December 4, 2024 • 22 mins
A listener shares her experience with tracking time and tweaking her schedule
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
they might have for.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The rest of us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So today's episode is going to be something a little new.
I'm delighted to bring you my guest whose name is Haley.
She is a long time Before Breakfast listener who lives
in Texas works for a tech company. She was listening
to the new interview format and asked if I had
considered doing any listener time makeovers as part of an episode,
(00:49):
and I said, well, I'd love to. Was Hailey interested
in volunteering? She was, so here she is Hailey, Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Awesome, Thanks Laura, it's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So, Haley, could you just quickly introduce yourself to our listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Anything you'd like to share about yourself?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, definitely. So I'm Haley. I work full time as
a program manager and a tech company. I'm based in
Austin and I have a husband, no pets, and no kids.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Excellent. And how long have you been listening to Before Breakfast?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Gosh, I think since the beginning. I've been such a
big fan. The small episodes are great little tidbits for
getting ready or whatnot, and the longer episodes have been
great to listen to as well.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's awesome. I'm excited to hear that. Have you ever
tried any of the tips that you've gotten from Before Breakfast?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Definitely? Yeah, quite a few. Definitely one is bashing the
little things. I do that all the time in my
work life in personal life. And then also the one
you did on making kits to be prepared. I have
that in the car pool bag, all that stuff that's good.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I can't say that I have necessarily made as many
kids as I probably should have, but you know, one
of these days I will maybe take my own advice. So, Hayley,
when we conversed the first time a few weeks ago,
I told you that when I have people do time makeovers,
I always have them keep track of their time for
(02:13):
a week. Longtime listeners know that I definitely suggest people
track their time just to see where the time really goes.
So can you talk a little bit about the experience
of tracking your time and what you did as you
were keeping track of your time and how it worked
and whether you know what your experience.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Was with that. Yeah, it was a great experience. So
just kind of for ease, I ended up printing out
like an Excel sheet that had the different timeboxes on
it every thirty minutes, and I was able to just
scribble in, you know, every once in a while what
I had done since the last time I checked in.
I ended up then transposing that into an Excel file
(02:53):
just so I could get some more data and do
some additions all that type of stuff. But it was
a great experience. It definitely held me accountable to what
I was doing during the day, and it was really
fun to look back and see, you know, I have
a pretty busy work schedule, but there's also a lot
of hours outside of that, so really neat to see
where I was spending my time before we even talked.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
About it, Yeah, was it challenging to remember to keep
track of your time. I'm wonder if you had any
sort of ways to keep yourself sticking with it for
the whole week.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, just like we carry our phones around, I
just carried around just a folded piece of paper with
the boxes, so I was able to just record it.
You know, if I was doing an activity for a while,
I just left it aside and then came back, so
it was pretty easy to remember generally what I had done. Also,
on the work side, I ended up tracking the difference
(03:44):
between my actual work time versus my meeting time, which
was super interesting to see how much time I was
really spending in meetings during the week.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
How much time were you spending I'm curious.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I think quite a bit of my days are focused
on meetings. I'd say maybe half of each day at least,
so I'm really diligent about the times where I'm not
in meetings. They can sure I can get my stuff done.
But that was neat to see across the span of
a week, you know, if I have a late work
meeting or something like that, but there are still days
where I get a lot of time to myself.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Interesting and was it more challenging to keep track of
the time sort of outside of work. I know a
lot of people struggle on the weekends just because time
is a little bit more amorphous.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Then that's a good point. Yeah, I guess if I
was out and about I certainly didn't check in as
much as I did during the week, but I also
have my calendar on my phone, so that was also
helpful to prompt me to remember, you know what we
did excellent.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So as you were tracking your time, I mean, what
did you like most about your schedule as you were
looking back over it and say like, hey, this is
really working.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I mean, what were those things?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, I think definitely in the mornings kind of how
I spend my morning time. I definitely am looking for
ways to optimize that, but I think I have a
pretty good routine when it comes to how I spend
my pre work hours. Definitely after work, so I post
work hours sometimes that's different. I'm trying to pack a
lot into that time, and so that was interesting to
(05:13):
tracking to see exactly what I was doing where I
had more full days versus not.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Can you talk a little bit about your morning routine?
I mean, what generally are you doing in your mornings?
When do they start and when do you start work?
And maybe you can talk us through one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, definitely. So I get up fairly early around six.
