer, uh, and I try to do something special

786
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,360
Speaker 1: with them for their birthdays. So that's like eight events

787
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: a year, which doesn't you know, a ton. It does

788
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: take some time, but It doesn't take a ton of

789
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: time necessarily, but those tend to be things that the

790
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: kids form really good memories of, and I think that

791
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: those would be some of the things that the kids

792
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: would mention of, like, you know, what did you do

793
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: this year? Oh? Well, I went to an Eagles game

794
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: with mommy, or we went to the American Girl Cafe

795
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: in New York with mommy, or various whatever else I've done.

796
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: I've played paintball or whatever else I've had to do

797
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: the kid wants to do. So Yes, it is amazing

798
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: how meaningful those one on one times are. And you know,

799
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 1: my girls right now are five and three, and even

800
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: if it's just like going to the waffle house for

801
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: breakfast just the two of us, or just an after

802
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:14,919
Speaker 1: dinner walk just the two of us, Um, it's really

803
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: fun to go do those things as a whole family.

804
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 1: But you're completely right. I think that setting aside one

805
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 1: on one time for your spouse and then also for

806
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:26,320
Speaker 1: your kids is I mean, it's just instrumental to building

807
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: the foundation of an important relationship. I want to mention

808
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: a listener of ours, Andy, I was talking to him

809
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: the other day and he mentioned how once his kids

810
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 1: he actually has four kids as well, and once they

811
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 1: hit four years old, he comes back to visit his parents,

812
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: just him and that child, just to have this this

813
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,359
Speaker 1: long extended trip quality time with the grandparents but as

814
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: well as with him as a father, and they do

815
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 1: fun stuff around the city, go to the zoo, you know,

816
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: different things like that. But that really stood up to

817
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: me because you know, what he said was that this

818
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: is before they start kindergarten, so they're not necessarily locked

819
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: into the school calendar. Yet I have that flexibility. Why

820
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,839
Speaker 1: not take this time to deep in that relationship with them?

821
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: And Laura, I completely agree with you. I mean when

822
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: they look back at the year, those will be the

823
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 1: sort of key stand days or moments whatever it is

824
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: that you happen to be doing. And so to hear

825
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: examples of that, I don't know, that's really inspiring and

826
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: encouraging to me. And a good thing to spend money on.

827
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't have to be expensive, but if

828
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: you are going to spend something money on something that

829
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,400
Speaker 1: might be a good thing. Waffle House very inexpensive. Right

830
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: do you have waff houses up in Philadelphia? I think

831
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: we do. Um, you know, I love taking kids out

832
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,439
Speaker 1: for breakfast too. It's it's a good think. You think,

833
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:38,399
Speaker 1: maybe I just don't go out for breakfast. All right, Well,

834
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: so okay, I'm curious to get your thoughts on morning

835
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: routines and even more, and we'll get to that right

836
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: after the break al Right, we were just talking about

837
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 1: waffle house. Let's talk about morning routines, Laura, how can

838
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,439
Speaker 1: we make our mornings a little less crazy and more

839
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,839
Speaker 1: of a health you foundation for everyone to start their days.

840
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: What are some pieces of your morning routine that keep

841
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 1: things peaceful and on track? Yeah, I mean, the key

842
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: thing to realize with the morning routine is it doesn't

843
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 1: have to be an hour long meditation session and then

844
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 1: an hour long boot camp and then drinking some ridiculous

845
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:19,359
Speaker 1: green drink um that seems terrible. I'm a big fan

846
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: of breakfast food. In terms of real breakfast food. You

847
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: want to ask, well, what would make you actually excited

848
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: to get out of bed? A good morning routine should

849
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: give you an extra reason to get up, and you

850
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: don't have to wake up at four am. I mean,

851
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's just about getting up a few

852
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: minutes before you absolutely have to and using that time intentionally.

