Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and
Speaker 1: Matt and today we're talking about valuing time with Laura Vanderkamp.
Speaker 1: That's right, Joel. Today we are talking about time, and
Speaker 1: you know, this is a topic that we've talked about
Speaker 1: before with Grant Sabatier. But you know what is interesting
Speaker 1: is that time and money they share a lot of
Speaker 1: similar characteristics, right, a lot of similar properties, And so
Speaker 1: I'm excited to dive into that with our guest today,
Speaker 1: Laura here in a few minutes. Yeah, she's a complete
Speaker 1: expert and just really interesting all around person to talk to.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that should be a really fun conversation real quick.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, we're drinking a beer called Infinity
Speaker 1: Bloom by New Grass Brewing Company, And Matt, your mother
Speaker 1: in law picked this up for us, right, that's pretty sweet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is out of Shelby, North Carolina. This is her
Speaker 1: hometown where she grew and Kate, my wife, she actually
Speaker 1: grew up there for a few years as well. So
Speaker 1: you know what's so cool is that all these small towns,
Speaker 1: they all have their their own brewery now, so you
Speaker 1: can find amazing craft beer pretty much anywhere, which is awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that you can find great craft breweries in
Speaker 1: small towns like all across the United States. Now used
Speaker 1: to be like reserve for major cities, and that's just
Speaker 1: not the case anymore. So there's are a change in Yeah,
Speaker 1: tiny craft breweries are where it's at all right, So
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and introduce our guest for today, Laura Vandercam.
Speaker 1: She helps people spend more time on what matters and
Speaker 1: less on what doesn't matter. She is the author of
Speaker 1: several time management and productivity books, including Juliet's School of Possibilities,
Speaker 1: Off the Clock, I Know how she does it, What
Speaker 1: the most successful people do Before Breakfast and a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty eight hours. That's a lot of books. She's prolific.
Speaker 1: She is the host of the podcast Before Breakfast and
Speaker 1: the co host with Sarah hart Unger, of the podcast
Speaker 1: Best of Both Worlds. And she lives outside Philly with
Speaker 1: her husband and four children. That's also a lot of
Speaker 1: children and blah over at Laura Vanderkam dot com. Laura
Speaker 1: truly is a time management expert and we're excited to
Speaker 1: have her on the show. So Laura, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. All right, We're
Speaker 1: so glad to have you, Laura. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: a really fun conversation. And as you know, Matt and
Speaker 1: I drink a craft beer every week on our show,
Speaker 1: and for us, it's this realization that, you know, we
Speaker 1: are very intentional about how we spend and save our money,
Speaker 1: but we do realize that it's important to to use
Speaker 1: our money on things that we enjoy in the here
Speaker 1: and now today too, and so craft beer kind of
Speaker 1: reflects that for us, and we're wondering, like, what's your
Speaker 1: craft beer? In particular in relation to how you use
Speaker 1: your time, where do you use your time potentially like
Speaker 1: ineffectively that people might be surprised that you splurage on
Speaker 1: your time in that way. Yeah, I love the comparison
Speaker 1: between time and money and the sense that we we
Speaker 1: aren't always just going to try and save a few
Speaker 1: minutes here and there, like sometimes it's worth spending a
Speaker 1: ton of time on stuff that you really enjoy. I
Speaker 1: actually sing in a choir and among the times large
Speaker 1: as I am making in this week, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit ridiculous in terms of the sheer number of
Speaker 1: like kids sports and school activities, and work activities and
Speaker 1: other such things that have to happen. But I'm um
Speaker 1: singing with my choir. We're doing a Maller's second Symphony.
Speaker 1: We're singing with an orchestra out in New Jersey, so
Speaker 1: I've been going out there for rehearsals. But you know,
Speaker 1: singing with the choir takes a ton of time, but
Speaker 1: it's really fun, and so it's not the sort of
Speaker 1: thing like, oh, well, could I spend less time on
Speaker 1: this somehow a little? Why on earth would I want to?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say that that singing is is
Speaker 1: my equivalent of craft beer. Joel loves to drink the beer,
Speaker 1: but you do not want to hear him singing. Well,
Speaker 1: the reason I'm not having a beer with you guys,
Speaker 1: I could pretend, I guess for purposes of the podcast,
Speaker 1: since no one can see me, but I'm I'm singing tonight,
Speaker 1: And in general, if I drink before I sing, it's
Speaker 1: general it's just a disaster. Well cool, So let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and dive into time a little bit now. So
Speaker 1: you're obviously really interest in time, and we wanted to
Speaker 1: know before we kind of start talking about your book,
Speaker 1: is how did that begin like, how did your fascination
Speaker 1: with time begin. Was there a pivotable moment that sort
Speaker 1: of shifted how you view time and sort of it's
Speaker 1: finite nature, or was it always something that you were
Speaker 1: aware of? As I look back on my life, I've
Speaker 1: always been interested in productivity. I was probably that nerdy
Speaker 1: kid in school who was planning out her week and
Speaker 1: had it, you know, when the tests were going to happen,
Speaker 1: all written in ahead of the time that they were
Speaker 1: actually happening, which I know it makes me sound like
Speaker 1: all kinds of fun, but it kind of became more
Speaker 1: of an intense personal interest when I became a parent
Speaker 1: for the first time twelve years ago, when my oldest
Speaker 1: child was born. And you know, anyone who's been through
Speaker 1: this transition, any of your listeners, know that it does
Speaker 1: change how you spend your time. Not only that the
Speaker 1: children themselves need time and attention, but it's more broader
Speaker 1: question of like am I spending my time in the
Speaker 1: ways that I wish to? Am I still, you know,
Speaker 1: maintaining time for all the other things I want to do.
Speaker 1: If my spending enough time with my kid, you're accountable
Speaker 1: for it in a way that you might just not
Speaker 1: be if you don't have intense personal responsibilities. And so
Speaker 1: I began sort of studying how other people were spending
Speaker 1: their time to make the most of their lives, both
Speaker 1: professionally and personally, and over time I began writing about that,
Speaker 1: and that's where my time management books have come from. Okay,
Speaker 1: speaking of time management books, you recently released a book
Speaker 1: called Juliette School of Possibilities and I read it in
Speaker 1: I think one and a half sitting, so I like
Speaker 1: almost and I had to finish it quickly. Um the
Speaker 1: quick read for sure next night. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: super super quick read. But I love to the fact
Speaker 1: that this it's a story. It's not like do these
Speaker 1: ten things, here's all these tips and how to manage
Speaker 1: your time better. But it's this really great story that
Speaker 1: kind of by us mosis. As you read it, you
Speaker 1: accumulate some of these tips on how to manage your
Speaker 1: time better. And so the main character in the book
Speaker 1: is Riley, and she's someone who just reminds me of
Speaker 1: a lot of people I see around me in daily life,
Speaker 1: right like constantly connected, so consumed with tasks that she
Speaker 1: doesn't have the time for work and relational opportunities. And
Speaker 1: so do you think of Riley, does she you represent
Speaker 1: to you kind of mainstream modern culture and how we
Speaker 1: can't turn it off? Oh, definitely. I mean I wanted
Speaker 1: Riley to be a character that a lot of people
Speaker 1: could see themselves in. And this is always the thing
Speaker 1: with a fable and the books out there, they're in
Speaker 1: the genre of same business fables. The whole hope is
Speaker 1: that you will see yourself in the main character, and
Speaker 1: in the course of the main character's journey will also
Speaker 1: learn things that you can put into place in your
Speaker 1: own life. And so, yeah, Riley's just a wreck. Um,
Speaker 1: so hopefully people aren't quite as much a wreck as her,
Speaker 1: but her her personal life is falling apart. That might
Speaker 1: be okay if her career was going great, but it
Speaker 1: also is not going great because she can't figure out
Speaker 1: what is important for her to spend her time on.