Sometimes I try to get up a bit earlier, but
mostly thround the six to six thirty range, and I
definitely prioritize working out, having a cup of coffee. And
I think that was one of the biggest learnings from
this experience is you know, there's so many there's a
lot of content out there about morning routines, five am,
(05:50):
miracle morning, all of that, And it was a good
learning to me that I don't necessarily need to be
getting up that early. If I'm getting in what I
want to give on which for me is now a
you know, fifteen step list, it's working out and having
a cup of coffee, you know, get ready before work.
So normally I try to start my mornings pretty consistently.
(06:10):
Get up, get that workout in to get energy, have
my cup of coffee, get ready. I normally start work
around eight am, and then have lots of meetings, work time,
all of that, and then normally in my day around five,
sometimes a little bit after if I have other meetings.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
So when Haley and I first talked, I mean, she
mentioned possibly revamping her morning routine and getting up a
little bit earlier so she had more time before work.
But we talked about it so well, Yeah, I mean,
the only reason to have a longer morning routine is
if you are not able to fit those things into
other parts of the day. I mean there's upsides obviously
(06:49):
to working out first thing in the morning, and that
a lot of people find they have more energy then,
or there's you know, fewer things that get in the way.
You know, there's fewer work emergencies perhaps at six thirty
am versus six thirty pm that you're going to be
dealing with. But you know, said, there's no point in
making a more elaborate morning routine just to do so, right,
(07:10):
if you don't need to get up earlier to fit
these things in your life, you don't have to. I mean,
was that enough to change your mind?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Definitely? Yeah. I think it takes the pressure off of
needing to wake up super early just to pack, you know,
pack things into the schedule. I think it's great to
wake up when you need to and not have so
much of a hectic morning when you can.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well and still two hours between when you get up
and when you start work is not a short amount
of time. I mean, that is a especially since you
were working out pretty regularly, that's a pretty substantial morning
routine already there. Yeah, well we're going to take one
quick ad break, and then we're going to be coming
back talking a little bit more about the things that
Haley did decide to change in her schedule.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well, I am back.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I am interviewing Before Breakfast listener Hailey, who lives in Texas,
works for a tech company. As part of one of
our longer episodes of Before Breakfast, Haley agreed to do
a time makeover, so she kept track of her time
for a week. She thought about what she liked, and
then she thought about what she might want to change.
So the weekend that you tracked, you had a pretty
(08:25):
good active weekend, but you said that wasn't necessarily always
the way things happen.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Definitely, I think a lot of that ties into I
do really like planning, but I wasn't necessarily planning my
weekends as much as I would have liked. And I
think that in the time log, having that busy weekend
and coming out from that and knowing, you know, going
into my week that was kind of an exciting weekend.
It's at the stage I didn't have the Sunday scaries.
(08:56):
Definitely a learning for me that you know, even if
I'm not necessarily motivated to planning a weekend, being intentional
about it is super important and really sets you up
for success. So definitely a learning from that, and certainly
something I learned from you, Laura is really focusing in
on that double plan right, So yeah, why.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Don't you talk about what the double planning means? There
may be some before Breakfast listeners who haven't heard that episode.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So definitely if you haven't done it before, it's certainly magical.
So what you do is, you know, planning on friday's
very normal, very standard, and during that Friday plan you're
firming up your plans for the upcoming weekend and you're
planning the rest of that week to come, but you're
also doing a plan for that following weekend. And what's
(09:42):
great about that is you know, on Friday you can
make some decisions for a future you and then when
you come to that next Friday, you've already thought through
that next weekend. So it's really neat. So instead of
you know, coming to it, coming to the planning and
it's all blank and you don't know what to do,
you already have a starting point.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, and the double plan is because you know, if
you plan on Fridays, that gives you an opportunity to
look at the weekend twice because you're looking at the
one that's coming up in eight to nine days, and
you're also looking at the one that's coming up right then.
So I always think of this as having a sort
of vague, rough plan for the one eight to nine
days in the future, and then a more solid one
(10:20):
for the one that's right coming up exactly. Yeah, So
when did you try doing that over the past few weeks.
Has that been something that's you know, been helpful for you.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yes, definitely, it's now fully into my routine. I don't
think I could live without it now. But it's it's
great to really see that full view of your week.
