Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to figure out how much time you actually
Speaker 1: have available for work beyond your routine tasks. This will
Speaker 1: help you get a more realistic sense of what can
Speaker 1: fit into your days and weeks. Today's tip, like another
Speaker 1: this week, comes from my interview with productivity expert Charlie Gilkey.
Speaker 1: When I interviewed Charlie for this podcast a few months ago,
Speaker 1: he recommended that people put just a few items on
Speaker 1: their to do lists each day. Now you have heard
Speaker 1: me say that too, but I liked his explanation, which
Speaker 1: I think will be helpful for people trying to figure
Speaker 1: out why this is whyse Gilkey noted that many people
Speaker 1: spend around sixty five percent of their work days on
Speaker 1: routine tasks. That means only thirty five percent of the
Speaker 1: day is available for the sorts of tasks that aren't routine,
Speaker 1: which are the kinds of tasks that tend to make
Speaker 1: it onto to do lists. This math is pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: If you work an eight hour day with a thirty
Speaker 1: minute lunch, then theoretically you have seven and a half
Speaker 1: hours to allocate to things. But if about five hours
Speaker 1: of your seven and a half hours will be spent
Speaker 1: on routine matters, this means that on any given day
Speaker 1: you have only two and a half hours for extra tasks.
Speaker 1: So if you create a to do list that assumes
Speaker 1: seven and a half hours of availability, well it will
Speaker 1: take you three days to get through one day's list.
Speaker 1: No wonder people feel behind. Not only do people tend
Speaker 1: to discount the amount of time they spend on routine tasks,
Speaker 1: I would add that people tend to overestimate the total
Speaker 1: number of hours they spend at work. You may think
Speaker 1: you have a fifty hour work week to play around with,
Speaker 1: but if you are in fact working more like thirty
Speaker 1: eight hours routinely, and that is a pretty accurate haircut
Speaker 1: for my research into people's schedules, then there is another
Speaker 1: reason that there is just less space available for extra
Speaker 1: stuff than you think. So with this in mind, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to do a few things first. Figure
Speaker 1: out how much time it takes you to accomplish the
Speaker 1: routine tasks of your workday. These could be things like email,
Speaker 1: interacting with colleagues, responding to standard customer requests, planning, your
Speaker 1: next day keeping records are doing billing updating people at
Speaker 1: standard frequencies. You could put repeating meetings in here too.
Speaker 1: If you have five to six hours of these tasks
Speaker 1: each day, then you really do not have a lot
Speaker 1: of time for anything new you might put on your list.
Speaker 1: When you know this, you can then choose to be strategic.
Speaker 1: Agreeing to take on a new project that will take
Speaker 1: six hours is fine if you think you can do
Speaker 1: it in a day. When you understand that this is
Speaker 1: probably going to consume all your discretionary time for at
Speaker 1: least three days and maybe more, well, you probably want
Speaker 1: to think about how worthwhile it is, or you need
Speaker 1: to rework the timelines of other projects to account for it.
Speaker 1: When you know how much time is required for routine
Speaker 1: tasks and how much time is available for other things,
Speaker 1: you will be better able to plan your days and weeks.
Speaker 1: You will make more reasonable to do lists, and you
Speaker 1: will be more likely to actually make it through them.
Speaker 1: That can be a source of incredible satisfaction in the meantime.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to before breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback. You can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.