Speaker 1: And in the past, she always got ahead by just
Speaker 1: doing everything, you know, being the person who could get
Speaker 1: it all done. But once you move into management it
Speaker 1: becomes a lot more difficult. You can't just do everything.
Speaker 1: You have to think about what is most important for
Speaker 1: you to be doing, and there may not be a
Speaker 1: right answer, but that's kind of a risk you have
Speaker 1: to take, and she just has completely no ability to
Speaker 1: do this. So she's given an ultimatum by her company
Speaker 1: that she's got thirty days to turn things around or
Speaker 1: she's out. And of course of this, she winds up
Speaker 1: at a retreat at a rather strange sounding place called
Speaker 1: Juliette School of Possibilities, where she meets this mentor figure, Juliette,
Speaker 1: who shows her different visions for her life. It actually
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of the Double Worst Product, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of that character, the sort of NonStop it's like
Speaker 1: a cross between that and like a Christmas Carol sort of.
Speaker 1: So I can only imagine that in the middle of
Speaker 1: that type of lifestyle that that it can be hard
Speaker 1: for you to see yourself needing to make a change.
Speaker 1: So what questions can we ask ourselves to determine if
Speaker 1: we are struggling with some of those same things as
Speaker 1: Riley and even just recognize that need for change, Like,
Speaker 1: how do we self examine to see if we're in
Speaker 1: a place where we need to do that? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: partly it is about how you feel. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you feel like life is in a crisis, then you
Speaker 1: feel like you probably need to make a change. But
Speaker 1: what I often tell people is you really want to
Speaker 1: see where your time is going, because sometimes people have
Speaker 1: made crises that aren't actually there. Uh this is this
Speaker 1: is something I see a lot that people tell themselves
Speaker 1: all sorts of stories like I'm I'm failing in every
Speaker 1: which direction, and then they track their time and realize, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm actually doing a lot of really cool stuff. It's
Speaker 1: not nearly as bad as I thought it was. But
Speaker 1: if it is bad, then we should know. So I
Speaker 1: always have people track their time. I mean a couple
Speaker 1: of days is good, ideally a week and look at
Speaker 1: it and say, well, how does this time match up
Speaker 1: with my priorities in life? Because you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: this this happens all the time. Life gets busy, time
Speaker 1: keeps passing, whether we think about how we're spending it
Speaker 1: or not. People say with a straight face like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, being healthy, being physically fit, it's such a
Speaker 1: priority for me, and then you look at their time
Speaker 1: and guess what's not happening so or even just you know,
Speaker 1: my relationship with my spouse would be a priority. But
Speaker 1: like between the kids and the job, everything else takes takes, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, first DIBs at the time, and so it's
Speaker 1: good to see these things like as it pertains to money.
Speaker 1: What that sounds a lot like is tracking or spending, right,
Speaker 1: And so obviously we talk about money all the time
Speaker 1: on the show. And if you don't know where your
Speaker 1: money is going, then how can you make changes To
Speaker 1: begin that self examination sort of process, you need to know, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, where your hours are going, where your
Speaker 1: minutes are going. In the same way that if you're
Speaker 1: trying to turn your finances around, you need to know
Speaker 1: what you're actually spending your money on. And like like
Speaker 1: you said, you might say that exercise is important, or
Speaker 1: your health is important. Someone that's putting a budget together
Speaker 1: might say, oh, it's important for me to save. But
Speaker 1: if in reality you look at your spending and instead
Speaker 1: all your money is going out to the restaurants, well,
Speaker 1: you know your actual spending. Your behavior is not reflecting
Speaker 1: the reality of it. So how do you actually suggest
Speaker 1: the folks to track her time? So I track my
Speaker 1: time on these weekly spreadsheets. Again, I'm sure makes me
Speaker 1: sound like a lot of fun, but it gets worse.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for four years now, which nobody
Speaker 1: else needs to do. But I have tracked my time
Speaker 1: for four straight years. These weekly spreadsheets have the days
Speaker 1: of the week across the top, so Monday through Sunday
Speaker 1: half hour blocks down the left hand side, going five
Speaker 1: am to four thirty am, So it is a three
Speaker 1: thirty six self spreadsheet representing a hundred sixty eight hour
Speaker 1: a week. I just write down what I'm doing, and
Speaker 1: I'm not constantly checking in. I probably check in like
Speaker 1: three times a day, and I write down what I've
Speaker 1: done since the last time I checked in. The goal
Speaker 1: is not to be perfect, like I don't write down,
Speaker 1: you know, every time I got up and got a
Speaker 1: glass of water or anything like that. I am trying
Speaker 1: to get broadly the outlines of my life because even
Speaker 1: if it's not perfect, you can see so much from
Speaker 1: from where the time truly goes. And you mentioned some
Speaker 1: of the mismatches people have in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: how they're spending their money. They're probably huge blind spots
Speaker 1: people have in terms of how they're spending their money,
Speaker 1: Like I had no idea I was spending that amount
Speaker 1: on on X and and people do that with time
Speaker 1: as well. You know, we are often lead to believe
Speaker 1: that we spend more time working than we actually do.
Speaker 1: There's some some funny data about this. But work tends
Speaker 1: to be structured, and it tends to involve sort of
Speaker 1: commitments to other people, and so it kind of expands
Speaker 1: in our brain, even if the members themselves are not
Speaker 1: as big as we are imagining. People have a tendency
Speaker 1: to remember their longest days in their longest weeks as typical,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, you learn all kinds of interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the common culprits then for
Speaker 1: someone filling out a time log where they're likely to
Speaker 1: see that they're wasting time, that they're just not using
Speaker 1: your time effectively. Yeah, well, there's a couple of spots
Speaker 1: that tend to happen to lots of people. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you do at night before bed? A lot
Speaker 1: of people, it is puttering around the house. It's being
Speaker 1: on social media. It's watching TV, but not with any
Speaker 1: real purpose. If you've saved a favorite show to watch
Speaker 1: in the evening after your kids go to bed, that's great,
Speaker 1: But for many people that's not actually what's happening. It's
Speaker 1: sort of just one thing after the flipping around you know,
Speaker 1: and you're tired. You're you're tired, and you you don't
Speaker 1: know what you want to do, and so you do
Speaker 1: whatever is easiest. And I'm not saying you're gonna go
Speaker 1: run a marathon at that time. But let's say you've
Speaker 1: been telling yourself, I'd really like to read and I'd
Speaker 1: really like to connect with my spouse. Well, guess what,
Speaker 1: here's some time that you've been clicking around two shows
Speaker 1: you do not care about that you could read a
Speaker 1: book and you could connect with your spouse, so that
Speaker 1: you know, it's that sort of thing. Another thing I
Speaker 1: see a lot of on weekends. I've been a prefaces
Speaker 1: by saying nobody needs to plan every second of a
Speaker 1: weekend like that. That's not what I'm saying. But if
Speaker 1: we don't think about how we want to use this
Speaker 1: block of potential family and leisure time, it's going to
Speaker 1: get away from you in doing things that you don't
Speaker 1: actually care about. So being being a little bit intentional
Speaker 1: about it, you can vastly increase the chances that you
Speaker 1: spend this time on things that are meaningful or important
Speaker 1: for you or the people you care about. I want
Speaker 1: to swing back to the book for a second, now
Speaker 1: you mentioned how Juliet, the character there was able to
Speaker 1: show Riley to possible futures that she had. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: totally made me think of Charles Dickens at Christmas Stories
Speaker 1: for sure when I was reading that part of it.