Also have the weekends and be confident that you're going
into the weekends with something fun, things to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So, what's something that you have put into your weekend
that you've been looking forward to.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, one thing that I focused on is this idea
of having something fun on Sunday evening. So I know
a lot of us make it Sunday scar or at
least kind of not wanting to go into the week
just yet, but trying to extend that Sunday time by
doing something memorable and kind of outside of the norm.
So not just you know, sitting on the couch watching
something or you know, scrolling on your phone. So instead
(11:15):
on Sundays, what we've done is a Sunday game night,
So my husband and I will play cards, or play
a board game, or go outside on a walk, just
something to kind of end the weekend on a high note.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That sounds really fun.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And then if you know what it is kind of
ahead of time, you can look forward to it right.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Exactly, yep, and plan some fun time, fun things around it,
mocktails and fun food and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, because certainly, I mean, one of the things that
gives people the Sunday scaries is that you're starting to
think of Monday by mid afternoon Sunday.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You know, that's the only thing that is there in
the future of your schedule.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
But if you have something fun on Sunday night, then
you spend your time on Sunday afternoon looking forward to
your fun on Sunday night, and so it makes it
just kind of changes the mental picture of what the
weekend looks like. Did you guys wind up doing anything
with your Friday nights. I think you had mentioned that
this was a potential you know, date night for you
(12:14):
guys as well.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yes, kind of something to bookend the weekend and really
kick off the weekend itself, and so really just being
more mindful on that afternoon, that evening as well. So
most of it is just kind of nothing fancy, but
going for a walk, something to kind of mark the
end of Friday, maybe going out for a drink or something.
(12:36):
But that's been great to to kind of go into
the weekend and close out the week.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of really enjoying the weekends
and having things that you're looking forward to when you're planning,
because you know, planning isn't just about planning and the
things we have to do. It's also about planning in
the things that we want to do.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Of course, not everything I suggest works people, So tell
me a little bit about your the questions you'd had
about housework and where that fits into your life and
your schedule.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yes, so I know that housework is just a point
of contention for a lot of people certainly need too.
It has to be done necessary. Evil I had experimented
with moving housework to a chunk of time an hour
on Sundays, thinking that maybe that would help me throughout
the week because I would get it out of the way.
But when I experimented with it, I realized I immediately didn't
(13:32):
like it. It just you know, I really didn't want
to do housework on the weekends that's for relaxing, and
ultimately landed back to my normal cadence of just fitting
it in during the week. So that was definitely a
big learning that experimenting is good, but don't change something
if it's working for you.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, I mean, so the idea had been I mean,
one of the bits of advice I often give people
about concentrating housework and one chunk of time t is
so that it isn't always an option through your whole schedule.
But partly I think this is often I'm giving this
advice to people with, say other household members, who create
(14:13):
lots of messes that you didn't create. Right, So if
your house stays clean once you clean it, then it's
not always an option to be getting up and putting
things away. So you know, it might work a little
better for doing it in bits and pieces versus concentrating
(14:34):
it at one point. But you know, if anyone's listening
to this and saying like, well, I feel like I
spend my life cleaning my house, you know you could
try this too, right is that create a block of
time on the weekend for doing the housework or maybe
one week night if you have time then and then
not have it be an option as much the rest
of the time. But you know, it's some people it works,
(14:55):
some people it doesn't. So I mean, what does it
tend to look like you just are doing a little
bit each night, or how does it wind up looking?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, here and there. So I have a checklist just
to make sure I cover kind of the bare minimum
cleaning tasks i'd like to during the week. And if
I have a moment while dinner's cooking, let's say, or
you know, I have a bit of a lull between
activities or things I'm doing, I'll just quickly get that done.
I think it's helpful too, because sometimes there's time pressure,
(15:24):
so it helps get me through the task quickly, but
I still get it done.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So yeah, yeah, a lot of tasks will expand to
fill the available space. You know, housework's definitely one of them.
Email is probably one of them as well, So limiting
things like that is definitely good. Well, I'm going to
take one more quick ad break and then we'll be
back with a little bit more from Haley about what
she saw with her time. Well, I am back interviewing Haley,
(15:57):
who is a Before Breakfast listener who tracked her time
and tried a few different strategies for changing things up
here and there. So, Hayley, when you looked at your
weekday evenings, this was an area that you thought maybe we.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Could tweak a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about
what weekday evenings in general tended to look like.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Definitely. So, yeah, my weekday evenings were still pretty busy
and almost kind of monotonous. Right you get out of
the workday, you've had a long day, you're kind of
just rolling into the normal routine of dinner and cleaning
the house maybe and going to bed. So I wanted
to make my weekday evenings more special, and so I
(16:41):
was experimenting with this concept of having a day for
me where I intentionally planned something that I'd like to do.
