Ask for more convenient appointments

You don't need to take the first slot that's offered

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to ask for more convenient appointments. While sometimes
you need to take the time slot you are offered,

(00:25):
in many cases you can ask what else is available
and find something that's more convenient for you. Recently, I
went back through my time logs from twenty twenty four.
Longtime listeners know that I have tracked my time in
half hour increments since twenty fifteen. Perhaps that makes me

(00:47):
sound a little eccentric, but the upside is that I
do know where my time has gone, and I can
see patterns. One thing I saw clearly is that I
have I had few uninterrupted work weeks between my five kids,
various doctor and dentist appointments, and my own appointments. It

(01:10):
was the rare week without something. I've realized for my
older kids that I really need to ask for early
in the day or late in the afternoon, because it
has become a lot harder for them to miss school.
But I realized that I wasn't giving myself the same courtesy,

(01:30):
particularly in the first few months of the year. I
was going to multiple physical therapy sessions each week. They
would offer me a time of let's say eleven am
on Tuesday, and I would take it. After all, I
was technically available, and it's certainly easier to make that
time work than say eight am, when I'm rushing to
get people out the door. But the net result was

(01:54):
that my work time was quite chopped up. I am
an efficient person, but there is a limit to how
much deep thinking you can do when you are stopping
and starting all the time. And then there are the
contractor visits. Now, on some level, if I'm working from home,

(02:14):
it seems costless to have the HVAC guys come by
at some point between eight am and noon, but it isn't.
I won't want to schedule stuff that can't be interrupted
right when they might come in, and no doubt they
will have questions and I'll need to pay them, and whoops,
there's another morning with limited focused work time. Perhaps you

(02:38):
have discovered the same thing. If so know this, you
can ask for more convenient appointments. A lot of service
providers have early morning slots or late afternoon slots. Some
people even have evening or weekend availability, or at least
they're open until five thirty or six. You may have

(03:01):
to wait slightly longer to get an appointment, but your
teeth will probably be fine if you make it to
the dentist at seven months instead of six. As for
contractor visits, sometimes this can be tricky. Some people who
work in offices and can't get time off easily actually

(03:22):
pay someone to come sit in their homes to meet
these people, it might be worth paying fifteen to twenty
dollars an hour to have someone sit there for four
hours if you really need something repaired right then, versus
taking that time off work. But even if you work
from home, you can try to push all contractor visits

(03:44):
to certain times. Maybe you decide that Friday is the day.
If the contractor gives you a window of Wednesday at
eight am to noon, you can say, no one's available then,
and you really need Friday now. Maybe it won't be
this Friday, but if it is not urgent then that
can be okay. Attention and focus are valuable in their

(04:08):
own right, especially if your schedule is flexible. It's easy
to see that you aren't booked for a certain slot
and say yes, but no doubt you can do amazing
and valuable things when your attention isn't fragmented, so ask
for more convenient appointments and give yourself the gift of space.

(04:32):
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,

(04:52):
you can reach 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.