Speaker 1: But like, how does thinking ahead like that? Like what
Speaker 1: kind of impact does that how on you as a
Speaker 1: person when it comes to goal setting? Why is that
Speaker 1: so important? And what do you think is most important
Speaker 1: to focus on or to look for when you are
Speaker 1: looking ahead, Like what aspects of your life? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: I would I'm not disappointed to be compared to a
Speaker 1: Christmas Caroll. I mean, that's a wonderful book, one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. So Juliet shows Riley to potential future visions
Speaker 1: for her life, and one is if she continues as
Speaker 1: everything is going now, always going after whatever seems brightest
Speaker 1: and most blinking in front of her, and not making
Speaker 1: time for the important things, And it's basically that life
Speaker 1: has just kind of slips away from her, that she's
Speaker 1: worked so hard for so many years and has no
Speaker 1: impact that she can actually point to. The other future
Speaker 1: is is far more positive when she has made time
Speaker 1: professionally for the things that matter to her for doing
Speaker 1: the big projects, the important, long reaching things that she
Speaker 1: keeps saying she wants to do, but she just never
Speaker 1: makes time for amid all the emails and such. And
Speaker 1: personally too that when she actually really invests time in
Speaker 1: the relationships that she says matter to her, both her
Speaker 1: friendships and and potential you know, spouse and children as well.
Speaker 1: So it's a very different future. And the future she's
Speaker 1: seeing in that second more positive vision, it's at a
Speaker 1: dinner given in her honor twenty five years in the future.
Speaker 1: And I think this is actually a good practical idea
Speaker 1: for people to think about that if you're trying to identify, like,
Speaker 1: what are my long term priorities, what are the things
Speaker 1: that matter to me? What should I be spending my
Speaker 1: time on, picture yourself maybe at a dinner given in
Speaker 1: your honor. Let's say, you know, ten years in the future.
Speaker 1: We don't have to go twenty five and my my
Speaker 1: heroin is very young, so she can go twenty five
Speaker 1: years in the future. Many of us would would not
Speaker 1: be wanting to, you know, be in the midst of
Speaker 1: all this stuff in twenty five years. But um, so
Speaker 1: let's say ten years from now, a dinner, people are
Speaker 1: getting up to give toasts about the impact you have
Speaker 1: had on them personally and on the larger world. What
Speaker 1: would they be saying? You could go ahead and write
Speaker 1: those toasts now if you wanted. And by thinking about
Speaker 1: what those toasts would be, you start to say like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: these are the things I could really see myself doing,
Speaker 1: Like this is the change I'd like to bring to
Speaker 1: the world, This is how I'd like other people to
Speaker 1: think of me. Now let me take this. Let me
Speaker 1: then say, what are some ways I can start spending
Speaker 1: my time so that I am making steps towards these
Speaker 1: this future. Yeah, And interestingly, in in the book, I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, Riley is so consumed with her
Speaker 1: inbox right, her her emails piling up. And I found
Speaker 1: myself certainly in that situation to where that concept of
Speaker 1: inbox zero, where it's like trying to get everything done
Speaker 1: and reply to everyone, feels like that's maybe the best
Speaker 1: way for me to attack things. But then I found
Speaker 1: myself when I am in that mind frame not actually
Speaker 1: doing the things that matter at my work. And and
Speaker 1: really I think probably a lot of us find ourselves
Speaker 1: in that situation where we think replying to emails becomes
Speaker 1: the most essential part of our job, and we're missing
Speaker 1: out on some of the more important aspects of what
Speaker 1: we should be doing. So like, how, in particular do
Speaker 1: you think people should consider managing their email inbox because
Speaker 1: that's such an important part of how we work right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the key thing to remember is that email
Speaker 1: expands to fill all available space. So if there is
Speaker 1: anything you want to do other than email, you have
Speaker 1: to make sure you carve out the time for that
Speaker 1: and let email fit around that. As opposed to saying, well,
Speaker 1: I'll get to those other things as soon as I'm
Speaker 1: caught up with email, because you will never be caught
Speaker 1: up with email. I mean, people who are trying to
Speaker 1: get down to inbox zero, as they're sending responses to
Speaker 1: get themselves down, people respond to that and so it
Speaker 1: comes right back in and and then you're you're stuck.
Speaker 1: You're back up from where you were. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's impossible to stay there, and so it will take
Speaker 1: any time you give it. You have to choose to
Speaker 1: spend less time on it. And I'm gonna say, like
Speaker 1: email is a wonderful tool. Email, I mean, that's how
Speaker 1: we've communicated until we've had this this podcast recording. I
Speaker 1: have on my to do list today to send an
Speaker 1: email to somebody that's gonna be a well crafted, thought
Speaker 1: through thing that I want her to, you know, talk
Speaker 1: to me about something like that's an important email. You know,
Speaker 1: that's something that I'm choosing to spend time on. An
Speaker 1: email is a good vehicle for it to happen. But
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that comes in a stuff
Speaker 1: you didn't seek out. It's the stuff expectations that are
Speaker 1: are there, but you didn't ask for them, Like you
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily actively choose to bring these into your lives.
Speaker 1: So I think you have to, you know, recognize that
Speaker 1: it may not always be the most important thing to do.
Speaker 1: I know this is very hard um to put email
Speaker 1: off when it is they're kind of looking at you like,
Speaker 1: this is undone stuff you have to get to, but
Speaker 1: it will still be there and still be undone later
Speaker 1: in the day, whereas your big projects may just not
Speaker 1: get done if you do that. So once when I
Speaker 1: was I was deep in the edits on Juliet uh
Speaker 1: and I was like, I gotta get through this. I
Speaker 1: I know I could really make progress today and I'm like,
Speaker 1: the emails are stacking up, including some from people that
Speaker 1: I would generally respond to very quickly or you know,
Speaker 1: offers of speeches. You know, I'd like to say to
Speaker 1: my client, like, yes, of course I can take that
Speaker 1: on for you. But I'm like, it will be there
Speaker 1: this afternoon. They will still love me if I respond
Speaker 1: at six pm. I can carve out eight to one
Speaker 1: or two to do this and to give my best
Speaker 1: to this project that actually is my top priority right now.
Speaker 1: And so I did, and you know, everyone still deals
Speaker 1: with me. You know, nobody's said like I will never
Speaker 1: talk with you again because you responded to my email
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours as opposed to Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: email is a classic case of you know, something that's
Speaker 1: urgent versus something that's important, right, And you actually set
Speaker 1: a line that I think he actually was in the book, right,
Speaker 1: like the email will still be there, it will still
Speaker 1: be undone. Yeah, that's all. They recognize that from one
Speaker 1: of the characters in the book. But something else that's
Speaker 1: awesome about the book as well, as you mentioned your
Speaker 1: your time log that you have on your computer in Excel,
Speaker 1: but in the back of the book you actually have
Speaker 1: some tools there for folks to actually start tracking their time.
Speaker 1: You've got some great questions there for folks to talk
Speaker 1: about it in small groups or with their friends, and
Speaker 1: so you totally dive into the more practical ways that
Speaker 1: folks can start thinking about what it is that they
Speaker 1: want to focus on. Like you mentioned the speeches like that,
Speaker 1: if you can actually think through the speeches that folks
Speaker 1: will be giving you, you know, hopefully at the towards
Speaker 1: the end of your life Horenton fifteen years to think
Speaker 1: through those things. I mean, that's essentially what you have
Speaker 1: listed out in the back. You have tools there to
Speaker 1: encourage the reader to think about what is truly important.