So I picked Tuesdays. I thought that would be a
nice kind of treat I guess in the middle of
the work week to have some special time just for me.
And shout out to my twin sister Hannah on this too,
because we did this activity together to hold ourselves accountable.
(17:03):
So I had brainstorm twitter ideas I think would be
relaxing for me. It's something I could look forward to,
so definitely on the active side, I love golfing. I
know that seasonal, but going to the driving range and
hitting some balls is definitely something I love, so that
occurred sometimes on Tuesdays. I also had some other ideas
(17:25):
too if I needed to stay closer to home or
didn't have as much time, so I've gotten into coloring
in a coloring book, so that's been great to have
kind of an artistic outlet. Crocheting as well, write something
to do with my hands so I can turn my
brain off a little bit. So those have all been great.
I'm adding to the list. I know sometimes you know,
when you're in adult, hobbies can be hard to find,
(17:48):
so I'm still on the journey there to add more
fun to that fun list. But yeah, the Tuesdays have
been really great to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, and I'm curious do you think you'll try to
come up with something you want to do every day Tuesday,
or do you think you'll, you know, continue with this
experimenting with different things on Tuesday night.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I might do a little of both. I definitely see
the value in doing something the same thing that you
can look forward to. I might also try, like workout
classes outside of the house. I normally work out, you know,
just just in my living room, but you know, going
to a workout class or meeting people, meeting friends to
go do something and doing that on a routine I
(18:28):
think would really be great too.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah. Now, I often suggest that people take one night
during the week to do something that is not work.
It's not housework, it's not caring for family members, but
something that you find intrinsically enjoyable. And by making it
the same night every week, you don't have to sort
(18:50):
of negotiate it every time. You don't have to think
is this the night? Is this not the night? Do
I have other things going on? You sort of just
block this out and know you always have something to
look forward to. And Tuesday worked well with your schedule, right, Haley,
Because some other nights you were more likely to have,
like later work commitments, but that was one that generally
didn't have.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Something exactly Yep, awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Well, I wonder if you think, I mean, do you
think you will try tracking your time again in the future.
I mean, was this something that was useful, or you know,
do you think it's you now have a pretty good
impression of life, or I'm curious where you'll go from here.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, definitely, I love doing the time log. It really
holds me accountable. It's really great to see those learnings
and even from a perspective of moving through different seasons
of life. Right, you have that log of what you did,
almost like a capturing memory. So I think I'll definitely
do that periodically, just to see what I'm doing with
my time, where I need to change, pivot that type
(19:49):
of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So, Hailey, we always ask people if there is something
you've done recently to take a day from great to awesome.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
That's kind of the tag line of this show.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
But I'm curious anything you've done recently that has been
particularly great for you.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah. I've started having different flavored sparkling waters in my
fridge and it's kind of a nice treat during the
workday or after the workday, something that's not just plain water.
It makes it makes each day a little bit more fun.
So I've really been enjoying that.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's really great. That's good.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And since this is a productivity show, I guess I'll
put you on the spot here. Do you have any
productivity tips like during the workday that you use that
have been helpful for you?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yes. Actually, I've realized I'm a pretty fast typer, but
when a lot of information is coming at me or
I need to think of things quickly, I'm also fast
when I'm writing things down. So I have a notebook
right beside my computer, and it normally has tasks that
I need to do and I cross them off right
to get that satisfaction. But I also use it to
(20:55):
kind of brain up during the workday. So that's been
great to kind of have this blend of the technology side,
but also have the simple paper notebook.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Awesome. Yeah, I'm a big fan of paper in general.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I love to create a to do list on paper
and then cross things off right.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You get the little dopamine hit. It sounds like you
do that as.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Well, exactly. Yep, I love it.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Awesome all right, Well, Hayley, thank you so much for
joining us talking about how you spend your time in
various tweaks you tried, and to all the people who
are listening to this, thank you so much for listening.
If you have feedback for me on this episode or
any other episode, let me know. You can reach me
at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. I will probably
(21:41):
do some more listener time makeovers in the future, so
if this sounded appealing to you, you can reach out to.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Me and we will.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Set up a time to talk. And in the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
(22:09):
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
they might have for.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The rest of us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So today's episode is going to be something a little new.
