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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is to remember that almost every activity or project

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Speaker 1: involves a little bit of planning or administrative time. There's

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Speaker 1: really nothing wrong with that, but it is important to

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Speaker 1: recognize this tax on your time so you can organize

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Speaker 1: your life efficiently. This episode is first airing on April fifteenth,

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Speaker 1: which has historically been Tax Day in the United States,

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Speaker 1: the day when people's tax returns from the previous year

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Speaker 1: are due. I know a great many people file earlier

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Speaker 1: if they are expecting a refund, A great many other

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Speaker 1: folks file a six month extension, but April fifteenth is

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Speaker 1: at least the day people are most likely to think

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Speaker 1: about paying taxes. I think a lot of us can

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Speaker 1: hold two thoughts in mind simultaneously. First, that taxes are

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Speaker 1: necessary to pay for an orderly society with schools and

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Speaker 1: roads and emergency responders. That's all good. Second, we don't

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Speaker 1: want to pay more than we need to, so we

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Speaker 1: take advantage of things like tax advantage retirement accounts, and

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Speaker 1: it turns out that we pay a tax of sorts

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Speaker 1: with our time too. Any project you undertake is going

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Speaker 1: to have some planning or administrative component. If you take

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Speaker 1: a vacation, someone needs to plan it and purchase tickets

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Speaker 1: and find a dog sitter and things like that. Even

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Speaker 1: if you outsource a lot of the logistics by hiring

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Speaker 1: a travel agent, you'll want to talk to that person

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Speaker 1: about what you like and your budget and things like that.

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Speaker 1: Plus you have to find that person. Every work project

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Speaker 1: involves at least a few meetings or filing reports or

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Speaker 1: making presentations. Again, there's nothing wrong with this. Tax taxes

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Speaker 1: are necessary, But once you acknowledge that every project has

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Speaker 1: a tax of sorts and that your time is absolutely limited,

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Speaker 1: then you start to see that there are more or

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Speaker 1: less efficient ways to organize life. If you have a

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Speaker 1: great many projects going at once, you will be paying

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Speaker 1: that administrative tax on all of them, and it can

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Speaker 1: start to feel like paying taxes is all you are doing.

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Speaker 1: Limit the number of projects you have going on and

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Speaker 1: any given time, on the other hand, and you can

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Speaker 1: limit the administrative time as an overall proportion of your hours. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, let's just say you've got five going at

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Speaker 1: work that you are flitting back and forth between every

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Speaker 1: one of those projects requires two hours of administrative time

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Speaker 1: per week, so that is ten hours per week of

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Speaker 1: this time tax. If you've got three projects going, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, then that is only six hours of tax,

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Speaker 1: which frees up half a day for making progress on

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Speaker 1: the projects themselves. Now, maybe it is not possible to

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Speaker 1: limit the overall number of projects. But what I often

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Speaker 1: see happen is that people are working on five things

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Speaker 1: that are due over the next two months. Maybe it

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Speaker 1: might be possible to work on three things, finish them

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Speaker 1: in one month, and then take on three projects the

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Speaker 1: next month too. Then you have cut the overall administrative

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Speaker 1: tax and you have gotten more done. This is one

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Speaker 1: reason I like to set quarterly goals for the year.

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Speaker 1: I might know that I want to work on a

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Speaker 1: particular project, but I also know that I won't be

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Speaker 1: starting it until Q three. That's fine. I can know

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Speaker 1: it will happen and know I will concentrate on it then,

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Speaker 1: but not incur the administrative tax on my time any earlier. Now, obviously,

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Speaker 1: we can't always control the total number of moving parts

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Speaker 1: in life, nor do we choose to. I have five children,

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Speaker 1: and they all require their own tax on my time,

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Speaker 1: so to speak. One I pay willingly. I simply have

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Speaker 1: to acknowledge that, no matter how efficient I am, arranging

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Speaker 1: activities and dealing with medical needs and such for five

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Speaker 1: kids will take more time than if I had one

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Speaker 1: or two. So it goes. I also like to do

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Speaker 1: varied things in my working life. That means my administrative

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Speaker 1: tax is going to be a little higher than it

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Speaker 1: could be. But in general, rather than spend a little

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Speaker 1: less time on more things, it might be better to

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Speaker 1: spend more time on fewer things and then start the

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Speaker 1: next project when one of the current ones is done.

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Speaker 1: The projects may take as long as they take, so

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Speaker 1: you probably won't change how many you are getting done overall,

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Speaker 1: but doing fewer at once limits the administrative tax on

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Speaker 1: your time, and that can make life feel a little

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Speaker 1: less crunched in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening,

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Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,

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Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura

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Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app

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Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.