Speaker 1: And I find that pertains so well to money as well,
Speaker 1: because we talk about the why behind our money a lot,
Speaker 1: which is basically like, what is our driving force that
Speaker 1: is causing us to work hard and to want to
Speaker 1: earn money. It's not the love of money. It's not
Speaker 1: that we are trying to amass riches to do who
Speaker 1: knows what right. It's not that it's that there are
Speaker 1: certain specific things that I want to be able to
Speaker 1: do with this with my kids, or I would love
Speaker 1: to be able to spend this time with my spouse,
Speaker 1: not working, but instead with them. So that means say,
Speaker 1: investing that money now versus versus spending it. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that you've got some of those tools there
Speaker 1: in the back of your book. It's fantastic. We would
Speaker 1: recommend for everyone to check that out. So after the break,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk more about being efficient at work as
Speaker 1: well as being more intentional in your personal life. Are
Speaker 1: we're back with Laura vander Camp. We're talking about valuing
Speaker 1: our time and Laura, let's talk about work here for
Speaker 1: a second. Um, you mentioned tackling your toughest work in
Speaker 1: the first hours of your work day. Why do you
Speaker 1: think that's so important? Well, first, because people tend to
Speaker 1: have more energy. Then, there have been studies looking at
Speaker 1: people's reported energy levels through the day and the majority
Speaker 1: of people are most likely to be in a high
Speaker 1: energy mood around eight o'clock in the morning. It's when
Speaker 1: we've had that first cup of coffee and you feel
Speaker 1: like you can take on the world. Two pm, you
Speaker 1: do not feel like you can take on the world.
Speaker 1: That's when things start to fall apart. Uh, So you
Speaker 1: know something that could have taken you an hour at
Speaker 1: eight am is going to take you two hours at
Speaker 1: at two pm. As you keep getting distracted and getting
Speaker 1: alerts from Facebook on your phone, you're like, oh, let
Speaker 1: me go check that out, and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's like four pm and you haven't gotten through
Speaker 1: what you said you were going to do in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: So mornings we tend to have more focus most people,
Speaker 1: in some real night owls, but most people. It also
Speaker 1: it gives you a chance to do things before the
Speaker 1: day gets away from you. Because in a lot of
Speaker 1: people's jobs, stuff will come in. I mean that's the
Speaker 1: nature of it. Things will come in that you'll have
Speaker 1: to deal with, or in your personal life, things will
Speaker 1: come in that you have to deal with. Whereas if
Speaker 1: you start with whatever is most important, then you most
Speaker 1: likely will have done it by the time the emergencies arise.
Speaker 1: Or if the emergencies arise first thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: well there's time later in the day to still get
Speaker 1: to it. Whereas if you leave it till later in
Speaker 1: the day, probably that time is going to get taken
Speaker 1: away from you or you're gonna be too tired to
Speaker 1: get to it. Productivity is all about self knowledge and
Speaker 1: every time I say that bit about, you know, do
Speaker 1: your important work first thing in the morning, somebody raises
Speaker 1: their hands and I'm a night all. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're a night all. Great, that works for you. You
Speaker 1: do you and everybody else might be interested to know
Speaker 1: that most people have more energy first thing in the morning. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of stretching your days, Laura, you've discussed the importance
Speaker 1: of taking time to exercise during the work day, how
Speaker 1: do you suggest to folks to start incorporating exercise without
Speaker 1: ghosting their coworkers or being sort of like that weird
Speaker 1: sweaty person in the ddle of the day. You know,
Speaker 1: like Joel, he bikes to work every day. You show
Speaker 1: up kind of sweaty and kind of gross. Gross, but
Speaker 1: he is that weird sweaty person at he's got that.
Speaker 1: But how do you suggest the folks to work that in?
Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing to recognize is that not
Speaker 1: all exercise needs to leave you hot and sweaty, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to take an hour either. So if
Speaker 1: you would like to introduce more physical activity into your
Speaker 1: work day, the easiest thing is to just go for
Speaker 1: short walks. Most people take ten to fifteen minute breaks
Speaker 1: here and there anyway, just use that in a intentional way,
Speaker 1: go outside, get some fresh air. You can even think
Speaker 1: of it as like a smoke break without the cigarettes,
Speaker 1: Like you're going outside walking around, just don't light up,
Speaker 1: and you're all good, like you've done something healthy instead
Speaker 1: of something unhealthy. You know, if you've got a lunch break,
Speaker 1: like if it's generally understood that people in your office
Speaker 1: can can take a break, figure out if you could
Speaker 1: go out a slightly longer walk some days during that,
Speaker 1: or you know, enlist a colleague. You could even turn
Speaker 1: one on one meetings into walking meetings. That's a really
Speaker 1: great way to even have better conversations. You know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to have an intense conversation across us a conference
Speaker 1: board room with someone that you're really trying to convey
Speaker 1: that you you like them personally. You're just you know,
Speaker 1: have some difficult things to say, whereas walking around you
Speaker 1: might be able to pull that off. So I definitely
Speaker 1: recommend that. I remember that being one of Steve jobs
Speaker 1: classic things in his biography was that he would constantly
Speaker 1: go on walks with folks anytime they had some big
Speaker 1: discussions to that needed to be to be done. But
Speaker 1: you know, even if you are, you know, you could
Speaker 1: go to the gym. I mean people get very concerned
Speaker 1: about like what people think. But if your work is
Speaker 1: getting done and your manager doesn't mind, like, then who cares? Right,
Speaker 1: Just go do it and come back and you'll probably
Speaker 1: have enough energy if you go over lunch and come
Speaker 1: back at one pm to actually get through the afternoon
Speaker 1: as opposed to suffering from that two pm slump that
Speaker 1: people who have stayed at their desk and like look
Speaker 1: at me, I'm looking I'm working through lunch, I'm all productive,
Speaker 1: and then two pm it's just it's all gone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say two pm. S He was like
Speaker 1: kind of that perfect time of the day to maybe,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, just dropped down and do like twenty
Speaker 1: push ups, you know, just because that can be instead
Speaker 1: of getting that extra cup of coffee or just kind
Speaker 1: of completely zoning out in in Facebook or social media
Speaker 1: or something like that, going down uh internet rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: Doing some sort of physical activity can kind of help
Speaker 1: elevate you to take on those last couple hours of
Speaker 1: work that you need to get done that day. Right, Yeah, definitely, Um,
Speaker 1: exercise I always say makes time like it doesn't take time.
Speaker 1: It makes time because your energy levels will go up
Speaker 1: high enough that you can actually get stuff done. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you're telling yourself, you know, I don't need breaks,
Speaker 1: I'm not the kind of person who needs breaks, Well
Speaker 1: you do, but your brain will take a fake one.
Speaker 1: It just won't be very productive. And that's what that's
Speaker 1: what happens when people lose, you know, thirty minutes into Twitter.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's talk about meetings because meetings are
Speaker 1: one of these things that everyone's got a thought about them,
Speaker 1: and most of us think that we're in too many meetings.
Speaker 1: They seem to kind of take over a traditional work
Speaker 1: day and sometimes, just just like email, meetings can be
Speaker 1: that time suck where we feel like we haven't actually
Speaker 1: been able to attend to the actual things that we
Speaker 1: need to do in our daily job. So you specifically
Speaker 1: talked recently in a podcast episode about not wasting time
Speaker 1: meetings and how we use those tools poorly. So how
Speaker 1: can we make meetings more effective in our work day?
Speaker 1: And especially like let's say we're an employee and our
Speaker 1: boss is the one who's making us attend these meetings
Speaker 1: that kind of stink, like is there any way that
Speaker 1: we can gently nudge to kind of shake things up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's all sorts of things you can do.
Speaker 1: One is that sometimes your boss just isn't aware of
Speaker 1: how many meetings you're in. This can happen all the time.
Speaker 1: Everyone's in their own little world. Like very rarely are
Speaker 1: people like trying to make life miserable for other people.
Speaker 1: It tends to be more that they just haven't noticed.