I'm delighted to bring you my guest whose name is Haley.
She is a long time Before Breakfast listener who lives
in Texas works for a tech company. She was listening
to the new interview format and asked if I had
considered doing any listener time makeovers as part of an episode,
(00:49):
and I said, well, I'd love to. Was Hailey interested
in volunteering? She was, so here she is Hailey, Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Awesome, Thanks Laura, it's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So, Haley, could you just quickly introduce yourself to our listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Anything you'd like to share about yourself?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, definitely. So I'm Haley. I work full time as
a program manager and a tech company. I'm based in
Austin and I have a husband, no pets, and no kids.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Excellent. And how long have you been listening to Before Breakfast?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Gosh, I think since the beginning. I've been such a
big fan. The small episodes are great little tidbits for
getting ready or whatnot, and the longer episodes have been
great to listen to as well.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's awesome. I'm excited to hear that. Have you ever
tried any of the tips that you've gotten from Before Breakfast?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Definitely? Yeah, quite a few. Definitely one is bashing the
little things. I do that all the time in my
work life in personal life. And then also the one
you did on making kits to be prepared. I have
that in the car pool bag, all that stuff that's good.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I can't say that I have necessarily made as many
kids as I probably should have, but you know, one
of these days I will maybe take my own advice. So, Hayley,
when we conversed the first time a few weeks ago,
I told you that when I have people do time makeovers,
I always have them keep track of their time for
(02:13):
a week. Longtime listeners know that I definitely suggest people
track their time just to see where the time really goes.
So can you talk a little bit about the experience
of tracking your time and what you did as you
were keeping track of your time and how it worked
and whether you know what your experience.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Was with that. Yeah, it was a great experience. So
just kind of for ease, I ended up printing out
like an Excel sheet that had the different timeboxes on
it every thirty minutes, and I was able to just
scribble in, you know, every once in a while what
I had done since the last time I checked in.
I ended up then transposing that into an Excel file
(02:53):
just so I could get some more data and do
some additions all that type of stuff. But it was
a great experience. It definitely held me accountable to what
I was doing during the day, and it was really
fun to look back and see, you know, I have
a pretty busy work schedule, but there's also a lot
of hours outside of that, so really neat to see
where I was spending my time before we even talked.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
About it, Yeah, was it challenging to remember to keep
track of your time. I'm wonder if you had any
sort of ways to keep yourself sticking with it for
the whole week.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, just like we carry our phones around, I
just carried around just a folded piece of paper with
the boxes, so I was able to just record it.
You know, if I was doing an activity for a while,
I just left it aside and then came back, so
it was pretty easy to remember generally what I had done. Also,
on the work side, I ended up tracking the difference
(03:44):
between my actual work time versus my meeting time, which
was super interesting to see how much time I was
really spending in meetings during the week.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
How much time were you spending I'm curious.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I think quite a bit of my days are focused
on meetings. I'd say maybe half of each day at least,
so I'm really diligent about the times where I'm not
in meetings. They can sure I can get my stuff done.
But that was neat to see across the span of
a week, you know, if I have a late work
meeting or something like that, but there are still days
where I get a lot of time to myself.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Interesting and was it more challenging to keep track of
the time sort of outside of work. I know a
lot of people struggle on the weekends just because time
is a little bit more amorphous.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Then that's a good point. Yeah, I guess if I
was out and about I certainly didn't check in as
much as I did during the week, but I also
have my calendar on my phone, so that was also
helpful to prompt me to remember, you know what we
did excellent.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So as you were tracking your time, I mean, what
did you like most about your schedule as you were
looking back over it and say like, hey, this is
really working.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I mean, what were those things?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, I think definitely in the mornings kind of how
I spend my morning time. I definitely am looking for
ways to optimize that, but I think I have a
pretty good routine when it comes to how I spend
my pre work hours. Definitely after work, so I post
work hours sometimes that's different. I'm trying to pack a
lot into that time, and so that was interesting to
(05:13):
tracking to see exactly what I was doing where I
had more full days versus not.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Can you talk a little bit about your morning routine?
I mean, what generally are you doing in your mornings?
When do they start and when do you start work?
And maybe you can talk us through one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, definitely. So I get up fairly early around six.