853
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: You could meditate of course, or pray or whatever else

854
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: you do. Um, you could write in a journal, Um,

855
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: you could do some sort of exercise. That's a great

856
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:45,759
Speaker 1: way to spend your mornings. Or it could be you know,

857
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: focused family time, Like we're going to have a relaxed

858
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: family breakfast instead of everyone running around the kitchen all crazed,

859
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: you know, sit down and eat together and then go

860
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: about your day. And you know, particularly for families where

861
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: family dinner may not happen as often as you wish,

862
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: family breakfast could be a good substitute. So for me

863
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: a usual weekday morning, UM, I tend to wake up

864
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: about sixty five and get myself ready, start making breakfast,

865
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: and get my middle schooler up about seven fifteen, eat

866
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: with him, eat with my husband if he's home. UM,

867
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: and our youngest, the four year old, we sort of

868
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: have our first shift, and then UM, as he's getting ready,

869
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: the other two children start coming down. The nine year

870
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: old and the seven year old come down sort of

871
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 1: the second shift of breakfast. But I'm pretty much in

872
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 1: breakfast mode from like seven am to eight am. I

873
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: and I thought at some point like that's a ridiculous

874
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: amount of time to spend on breakfast, but it's time

875
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: I have, so I am they're doing family breakfast stuff

876
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: from seven to eight are nanny comes at eight. I

877
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 1: tend to spend eight to if I'm not doing the

878
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: middle school carpoal that's when I do a little bit

879
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:55,319
Speaker 1: of strength training. I've gotten in this habit of doing

880
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: some kettlebell and resistance band stuffs. And then I then I,

881
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: you know, glance at email or anything that's really small

882
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 1: admin stuff. Then get the nine year old and seven

883
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: year old out to the bus. Come in thirty five

884
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: to nine is my free writing time, Like I just

885
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: do writing that isn't going to be published, but I'm

886
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: just trying stuff out seeing you know, writing practice, and

887
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: then nine o'clock start my work day. I wanted to

888
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: ask you about managing distractions. I feel like there's so

889
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 1: much that can distract us in our society today. It's

890
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,959
Speaker 1: really easy to get sucked away from the task at hand,

891
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: and and in particular, our phones have become kind of

892
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: that main culprit for us that just draws our attention

893
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: away ever so slightly in some cases and then just

894
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 1: way more than slightly in other in other cases. So

895
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: what impact do you feel like phones are having on

896
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: our productivity at work, and then also kind of how

897
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: we're able to have relationships with other people and how

898
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: can we use our phones as tools as opposed to

899
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 1: letting them use us. Well, that's just it. They are tools,

900
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 1: and they're very useful tools. I've been obsessed lately with

901
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: this app that I can point my camera at a

902
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: plant and it tells me what it is like. That's

903
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: kind of fun for when you're out on a hike,

904
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:05,879
Speaker 1: like you see like this is well, this is poison IVY,

905
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: don't touch it. That's a helpful thing to see. Um,

906
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: but you know, this is the name seek s e K.

907
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: Pointed at any plant and it tells you and then

908
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 1: you look like you know something about botany and that

909
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,759
Speaker 1: can be exciting for some of us. But yeah, I

910
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: mean the key is to use it as a tool

911
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: as opposed to being the thing that is running your life.

912
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: You can turn it off, you can not use it

913
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: at various points, and if you're doing something that you

914
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 1: would like to focus on, making a point of not

915
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 1: looking at it is great. And I tend to leave

916
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 1: it in my bag if I'm having, you know, lunch

917
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: with someone for instance, I'd never put it somewhere that

918
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 1: I would actually see it, because I figured, you know,

919
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 1: at the end of the lunch, I can look at it.

920
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,439
Speaker 1: But you know, if I've chosen to spend this time

921
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: with this person, pretty much nothing coming in on the

922
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: phone is going to be more important than that. You know,

923
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 1: people have always felt they're busy. Sometimes people ask me

924
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: this question of like, oh, well, because of phones, or

925
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: we are now busier than ever before, Like, no, we're not.

926
00:41:57,880 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: People have always thought they were busy. People have always

927
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: thought they're busier than any other time in the human history.

