Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to try telling yourself that you have
Speaker 1: all the time in the world. It might not be
Speaker 1: literally true, but believing it can help us savor good
Speaker 1: moments and be more patient with things that move at
Speaker 1: a leisurely pace. When the pandemic began, many families lives
Speaker 1: went from hyper scheduled to nothing basically overnight. Suddenly there
Speaker 1: were no other options, and so people began to do
Speaker 1: all sorts of time filling things like complicated lego projects,
Speaker 1: thousand piece puzzles, baking extravaganzas, or reading long chapter books
Speaker 1: with their kids. Now to me, the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: all this is that these activities were probably possible before
Speaker 1: the pandemic too. Even the most complicated lego projects max
Speaker 1: out at twenty hours or so, same with puzzles. Reading
Speaker 1: twenty minutes a night of short books versus thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of parts of longer ones really isn't that big a difference.
Speaker 1: But because people had more options, they felt like they
Speaker 1: were too busy to do these things. And when we
Speaker 1: feel like we are too busy, we don't think about
Speaker 1: what we'd like to do with our time, so we
Speaker 1: choose the things that are most effortless, like scrolling through
Speaker 1: social media. So rather than devote twenty hours to a
Speaker 1: lego project, we devote twenty hours to social media. Over
Speaker 1: the course of two weeks. The time is the same,
Speaker 1: but the feeling of scarcity changes choices. Things are definitely
Speaker 1: starting back up now, Thank goodness. I don't have any
Speaker 1: illusion that people will learn big lessons from lockdowns in life.
Speaker 1: People often claim that everything has changed, but generally everything
Speaker 1: doesn't change. But if people would like to make better
Speaker 1: choices with leisure time in general, it helps to ask
Speaker 1: this question, what would I do if I had all
Speaker 1: the time in the world. When we feel busy, we
Speaker 1: limit our choices. When we view time as abundant, we
Speaker 1: stop setting those arbitrary limits. It might take forty hours
Speaker 1: to read War and Peace, but we will spend forty
Speaker 1: hours on something one way or another. It takes a
Speaker 1: while to read through the Chronicles of Narnia, but that
Speaker 1: time will pass anyway. It will be spent on something.
Speaker 1: The question is just what. So you might try looking
Speaker 1: at your time through this lens. If I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like I had a million other things to do. What
Speaker 1: would I do? And when you think about this, maybe
Speaker 1: you'll see that you can make time even for things
Speaker 1: that don't seem like they would fit any busy person's life.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's b E the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also to shoot me an email at Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.