Sometimes I try to get up a bit earlier, but
mostly thround the six to six thirty range, and I
definitely prioritize working out, having a cup of coffee. And
I think that was one of the biggest learnings from
this experience is you know, there's so many there's a
lot of content out there about morning routines, five am,
(05:50):
miracle morning, all of that, And it was a good
learning to me that I don't necessarily need to be
getting up that early. If I'm getting in what I
want to give on which for me is now a
you know, fifteen step list, it's working out and having
a cup of coffee, you know, get ready before work.
So normally I try to start my mornings pretty consistently.
(06:10):
Get up, get that workout in to get energy, have
my cup of coffee, get ready. I normally start work
around eight am, and then have lots of meetings, work time,
all of that, and then normally in my day around five,
sometimes a little bit after if I have other meetings.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
So when Haley and I first talked, I mean, she
mentioned possibly revamping her morning routine and getting up a
little bit earlier so she had more time before work.
But we talked about it so well, Yeah, I mean,
the only reason to have a longer morning routine is
if you are not able to fit those things into
other parts of the day. I mean there's upsides obviously
(06:49):
to working out first thing in the morning, and that
a lot of people find they have more energy then,
or there's you know, fewer things that get in the way.
You know, there's fewer work emergencies perhaps at six thirty
am versus six thirty pm that you're going to be
dealing with. But you know, said, there's no point in
making a more elaborate morning routine just to do so, right,
(07:10):
if you don't need to get up earlier to fit
these things in your life, you don't have to. I mean,
was that enough to change your mind?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Definitely? Yeah. I think it takes the pressure off of
needing to wake up super early just to pack, you know,
pack things into the schedule. I think it's great to
wake up when you need to and not have so
much of a hectic morning when you can.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well and still two hours between when you get up
and when you start work is not a short amount
of time. I mean, that is a especially since you
were working out pretty regularly, that's a pretty substantial morning
routine already there. Yeah, well we're going to take one
quick ad break, and then we're going to be coming
back talking a little bit more about the things that
Haley did decide to change in her schedule.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well, I am back.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I am interviewing Before Breakfast listener Hailey, who lives in Texas,
works for a tech company. As part of one of
our longer episodes of Before Breakfast, Haley agreed to do
a time makeover, so she kept track of her time
for a week. She thought about what she liked, and
then she thought about what she might want to change.
So the weekend that you tracked, you had a pretty
(08:25):
good active weekend, but you said that wasn't necessarily always
the way things happen.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Definitely, I think a lot of that ties into I
do really like planning, but I wasn't necessarily planning my
weekends as much as I would have liked. And I
think that in the time log, having that busy weekend
and coming out from that and knowing, you know, going
into my week that was kind of an exciting weekend.
It's at the stage I didn't have the Sunday scaries.
(08:56):
Definitely a learning for me that you know, even if
I'm not necessarily motivated to planning a weekend, being intentional
about it is super important and really sets you up
for success. So definitely a learning from that, and certainly
something I learned from you, Laura is really focusing in
on that double plan right, So yeah, why.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Don't you talk about what the double planning means? There
may be some before Breakfast listeners who haven't heard that episode.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So definitely if you haven't done it before, it's certainly magical.
So what you do is, you know, planning on friday's
very normal, very standard, and during that Friday plan you're
firming up your plans for the upcoming weekend and you're
planning the rest of that week to come, but you're
also doing a plan for that following weekend. And what's
(09:42):
great about that is you know, on Friday you can
make some decisions for a future you and then when
you come to that next Friday, you've already thought through
that next weekend. So it's really neat. So instead of
you know, coming to it, coming to the planning and
it's all blank and you don't know what to do,
you already have a starting point.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, and the double plan is because you know, if
you plan on Fridays, that gives you an opportunity to
look at the weekend twice because you're looking at the
one that's coming up in eight to nine days, and
you're also looking at the one that's coming up right then.
So I always think of this as having a sort
of vague, rough plan for the one eight to nine
days in the future, and then a more solid one
(10:20):
for the one that's right coming up exactly. Yeah, So
when did you try doing that over the past few weeks.
Has that been something that's you know, been helpful for you.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yes, definitely, it's now fully into my routine. I don't
think I could live without it now. But it's it's
great to really see that full view of your week.