Speaker 1: So it might help to say, well, look, you know,
Speaker 1: I am booked into twenty five hours a week of
Speaker 1: meetings that are recurring. Like they don't even have to
Speaker 1: earn their place on my calendar. They just keep showing
Speaker 1: up there and and is this what you would like
Speaker 1: me to be spending my time doing. Could we go
Speaker 1: through this list and see, you know, could any of
Speaker 1: these be less frequent, Could they involve fewer people? Could
Speaker 1: they not happen? I don't know. Like these are all
Speaker 1: ideas that that are worth looking at. If if you
Speaker 1: are going to have a meeting, the key thing to
Speaker 1: recognize is that something should change in the world as
Speaker 1: a result of this meeting taking place, and that meeting
Speaker 1: should require the participation of everyone who is there for
Speaker 1: every minute that they are there, and that they are
Speaker 1: all there to change the thing in the world, like
Speaker 1: they are necessary for this thing that needs to change,
Speaker 1: and if it can't meet that standard, it probably doesn't
Speaker 1: have to happen or be that long or involve that
Speaker 1: many people. You know, people invite folks to meetings because
Speaker 1: it seems nice. It's like, you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get over the traumas of the middle school cafeteria, and
Speaker 1: so I'll just invite everyone to come to my meeting.
Speaker 1: But that's that's not actually helpful um or you know,
Speaker 1: trying to keep your boss in the loop. And the
Speaker 1: person doesn't have anything they're doing at the time, so
Speaker 1: they come and everyone's happy because they're there, but it's
Speaker 1: still that wasn't quite what we needed, you know, in
Speaker 1: order for this thing to happen. So just be very
Speaker 1: careful that every minute of the meeting is accounted for
Speaker 1: and that everyone who's there needs to be there. Let's
Speaker 1: shift you is how to being intentional in our personal lives?
Speaker 1: How can we do a better job when it comes
Speaker 1: to our family and our personal time goals? Do you
Speaker 1: have some specific strategies that you would recommend to folks. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the word you just use their intentional is
Speaker 1: the most important one, because a lot of people aren't
Speaker 1: intentional about their family or leisure time. And it's the
Speaker 1: rare person who would show up at work at you know,
Speaker 1: eight in the morning and have no idea what they
Speaker 1: were gonna do with the entire day like that. They
Speaker 1: hadn't thought through it. Just something will happen. It'll will
Speaker 1: eventually be at five o'clock and I'll leave like that.
Speaker 1: That's not how people usually approach work, But people approach
Speaker 1: their home life like that all the time and be like, well,
Speaker 1: I get home at five thirty and I guess I'll
Speaker 1: go to bed at eleven thirty. Something will happen in there.
Speaker 1: I don't know, It's six hours and it's just not
Speaker 1: mindful at all. And again I'm not saying you have
Speaker 1: to plan every you know, in fifteen minute chunks, like
Speaker 1: your work there, or send outlook invites for dinner or
Speaker 1: anything ridiculous like that, but you might want to at
Speaker 1: least put some intention into it, Like wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: fun if the kids and I read this book tonight
Speaker 1: that I love from my childhood, and maybe they will
Speaker 1: like to that's something that's an intention, Or let's go
Speaker 1: for a walk after dinner as a family, or it
Speaker 1: looks like it's light a little bit later, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we could hit the playground before dinner. And you know,
Speaker 1: if we had a snack what I got home, like,
Speaker 1: we could do that and have a slightly later dinner
Speaker 1: or something. But you're thinking it through vastly increases the
Speaker 1: chances that this time has spent. Well, that's great, And
Speaker 1: and do you have any thoughts then as far as
Speaker 1: like overall planning, right, so we're talking about the daily
Speaker 1: sort of particulars. I love how what just what you said,
Speaker 1: even just then, how there are you know, there's six
Speaker 1: hours between getting home from work and when you go
Speaker 1: to bed perhaps and even you just saying that made
Speaker 1: me think, holy crap, six hours, Like there are six
Speaker 1: hours like that I'm potentially burning. From a sort of
Speaker 1: macro level, from like a big picture, how would you
Speaker 1: recommend the folks to think through what they want to
Speaker 1: want their weeks and what their months and year to
Speaker 1: look like? Well, the year, um one exercise I have
Speaker 1: people do, both professionally and personally sort of think at
Speaker 1: the end of the year to the end of the
Speaker 1: upcoming year, what would you like to say you have done?
Speaker 1: Like so, on the professional front, you can picture yourself
Speaker 1: giving a professional performance review to yourself and if it
Speaker 1: was like a stunning review at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: like she did, X, Y, and Z, Well, what are
Speaker 1: those things like? What are the things that would make
Speaker 1: it an amazing year? Well, now you know what your
Speaker 1: top professional priorities for the next six months are. And
Speaker 1: same thing with your personal life too. You could picture
Speaker 1: yourself at a holiday party and you're telling friends and
Speaker 1: family you know what you did in your personal life
Speaker 1: over the course of the year. Well, what would those
Speaker 1: things be like if it was going to be an
Speaker 1: awesome year for your family, Like, what would you have done?
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know your you ran a ten
Speaker 1: k with your spouse and you took an extended family
Speaker 1: trip to Ireland or you you know, just things like this.
Speaker 1: But if you think about these things, then you can start,
Speaker 1: you know, making them happen. If you have no idea
Speaker 1: what they are, good stuff can still come to you,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not saying it won't, and we should definitely
Speaker 1: leave space open for opportunity. But many things that are
Speaker 1: great require some intention and planning of time as for
Speaker 1: the weekly, because you asked, you know the year, and
Speaker 1: then you also asked the week. I planned my weeks
Speaker 1: on Friday afternoons. And this was a really early episode
Speaker 1: of Before Breakfast that I did that I said, planned
Speaker 1: your week on Friday afternoon. And I think this is
Speaker 1: the one that the most people have written into me
Speaker 1: about being like, oh my goodness, that was life changing.
Speaker 1: Because when you take some time on Friday afternoon to
Speaker 1: think about the upcoming week, you can say, well, what's
Speaker 1: important to me? What are my priorities? When can those happen?
Speaker 1: When can I put those on the schedule. Well, now
Speaker 1: suddenly you have time on the schedule for things you
Speaker 1: have said that are important to you. How interesting. You
Speaker 1: can also take some time to figure out what is
Speaker 1: already on your calendar for the upcoming week, and you
Speaker 1: can ask yourself, well, are these things that should be
Speaker 1: on my calendar for the upcoming week? Or should I
Speaker 1: get rid of some of them? Or I can I
Speaker 1: minimize some of them? Or can somebody else handle some
Speaker 1: of them? And by doing those two things, putting in
Speaker 1: space for the stuff that does matter to you, getting
Speaker 1: rid of stuff that's wound up on your calendar that
Speaker 1: is not important to you. You just vastly increase the
Speaker 1: chances that you have a great week where you make
Speaker 1: progress on your priorities. And then you do it again
Speaker 1: the next Friday, and then again you make progress on
Speaker 1: your priorities, and and this this overtime creates a great
Speaker 1: life quick follow up then right. A lot of times
Speaker 1: when folks hear that, they think, oh, man, she's scheduling
Speaker 1: out her entire next week. It sounds really rigid, And
Speaker 1: life happens. Right, You've got four kids, there's pulls on
Speaker 1: us from work, there's pulls on us from our personal lives.
Speaker 1: And these are things that we want to do. It's
Speaker 1: not like these are things that we're going to put
Speaker 1: the kabash on and say no, we're not going to
Speaker 1: do this. How do you maintain that structure but at
Speaker 1: the same time leave a good bit of flexibility there
Speaker 1: to be able to work those things into your schedule
Speaker 1: while at the same time feeling like that you're still
Speaker 1: being productive and sticking to the schedule. Does that make sense? Yes,
Speaker 1: it definitely does. And I do not schedule every minute
Speaker 1: like I don't put things into every minute of my life,
Speaker 1: and I would say that it's it's a false choice
Speaker 1: to think that you're even planning every minute or planning nothing.
Speaker 1: There is such a huge space between planning every second
Speaker 1: planning nothing at all. Neither one probably serves us very well.