928
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: We're still people. We still get distracted by things. People

929
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: got distracted by things when all that was coming in

930
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 1: was like the facts machine, and they probably got distracted

931
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: by their facts. Is that they get distracted by colleagues,

932
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 1: They get distracted by whatever else memos that we're coming out.

933
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: Like I just uh, this great quote from Eleanor Roosevelt

934
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: of all people, I just read her book You You

935
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: Learned By Living. She she wrote an advice column for

936
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: years and but this is her self help book. And

937
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: she talks about how the mail follows her around, and

938
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: she'll travel and the mail will follow her around and

939
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: she gets back to her desk and she has to

940
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: work long hours on several days to answer all the mail.

941
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you could put email in here and

942
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:40,479
Speaker 1: it would be the exact same thing, right, Like, Yeah,

943
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: people forget that all right. So, uh, In particular, when

944
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: we're talking about phones, I feel like there are all

945
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: these little small sections of time that we have throughout

946
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: the day, and we used to spend them on a

947
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: board maybe, uh, And now that's just not something we

948
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: have to deal with. We we never have to be

949
00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: bored because we have our phones in front of us.

950
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,720
Speaker 1: But you've talked about kind of taking back those smaller

951
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: sections of your day and trying to use them in

952
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,360
Speaker 1: a purposeful manner. So how would you suggest people instead

953
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: of pulling out their phones when they have a spare

954
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: five minutes, how can they use those small pockets of

955
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: time effectively in Well, well, you could do other stuff

956
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: that's on your phone. I put the Kindle app on

957
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: my phone a couple of years ago, and so I

958
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 1: can start reading the books in these short bits of time.

959
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,919
Speaker 1: And you can get through a lot of literature in

960
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: these five minute chunks that you would have been scrolling

961
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: around in social media. And it actually adds up pretty quickly.

962
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: Of course, you don't need to be on your phone.

963
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: I mean you can use the time to journal, or

964
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: write a thank you note, or um, go talk to

965
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 1: a colleague, or sit in daydream and look at the

966
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: sky stare at the clouds. It's kind of you know,

967
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,359
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell yourself you have no time when

968
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: you can sit there and stare at the clouds. But

969
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: people will then tell themselves they have no time when

970
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: they spend the exact same quantity of time on their

971
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,280
Speaker 1: phones looking at Instagram. I mean, they still have time.

972
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 1: It's just being on your phone doesn't feel relaxing, and

973
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 1: so it tends not to register as lee your time,

974
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: and so then it's gone as if you didn't have

975
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: it at all. All right, So I've gotten one final

976
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 1: question for you, Laura. You gave this really awesome Ted

977
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: talk back in and one of the things you talked

978
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 1: about in there was this example of a broken water heater.

979
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: And if any of us had a broken water heater

980
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: at our house where where water was pouring over the

981
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: top or something, and and and it was you know,

982
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 1: rushing out into our kitchen, living room, whatever, it would

983
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: literally be the only thing we could focus on, because

984
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: I mean, what else can you think about when something

985
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 1: of that magnitude is happening at your house? And so, yeah,

986
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: fill us in on what it looks like to kind

987
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: of prioritize certain things in the way that you would

988
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: prioritize a broken water heater in your house. Yeah. So

989
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: this lady had checked her time for me, and in

990
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,879
Speaker 1: the course of her week of tracking, this water heater broke,

991
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: and so she had to spend a ton of time

992
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 1: dealing with it, you know, with the flood in her

993
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: basement and the plumbers and all this stuff. And it

994
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,240
Speaker 1: was it was like seven hours of her week devoted

995
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: to the seven hours. And and so you know, we said, well,

996
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:01,919
Speaker 1: at the start of the week, when you said, let's

997
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 1: find seven hours for something else, right, let's find seven

998
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: hours to train for a triathlon. Let's find seven hours

999
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: to you know, read a quarter of the way through

1000
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: war and peace or something like that, she wouldn't have

1001
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:14,840
Speaker 1: been able to find the time. So I don't have

1002
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,280
Speaker 1: seven hours, right, But when she had to find seven