Also have the weekends and be confident that you're going
into the weekends with something fun, things to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So, what's something that you have put into your weekend
that you've been looking forward to.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, one thing that I focused on is this idea
of having something fun on Sunday evening. So I know
a lot of us make it Sunday scar or at
least kind of not wanting to go into the week
just yet, but trying to extend that Sunday time by
doing something memorable and kind of outside of the norm.
So not just you know, sitting on the couch watching
something or you know, scrolling on your phone. So instead
(11:15):
on Sundays, what we've done is a Sunday game night,
So my husband and I will play cards, or play
a board game, or go outside on a walk, just
something to kind of end the weekend on a high note.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That sounds really fun.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And then if you know what it is kind of
ahead of time, you can look forward to it right.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Exactly, yep, and plan some fun time, fun things around it,
mocktails and fun food and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, because certainly, I mean, one of the things that
gives people the Sunday scaries is that you're starting to
think of Monday by mid afternoon Sunday.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You know, that's the only thing that is there in
the future of your schedule.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
But if you have something fun on Sunday night, then
you spend your time on Sunday afternoon looking forward to
your fun on Sunday night, and so it makes it
just kind of changes the mental picture of what the
weekend looks like. Did you guys wind up doing anything
with your Friday nights. I think you had mentioned that
this was a potential you know, date night for you
(12:14):
guys as well.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yes, kind of something to bookend the weekend and really
kick off the weekend itself, and so really just being
more mindful on that afternoon, that evening as well. So
most of it is just kind of nothing fancy, but
going for a walk, something to kind of mark the
end of Friday, maybe going out for a drink or something.
(12:36):
But that's been great to to kind of go into
the weekend and close out the week.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of really enjoying the weekends
and having things that you're looking forward to when you're planning,
because you know, planning isn't just about planning and the
things we have to do. It's also about planning in
the things that we want to do.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Of course, not everything I suggest works people, So tell
me a little bit about your the questions you'd had
about housework and where that fits into your life and
your schedule.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yes, so I know that housework is just a point
of contention for a lot of people certainly need too.
It has to be done necessary. Evil I had experimented
with moving housework to a chunk of time an hour
on Sundays, thinking that maybe that would help me throughout
the week because I would get it out of the way.
But when I experimented with it, I realized I immediately didn't
(13:32):
like it. It just you know, I really didn't want
to do housework on the weekends that's for relaxing, and
ultimately landed back to my normal cadence of just fitting
it in during the week. So that was definitely a
big learning that experimenting is good, but don't change something
if it's working for you.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, I mean, so the idea had been I mean,
one of the bits of advice I often give people
about concentrating housework and one chunk of time t is
so that it isn't always an option through your whole schedule.
But partly I think this is often I'm giving this
advice to people with, say other household members, who create
(14:13):
lots of messes that you didn't create. Right, So if
your house stays clean once you clean it, then it's
not always an option to be getting up and putting
things away. So you know, it might work a little
better for doing it in bits and pieces versus concentrating
(14:34):
it at one point. But you know, if anyone's listening
to this and saying like, well, I feel like I
spend my life cleaning my house, you know you could
try this too, right is that create a block of
time on the weekend for doing the housework or maybe
one week night if you have time then and then
not have it be an option as much the rest
of the time. But you know, it's some people it works,
(14:55):
some people it doesn't. So I mean, what does it
tend to look like you just are doing a little
bit each night, or how does it wind up looking?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, here and there. So I have a checklist just
to make sure I cover kind of the bare minimum
cleaning tasks i'd like to during the week. And if
I have a moment while dinner's cooking, let's say, or
you know, I have a bit of a lull between
activities or things I'm doing, I'll just quickly get that done.
I think it's helpful too, because sometimes there's time pressure,
(15:24):
so it helps get me through the task quickly, but
I still get it done.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So yeah, yeah, a lot of tasks will expand to
fill the available space. You know, housework's definitely one of them.
Email is probably one of them as well, So limiting
things like that is definitely good. Well, I'm going to
take one more quick ad break and then we'll be
back with a little bit more from Haley about what
she saw with her time. Well, I am back interviewing Haley,
(15:57):
who is a Before Breakfast listener who tracked her time
and tried a few different strategies for changing things up
here and there. So, Hayley, when you looked at your
weekday evenings, this was an area that you thought maybe we.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Could tweak a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about
what weekday evenings in general tended to look like.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Definitely. So, yeah, my weekday evenings were still pretty busy
and almost kind of monotonous. Right you get out of
the workday, you've had a long day, you're kind of
just rolling into the normal routine of dinner and cleaning
the house maybe and going to bed. So I wanted
to make my weekday evenings more special, and so I
(16:41):
was experimenting with this concept of having a day for
me where I intentionally planned something that I'd like to do.