Speaker 1: You want to be somewhere in the middle with a
Speaker 1: bit of time that you know you intend to devote
Speaker 1: to these important things, and then also plenty of open
Speaker 1: space for the stuff comes up. I like to say
Speaker 1: I plan because life doesn't go according to plan. This
Speaker 1: was very apparent to me a certain week at the
Speaker 1: end of October where one of the most random things happened,
Speaker 1: where one of my kids wound up with like multiple
Speaker 1: er visits. Not fun at all. Um, he's fine, but
Speaker 1: you know it was. It was something that had to
Speaker 1: be dealt with. But I still felt at the end
Speaker 1: of the week like I had a really good week,
Speaker 1: and that's because I had identified the Friday before, like,
Speaker 1: these are the three things that absolutely have to happen,
Speaker 1: And so when my life flew completely out of order
Speaker 1: because of this stuff, I knew that these are the
Speaker 1: three things I was going to do. Everything else could go,
Speaker 1: but those three things were still going to happen, and
Speaker 1: I did, Like, in a hundred sixty hours, you can
Speaker 1: probably get to three things, right. But you know, if
Speaker 1: I had had some if I had just had some
Speaker 1: nebulous idea of oh there's stuff I should do, you know,
Speaker 1: and but there's just like a hundred things I should do,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have gotten to it, and then I would
Speaker 1: have felt terrible at the end of the week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's those are great thoughts. So all right, you've mentioned
Speaker 1: you mentioned your kid going to the are and you
Speaker 1: have four kids, so you have a busy family life.
Speaker 1: And you know, Matt's wife is pregnant with with their
Speaker 1: fourth child. My wife is pregnant with our third child.
Speaker 1: So we're totally with you on this. Oh yeah, we're there.
Speaker 1: Her family life becomes obviously like the most fun part
Speaker 1: of our lives. But then at the same time, there's
Speaker 1: just a lot that's required inside of that. So how
Speaker 1: do you make wise choices with your time, especially when
Speaker 1: you have a large family, And what does that look
Speaker 1: like to be intentional on the day to day when
Speaker 1: it comes to how you incorporate family time into that
Speaker 1: like hundred sixty eight hours of your week. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I do the bulk of my work while
Speaker 1: my kids are at school. Um, so then I'm pretty
Speaker 1: much around most of the other time. So so right there,
Speaker 1: there's just a sheer quantity of hours um that, as
Speaker 1: you know, with multiple children, you do wind up spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time with them. There's some of the
Speaker 1: people have this bit of this false notion that if
Speaker 1: if you have a job, you don't see your family.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, hundred sixty eight hours a week,
Speaker 1: you work forty, Like, there's a lot of other time
Speaker 1: if you subtract forty from eight, so you're you're still
Speaker 1: gonna wind up seeing a fair amount of them. But
Speaker 1: you know, in any given moment. One of the phrases
Speaker 1: that comes up a lot in in Juliette's School of
Speaker 1: Possibilities is this idea that expectations are infinite. Time is finite.
Speaker 1: You are always choosing choose well, And so I try
Speaker 1: to check in with myself and ask, am I choosing
Speaker 1: well right now? And so if I'm having a good
Speaker 1: conversation with one of my kids at the breakfast table
Speaker 1: and be like, well, maybe a good choice would just
Speaker 1: be to sit here, like just keep sitting and probably
Speaker 1: whatever I was gonna do in five minutes, like I
Speaker 1: can do inten, you know, and it will be okay
Speaker 1: that that's a good choice in the moment. Of course,
Speaker 1: if I'm on a huge deadline for something, it's it's
Speaker 1: okay to tell the kid. You know, by the way,
Speaker 1: you can figure out your own homework right now. I
Speaker 1: already did sixth grade. This is not my problem. Like
Speaker 1: you know, if you're truly stumped, come back in an
Speaker 1: hour or but don't talk to me before then. And
Speaker 1: you know, I do try to, especially with a larger family,
Speaker 1: and you guys will appreciate this as your your families
Speaker 1: are growing too, But attempting to spend some one on
Speaker 1: one time with each family member goes a long way.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be daily. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to necessarily even happen every week, because once you have
Speaker 1: four kids, you wind up batching them to gather for
Speaker 1: all sorts of activities. But I do one on one
Speaker 1: days with each of my kids each year, like in
Speaker 1: the summer, uh, and I try to do something special
Speaker 1: with them for their birthdays. So that's like eight events
Speaker 1: a year, which doesn't you know, a ton. It does
Speaker 1: take some time, but It doesn't take a ton of
Speaker 1: time necessarily, but those tend to be things that the
Speaker 1: kids form really good memories of, and I think that
Speaker 1: those would be some of the things that the kids
Speaker 1: would mention of, like, you know, what did you do
Speaker 1: this year? Oh? Well, I went to an Eagles game
Speaker 1: with mommy, or we went to the American Girl Cafe
Speaker 1: in New York with mommy, or various whatever else I've done.
Speaker 1: I've played paintball or whatever else I've had to do
Speaker 1: the kid wants to do. So Yes, it is amazing
Speaker 1: how meaningful those one on one times are. And you know,
Speaker 1: my girls right now are five and three, and even
Speaker 1: if it's just like going to the waffle house for
Speaker 1: breakfast just the two of us, or just an after
Speaker 1: dinner walk just the two of us, Um, it's really
Speaker 1: fun to go do those things as a whole family.
Speaker 1: But you're completely right. I think that setting aside one
Speaker 1: on one time for your spouse and then also for
Speaker 1: your kids is I mean, it's just instrumental to building
Speaker 1: the foundation of an important relationship. I want to mention
Speaker 1: a listener of ours, Andy, I was talking to him
Speaker 1: the other day and he mentioned how once his kids
Speaker 1: he actually has four kids as well, and once they
Speaker 1: hit four years old, he comes back to visit his parents,
Speaker 1: just him and that child, just to have this this
Speaker 1: long extended trip quality time with the grandparents but as
Speaker 1: well as with him as a father, and they do
Speaker 1: fun stuff around the city, go to the zoo, you know,
Speaker 1: different things like that. But that really stood up to
Speaker 1: me because you know, what he said was that this
Speaker 1: is before they start kindergarten, so they're not necessarily locked
Speaker 1: into the school calendar. Yet I have that flexibility. Why
Speaker 1: not take this time to deep in that relationship with them?
Speaker 1: And Laura, I completely agree with you. I mean when
Speaker 1: they look back at the year, those will be the
Speaker 1: sort of key stand days or moments whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you happen to be doing. And so to hear
Speaker 1: examples of that, I don't know, that's really inspiring and
Speaker 1: encouraging to me. And a good thing to spend money on.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't have to be expensive, but if
Speaker 1: you are going to spend something money on something that
Speaker 1: might be a good thing. Waffle House very inexpensive. Right
Speaker 1: do you have waff houses up in Philadelphia? I think
Speaker 1: we do. Um, you know, I love taking kids out
Speaker 1: for breakfast too. It's it's a good think. You think,
Speaker 1: maybe I just don't go out for breakfast. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: so okay, I'm curious to get your thoughts on morning
Speaker 1: routines and even more, and we'll get to that right
Speaker 1: after the break al Right, we were just talking about
Speaker 1: waffle house. Let's talk about morning routines, Laura, how can
Speaker 1: we make our mornings a little less crazy and more
Speaker 1: of a health you foundation for everyone to start their days.
Speaker 1: What are some pieces of your morning routine that keep
Speaker 1: things peaceful and on track? Yeah, I mean, the key
Speaker 1: thing to realize with the morning routine is it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be an hour long meditation session and then
Speaker 1: an hour long boot camp and then drinking some ridiculous
Speaker 1: green drink um that seems terrible. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of breakfast food. In terms of real breakfast food. You
Speaker 1: want to ask, well, what would make you actually excited
Speaker 1: to get out of bed? A good morning routine should
Speaker 1: give you an extra reason to get up, and you
Speaker 1: don't have to wake up at four am. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's just about getting up a few
Speaker 1: minutes before you absolutely have to and using that time intentionally.