1003
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: hours because there's water all over her basement, she found

1004
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,959
Speaker 1: seven hours. And so I think it's important to view

1005
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,240
Speaker 1: time this way, like if you if something is important

1006
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: enough to you, you will find a way to make

1007
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: the time for it. Something else will go. Well, what

1008
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: is that something else? Because maybe you could make it

1009
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: go even if there isn't water all over your basement, right,

1010
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:37,479
Speaker 1: And I really do think we can try to treat

1011
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 1: our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater

1012
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: and get to them with that sort of urgency, that

1013
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: sense of I have to do this now. Practically, what

1014
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 1: that means for most people is doing it first thing

1015
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: in the morning, because that's the time when we can

1016
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 1: do it before everything else gets away from you. That's great, Laura.

1017
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: You know what we kind of keep coming back to,

1018
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 1: and you said this as well as intentionality, um, and

1019
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: how every minute we spend is our choice in the

1020
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 1: same way that every dollar we spend is our choice. Right,

1021
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 1: Like when it comes to our money, a lot of

1022
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: times we say, well we I just don't have money

1023
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: for that, or you say, oh, well that's just not

1024
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: in the budget. Well it can be in the budget

1025
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 1: if you actually want it to be in the budget. Right.

1026
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: It's it's a matter of if it's a priority for

1027
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: you or not. And in Juliet's School of Possibilities. There's

1028
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: a quote in there a character says that if you

1029
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,799
Speaker 1: say that I don't have time, what that really means

1030
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,839
Speaker 1: is that it's not a priority, right, and that we

1031
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:29,839
Speaker 1: always have time for what matters to us. And so

1032
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: what other ways that if we find ourselves saying that

1033
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: we don't have time, like, what should that remind us

1034
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: to do? Well? I think it might help. This is

1035
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: sort of a see if you can find one hour,

1036
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 1: like over the course of the next week, if there's

1037
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 1: something you've identified that you say, just I don't have

1038
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: time for this, could you find one hour over the

1039
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,120
Speaker 1: next week? And it doesn't even have to be one

1040
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 1: consecutive hour, and it could be like ten minutes on

1041
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 1: six days, right or fifteen minutes on four days, But

1042
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,879
Speaker 1: could you find an hour for this? Now? I think

1043
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: probably you could. If you track your time, you'll probably

1044
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,280
Speaker 1: see well over an hour devoted to at least something

1045
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 1: that you don't care about. So let's try to do

1046
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: one hour, and at the end of the week if

1047
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: you've done it, great, celebrate. If you haven't asked yourself,

1048
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 1: why not, like what happened that you couldn't devote one

1049
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: hour to this thing and see what you can do

1050
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: to address that. But yeah, I mean, it really is

1051
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: a matter of what is a priority to you and

1052
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:26,919
Speaker 1: if you're not making time for something in your life,

1053
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: but maybe it's not a priority, and that's okay, Like

1054
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: we can acknowledge that, we can say it is not

1055
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: a priority for me to do this. And it's the

1056
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 1: same thing with money. I mean, you know, there's various

1057
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 1: things that the world will tell us we have to

1058
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: spend money on. Whether it's having you know, two cars

1059
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: and a family or not. That's maybe that's something that

1060
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: a family doesn't need, they don't care about it. Maybe

1061
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: it's that you live in a smaller house and use

1062
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:48,479
Speaker 1: your money to travel. There's various choices you can make

1063
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 1: if you wish to. They may not be the normal choices,

1064
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: but that's okay. We're all about not normal choices, that's

1065
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,800
Speaker 1: for sure. This has been a really really fun conversation. Laura.

1066
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: We are huge fans of your book and your new

1067
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:06,359
Speaker 1: podcast Before Breakfast, and can you tell our listeners where

1068
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: else they can find more out about you? Yeah, if

1069
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,879
Speaker 1: they want to come visit my website, Laura Vanderkam dot com.

1070
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: I blogged. There are usually four times a week and

1071
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: you can learn all about my my podcasts and books.