So I picked Tuesdays. I thought that would be a
nice kind of treat I guess in the middle of
the work week to have some special time just for me.
And shout out to my twin sister Hannah on this too,
because we did this activity together to hold ourselves accountable.
(17:03):
So I had brainstorm twitter ideas I think would be
relaxing for me. It's something I could look forward to,
so definitely on the active side, I love golfing. I
know that seasonal, but going to the driving range and
hitting some balls is definitely something I love, so that
occurred sometimes on Tuesdays. I also had some other ideas
(17:25):
too if I needed to stay closer to home or
didn't have as much time, so I've gotten into coloring
in a coloring book, so that's been great to have
kind of an artistic outlet. Crocheting as well, write something
to do with my hands so I can turn my
brain off a little bit. So those have all been great.
I'm adding to the list. I know sometimes you know,
when you're in adult, hobbies can be hard to find,
(17:48):
so I'm still on the journey there to add more
fun to that fun list. But yeah, the Tuesdays have
been really great to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, and I'm curious do you think you'll try to
come up with something you want to do every day Tuesday,
or do you think you'll, you know, continue with this
experimenting with different things on Tuesday night.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I might do a little of both. I definitely see
the value in doing something the same thing that you
can look forward to. I might also try, like workout
classes outside of the house. I normally work out, you know,
just just in my living room, but you know, going
to a workout class or meeting people, meeting friends to
go do something and doing that on a routine I
(18:28):
think would really be great too.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah. Now, I often suggest that people take one night
during the week to do something that is not work.
It's not housework, it's not caring for family members, but
something that you find intrinsically enjoyable. And by making it
the same night every week, you don't have to sort
(18:50):
of negotiate it every time. You don't have to think
is this the night? Is this not the night? Do
I have other things going on? You sort of just
block this out and know you always have something to
look forward to. And Tuesday worked well with your schedule, right, Haley,
Because some other nights you were more likely to have,
like later work commitments, but that was one that generally
didn't have.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Something exactly Yep, awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Well, I wonder if you think, I mean, do you
think you will try tracking your time again in the future.
I mean, was this something that was useful, or you know,
do you think it's you now have a pretty good
impression of life, or I'm curious where you'll go from here.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, definitely, I love doing the time log. It really
holds me accountable. It's really great to see those learnings
and even from a perspective of moving through different seasons
of life. Right, you have that log of what you did,
almost like a capturing memory. So I think I'll definitely
do that periodically, just to see what I'm doing with
my time, where I need to change, pivot that type
(19:49):
of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So, Hailey, we always ask people if there is something
you've done recently to take a day from great to awesome.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
That's kind of the tag line of this show.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
But I'm curious anything you've done recently that has been
particularly great for you.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah. I've started having different flavored sparkling waters in my
fridge and it's kind of a nice treat during the
workday or after the workday, something that's not just plain water.
It makes it makes each day a little bit more fun.
So I've really been enjoying that.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's really great. That's good.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And since this is a productivity show, I guess I'll
put you on the spot here. Do you have any
productivity tips like during the workday that you use that
have been helpful for you?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yes. Actually, I've realized I'm a pretty fast typer, but
when a lot of information is coming at me or
I need to think of things quickly, I'm also fast
when I'm writing things down. So I have a notebook
right beside my computer, and it normally has tasks that
I need to do and I cross them off right
to get that satisfaction. But I also use it to
(20:55):
kind of brain up during the workday. So that's been
great to kind of have this blend of the technology side,
but also have the simple paper notebook.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Awesome. Yeah, I'm a big fan of paper in general.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I love to create a to do list on paper
and then cross things off right.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You get the little dopamine hit. It sounds like you
do that as.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Well, exactly. Yep, I love it.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Awesome all right, Well, Hayley, thank you so much for
joining us talking about how you spend your time in
various tweaks you tried, and to all the people who
are listening to this, thank you so much for listening.
If you have feedback for me on this episode or
any other episode, let me know. You can reach me
at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. I will probably
(21:41):
do some more listener time makeovers in the future, so
if this sounded appealing to you, you can reach out to.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Me and we will.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Set up a time to talk. And in the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
(22:09):
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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