Speaker 1: You could meditate of course, or pray or whatever else
Speaker 1: you do. Um, you could write in a journal, Um,
Speaker 1: you could do some sort of exercise. That's a great
Speaker 1: way to spend your mornings. Or it could be you know,
Speaker 1: focused family time, Like we're going to have a relaxed
Speaker 1: family breakfast instead of everyone running around the kitchen all crazed,
Speaker 1: you know, sit down and eat together and then go
Speaker 1: about your day. And you know, particularly for families where
Speaker 1: family dinner may not happen as often as you wish,
Speaker 1: family breakfast could be a good substitute. So for me
Speaker 1: a usual weekday morning, UM, I tend to wake up
Speaker 1: about sixty five and get myself ready, start making breakfast,
Speaker 1: and get my middle schooler up about seven fifteen, eat
Speaker 1: with him, eat with my husband if he's home. UM,
Speaker 1: and our youngest, the four year old, we sort of
Speaker 1: have our first shift, and then UM, as he's getting ready,
Speaker 1: the other two children start coming down. The nine year
Speaker 1: old and the seven year old come down sort of
Speaker 1: the second shift of breakfast. But I'm pretty much in
Speaker 1: breakfast mode from like seven am to eight am. I
Speaker 1: and I thought at some point like that's a ridiculous
Speaker 1: amount of time to spend on breakfast, but it's time
Speaker 1: I have, so I am they're doing family breakfast stuff
Speaker 1: from seven to eight are nanny comes at eight. I
Speaker 1: tend to spend eight to if I'm not doing the
Speaker 1: middle school carpoal that's when I do a little bit
Speaker 1: of strength training. I've gotten in this habit of doing
Speaker 1: some kettlebell and resistance band stuffs. And then I then I,
Speaker 1: you know, glance at email or anything that's really small
Speaker 1: admin stuff. Then get the nine year old and seven
Speaker 1: year old out to the bus. Come in thirty five
Speaker 1: to nine is my free writing time, Like I just
Speaker 1: do writing that isn't going to be published, but I'm
Speaker 1: just trying stuff out seeing you know, writing practice, and
Speaker 1: then nine o'clock start my work day. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about managing distractions. I feel like there's so
Speaker 1: much that can distract us in our society today. It's
Speaker 1: really easy to get sucked away from the task at hand,
Speaker 1: and and in particular, our phones have become kind of
Speaker 1: that main culprit for us that just draws our attention
Speaker 1: away ever so slightly in some cases and then just
Speaker 1: way more than slightly in other in other cases. So
Speaker 1: what impact do you feel like phones are having on
Speaker 1: our productivity at work, and then also kind of how
Speaker 1: we're able to have relationships with other people and how
Speaker 1: can we use our phones as tools as opposed to
Speaker 1: letting them use us. Well, that's just it. They are tools,
Speaker 1: and they're very useful tools. I've been obsessed lately with
Speaker 1: this app that I can point my camera at a
Speaker 1: plant and it tells me what it is like. That's
Speaker 1: kind of fun for when you're out on a hike,
Speaker 1: like you see like this is well, this is poison IVY,
Speaker 1: don't touch it. That's a helpful thing to see. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, this is the name seek s e K.
Speaker 1: Pointed at any plant and it tells you and then
Speaker 1: you look like you know something about botany and that
Speaker 1: can be exciting for some of us. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the key is to use it as a tool
Speaker 1: as opposed to being the thing that is running your life.
Speaker 1: You can turn it off, you can not use it
Speaker 1: at various points, and if you're doing something that you
Speaker 1: would like to focus on, making a point of not
Speaker 1: looking at it is great. And I tend to leave
Speaker 1: it in my bag if I'm having, you know, lunch
Speaker 1: with someone for instance, I'd never put it somewhere that
Speaker 1: I would actually see it, because I figured, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the lunch, I can look at it.
Speaker 1: But you know, if I've chosen to spend this time
Speaker 1: with this person, pretty much nothing coming in on the
Speaker 1: phone is going to be more important than that. You know,
Speaker 1: people have always felt they're busy. Sometimes people ask me
Speaker 1: this question of like, oh, well, because of phones, or
Speaker 1: we are now busier than ever before, Like, no, we're not.
Speaker 1: People have always thought they were busy. People have always
Speaker 1: thought they're busier than any other time in the human history.
Speaker 1: We're still people. We still get distracted by things. People
Speaker 1: got distracted by things when all that was coming in
Speaker 1: was like the facts machine, and they probably got distracted
Speaker 1: by their facts. Is that they get distracted by colleagues,
Speaker 1: They get distracted by whatever else memos that we're coming out.
Speaker 1: Like I just uh, this great quote from Eleanor Roosevelt
Speaker 1: of all people, I just read her book You You
Speaker 1: Learned By Living. She she wrote an advice column for
Speaker 1: years and but this is her self help book. And
Speaker 1: she talks about how the mail follows her around, and
Speaker 1: she'll travel and the mail will follow her around and
Speaker 1: she gets back to her desk and she has to
Speaker 1: work long hours on several days to answer all the mail.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you could put email in here and
Speaker 1: it would be the exact same thing, right, Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: people forget that all right. So, uh, In particular, when
Speaker 1: we're talking about phones, I feel like there are all
Speaker 1: these little small sections of time that we have throughout
Speaker 1: the day, and we used to spend them on a
Speaker 1: board maybe, uh, And now that's just not something we
Speaker 1: have to deal with. We we never have to be
Speaker 1: bored because we have our phones in front of us.
Speaker 1: But you've talked about kind of taking back those smaller
Speaker 1: sections of your day and trying to use them in
Speaker 1: a purposeful manner. So how would you suggest people instead
Speaker 1: of pulling out their phones when they have a spare
Speaker 1: five minutes, how can they use those small pockets of
Speaker 1: time effectively in Well, well, you could do other stuff
Speaker 1: that's on your phone. I put the Kindle app on
Speaker 1: my phone a couple of years ago, and so I
Speaker 1: can start reading the books in these short bits of time.
Speaker 1: And you can get through a lot of literature in
Speaker 1: these five minute chunks that you would have been scrolling
Speaker 1: around in social media. And it actually adds up pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Of course, you don't need to be on your phone.
Speaker 1: I mean you can use the time to journal, or
Speaker 1: write a thank you note, or um, go talk to
Speaker 1: a colleague, or sit in daydream and look at the
Speaker 1: sky stare at the clouds. It's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell yourself you have no time when
Speaker 1: you can sit there and stare at the clouds. But
Speaker 1: people will then tell themselves they have no time when
Speaker 1: they spend the exact same quantity of time on their
Speaker 1: phones looking at Instagram. I mean, they still have time.
Speaker 1: It's just being on your phone doesn't feel relaxing, and
Speaker 1: so it tends not to register as lee your time,
Speaker 1: and so then it's gone as if you didn't have
Speaker 1: it at all. All right, So I've gotten one final
Speaker 1: question for you, Laura. You gave this really awesome Ted
Speaker 1: talk back in and one of the things you talked
Speaker 1: about in there was this example of a broken water heater.