1072
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: They're awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us

1073
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 1: on the show today. It was a lot of fun. Yeah,

1074
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 1: and we hope we didn't uh kind of throw out

1075
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: your voice a little bit. We know you're seeing tonight,

1076
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 1: So thanks for talking to us here. It'll be good.

1077
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 1: As long as I didn't have the beer too, I

1078
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: should be good with just speaking. Yes, awesome, Well, thanks

1079
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: so much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me, all right, Matt.

1080
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,839
Speaker 1: I love that conversation. I love kind of Laura's philosophy,

1081
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,680
Speaker 1: and I love how time and money. You know, really,

1082
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, we should be thinking

1083
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: about both similarly. I thought that was that's kind of

1084
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 1: my takeaway from this episode. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we

1085
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning, right, how we know that

1086
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:53,399
Speaker 1: time is not money. Time is not intrinsically linked to money.

1087
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:55,400
Speaker 1: You don't have to have time in order to make money.

1088
00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: But like you said, uh, they're really similar. And the

1089
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:00,479
Speaker 1: way we treat our time the way we we treat

1090
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: our money are very similar. And it comes down a

1091
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 1: lot to you know, what our priorities are what we're

1092
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 1: actually gonna do with what we have, and just having

1093
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:10,439
Speaker 1: a plan and kind of moving forward with that. Yeah,

1094
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: I'm I'm so stoked that we were able to talk

1095
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: to Laura. She's total pro by the way, super awesome.

1096
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: So glad she was able to join us. Yeah, no doubt.

1097
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the beer real quick.

1098
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 1: Today on the show, we drank a beer called Infinity

1099
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 1: Bloom by New Grass Brewing Company. Matt, your mother in

1100
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 1: law kindly for us. Unlike last time they left a

1101
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: beer in our fridge and you and I drank it

1102
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: for an episode. You remember that one was more of

1103
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: a skull and beer than a donation. Yeah, I sort

1104
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: of donated by default. Yeah, this one was fantastic. It

1105
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 1: was a double dry Hopps I p a as a

1106
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 1: pretty little purple flower here on the can art. What

1107
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: were thoughts, man? Yeah? Man, honestly, I feel like the

1108
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: pretty little purple flower kind of encompasses what the sper

1109
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:49,399
Speaker 1: tasted like. Yeah, yeah, this is gonna sound kind of weird,

1110
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: but it was soft and luscious. Is is the old

1111
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: is the two words I kind of came up with

1112
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: to describe this beer. It was like super hoppy, but

1113
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: it didn't have that massive hot bite. It just was

1114
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,439
Speaker 1: reserved in it's in a way, but it's still had

1115
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: like this really full flavor even though it had that

1116
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: kind of soft mouth field. It was I thought it

1117
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 1: was delicious. Yeah, a lot of floral notes and softness

1118
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 1: in between you and the hops. Right, Yeah, I was

1119
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: thinking drinking this beer. It's sort of like riding around

1120
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 1: in a Cadillac. It's just really lush, really cush, you

1121
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like a buick Er and Cadillac.

1122
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 1: I don't know either one, but just just a really

1123
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:22,319
Speaker 1: comfy car where it doesn't where it feels like you're

1124
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: kind of just floating on a cloud. Yeah. Okay, now

1125
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 1: that's a good way to say it. So thanks to

1126
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: Mono and Pop that's what my kiddos called them for

1127
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 1: donating this beer and picking this one up for us

1128
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: for this episode. And if you want links to Laura's

1129
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: website in the books and some of the things that

1130
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 1: she's up to, go check out the show notes for

1131
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: this episode on our website how to money dot com.

1132
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 1: And if you found this episode helpful and enjoyed it,

1133
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: we would love for you to leave a review. Over

1134
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. And if you feel that Joe and

1135
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 1: I have room for improvement, we also want to hear

1136
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: from you. Uh. You can leave your message over at

1137
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: our website again at how to money dot com slash

1138
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: do Better. So, Joel, that's gonna be it for this episode, man.

1139
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,320
Speaker 1: Until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,