Speaker 1: And if any of us had a broken water heater
Speaker 1: at our house where where water was pouring over the
Speaker 1: top or something, and and and it was you know,
Speaker 1: rushing out into our kitchen, living room, whatever, it would
Speaker 1: literally be the only thing we could focus on, because
Speaker 1: I mean, what else can you think about when something
Speaker 1: of that magnitude is happening at your house? And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: fill us in on what it looks like to kind
Speaker 1: of prioritize certain things in the way that you would
Speaker 1: prioritize a broken water heater in your house. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this lady had checked her time for me, and in
Speaker 1: the course of her week of tracking, this water heater broke,
Speaker 1: and so she had to spend a ton of time
Speaker 1: dealing with it, you know, with the flood in her
Speaker 1: basement and the plumbers and all this stuff. And it
Speaker 1: was it was like seven hours of her week devoted
Speaker 1: to the seven hours. And and so you know, we said, well,
Speaker 1: at the start of the week, when you said, let's
Speaker 1: find seven hours for something else, right, let's find seven
Speaker 1: hours to train for a triathlon. Let's find seven hours
Speaker 1: to you know, read a quarter of the way through
Speaker 1: war and peace or something like that, she wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been able to find the time. So I don't have
Speaker 1: seven hours, right, But when she had to find seven
Speaker 1: hours because there's water all over her basement, she found
Speaker 1: seven hours. And so I think it's important to view
Speaker 1: time this way, like if you if something is important
Speaker 1: enough to you, you will find a way to make
Speaker 1: the time for it. Something else will go. Well, what
Speaker 1: is that something else? Because maybe you could make it
Speaker 1: go even if there isn't water all over your basement, right,
Speaker 1: And I really do think we can try to treat
Speaker 1: our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater
Speaker 1: and get to them with that sort of urgency, that
Speaker 1: sense of I have to do this now. Practically, what
Speaker 1: that means for most people is doing it first thing
Speaker 1: in the morning, because that's the time when we can
Speaker 1: do it before everything else gets away from you. That's great, Laura.
Speaker 1: You know what we kind of keep coming back to,
Speaker 1: and you said this as well as intentionality, um, and
Speaker 1: how every minute we spend is our choice in the
Speaker 1: same way that every dollar we spend is our choice. Right,
Speaker 1: Like when it comes to our money, a lot of
Speaker 1: times we say, well we I just don't have money
Speaker 1: for that, or you say, oh, well that's just not
Speaker 1: in the budget. Well it can be in the budget
Speaker 1: if you actually want it to be in the budget. Right.
Speaker 1: It's it's a matter of if it's a priority for
Speaker 1: you or not. And in Juliet's School of Possibilities. There's
Speaker 1: a quote in there a character says that if you
Speaker 1: say that I don't have time, what that really means
Speaker 1: is that it's not a priority, right, and that we
Speaker 1: always have time for what matters to us. And so
Speaker 1: what other ways that if we find ourselves saying that
Speaker 1: we don't have time, like, what should that remind us
Speaker 1: to do? Well? I think it might help. This is
Speaker 1: sort of a see if you can find one hour,
Speaker 1: like over the course of the next week, if there's
Speaker 1: something you've identified that you say, just I don't have
Speaker 1: time for this, could you find one hour over the
Speaker 1: next week? And it doesn't even have to be one
Speaker 1: consecutive hour, and it could be like ten minutes on
Speaker 1: six days, right or fifteen minutes on four days, But
Speaker 1: could you find an hour for this? Now? I think
Speaker 1: probably you could. If you track your time, you'll probably
Speaker 1: see well over an hour devoted to at least something
Speaker 1: that you don't care about. So let's try to do
Speaker 1: one hour, and at the end of the week if
Speaker 1: you've done it, great, celebrate. If you haven't asked yourself,
Speaker 1: why not, like what happened that you couldn't devote one
Speaker 1: hour to this thing and see what you can do
Speaker 1: to address that. But yeah, I mean, it really is
Speaker 1: a matter of what is a priority to you and
Speaker 1: if you're not making time for something in your life,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's not a priority, and that's okay, Like
Speaker 1: we can acknowledge that, we can say it is not
Speaker 1: a priority for me to do this. And it's the
Speaker 1: same thing with money. I mean, you know, there's various
Speaker 1: things that the world will tell us we have to
Speaker 1: spend money on. Whether it's having you know, two cars
Speaker 1: and a family or not. That's maybe that's something that
Speaker 1: a family doesn't need, they don't care about it. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's that you live in a smaller house and use
Speaker 1: your money to travel. There's various choices you can make
Speaker 1: if you wish to. They may not be the normal choices,
Speaker 1: but that's okay. We're all about not normal choices, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. This has been a really really fun conversation. Laura.
Speaker 1: We are huge fans of your book and your new
Speaker 1: podcast Before Breakfast, and can you tell our listeners where
Speaker 1: else they can find more out about you? Yeah, if
Speaker 1: they want to come visit my website, Laura Vanderkam dot com.
Speaker 1: I blogged. There are usually four times a week and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about my my podcasts and books.
Speaker 1: They're awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on the show today. It was a lot of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we hope we didn't uh kind of throw out
Speaker 1: your voice a little bit. We know you're seeing tonight,
Speaker 1: So thanks for talking to us here. It'll be good.
Speaker 1: As long as I didn't have the beer too, I
Speaker 1: should be good with just speaking. Yes, awesome, Well, thanks
Speaker 1: so much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me, all right, Matt.
Speaker 1: I love that conversation. I love kind of Laura's philosophy,
Speaker 1: and I love how time and money. You know, really,
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, we should be thinking
Speaker 1: about both similarly. I thought that was that's kind of
Speaker 1: my takeaway from this episode. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning, right, how we know that
Speaker 1: time is not money. Time is not intrinsically linked to money.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have time in order to make money.
Speaker 1: But like you said, uh, they're really similar. And the
Speaker 1: way we treat our time the way we we treat
Speaker 1: our money are very similar. And it comes down a
Speaker 1: lot to you know, what our priorities are what we're
Speaker 1: actually gonna do with what we have, and just having
Speaker 1: a plan and kind of moving forward with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm so stoked that we were able to talk
Speaker 1: to Laura. She's total pro by the way, super awesome.
Speaker 1: So glad she was able to join us. Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the beer real quick.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, we drank a beer called Infinity
Speaker 1: Bloom by New Grass Brewing Company. Matt, your mother in
Speaker 1: law kindly for us. Unlike last time they left a
Speaker 1: beer in our fridge and you and I drank it
Speaker 1: for an episode. You remember that one was more of
Speaker 1: a skull and beer than a donation. Yeah, I sort
Speaker 1: of donated by default. Yeah, this one was fantastic. It
Speaker 1: was a double dry Hopps I p a as a
Speaker 1: pretty little purple flower here on the can art. What
Speaker 1: were thoughts, man? Yeah? Man, honestly, I feel like the
Speaker 1: pretty little purple flower kind of encompasses what the sper
Speaker 1: tasted like. Yeah, yeah, this is gonna sound kind of weird,
Speaker 1: but it was soft and luscious. Is is the old
Speaker 1: is the two words I kind of came up with
Speaker 1: to describe this beer. It was like super hoppy, but
Speaker 1: it didn't have that massive hot bite. It just was
Speaker 1: reserved in it's in a way, but it's still had
Speaker 1: like this really full flavor even though it had that
Speaker 1: kind of soft mouth field. It was I thought it
Speaker 1: was delicious. Yeah, a lot of floral notes and softness
Speaker 1: in between you and the hops. Right, Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: thinking drinking this beer. It's sort of like riding around
Speaker 1: in a Cadillac. It's just really lush, really cush, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like a buick Er and Cadillac.
Speaker 1: I don't know either one, but just just a really
Speaker 1: comfy car where it doesn't where it feels like you're
Speaker 1: kind of just floating on a cloud. Yeah. Okay, now
Speaker 1: that's a good way to say it. So thanks to
Speaker 1: Mono and Pop that's what my kiddos called them for
Speaker 1: donating this beer and picking this one up for us
Speaker 1: for this episode. And if you want links to Laura's
Speaker 1: website in the books and some of the things that
Speaker 1: she's up to, go check out the show notes for
Speaker 1: this episode on our website how to money dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you found this episode helpful and enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: we would love for you to leave a review. Over
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. And if you feel that Joe and
Speaker 1: I have room for improvement, we also want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Uh. You can leave your message over at
Speaker 1: our website again at how to money dot com slash
Speaker 1: do Better. So, Joel, that's gonna be it for this episode, man.
Speaker 1: Until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,