Don't turn a 30-minute task into an hour-long one

Fully focus on one thing at a time

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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 that it is a bad idea to turn
a thirty minute task into an hour long one. You

(00:25):
are almost universally better off focusing on one task fully
rather than trying to fit it into something else. So,
as I am recording this episode, people are marking the
fourth anniversary of COVID uprooting daily life for so many
of us. At this point four years ago, my kids

(00:49):
had been out of school for a few weeks already
we were starting to realize that they weren't going back
for the rest of the school year. I know so
many parents had to work remotely with their kids around
them for many months. Wise families soon figured out that
if it was at all possible to swap coverage for

(01:11):
little kids between parents, or with older kids or other relatives,
or with neighbors that you decided to form a pod
with everyone was going to get more done. You can
get more done in four focused hours, then you can
get done in eight hours when you are being interrupted

(01:35):
every few minutes. Plus, there are no good ways to
meet the needs of a four year old and a
client simultaneously. You wind up feeling frustrated and cranky. No doubt,
the four year olds and the clients get frustrated and
cranky too. Better to switch off and be fully present

(02:00):
for one at a time. I mention this because I
spent a lot of time pre COVID trying to convince
people that while working from home was great, it was
not a smart way to save money on childcare. I
would see parents trying to build businesses with toddlers underfoot,

(02:22):
and in many cases they would wind up feeling like
they were failing at everything, so they would come to
me and ask me for help with time management. But
I would note that this wasn't a time management problem,
it was a focus problem. Even if money was a
little tight, it was best to figure out this focus

(02:45):
problem first by paying for a few hours of childcare
each day. These entrepreneurial parents could focus on building their
businesses to the point where the revenue could pay for
the childcare and then some. Thanks to that focus, they
could also be more relaxed and play with the kids

(03:07):
when they weren't working, rather than trying to respond to
client emails at the same time. So it goes for
much in life. Trying to manage too many things at
once is a great way to turn a thirty minute
task into an hour long one. If you are trying
to answer a few emails while you're on a zoom call,

(03:30):
it is going to take twice as long to get
through those emails. If you are trying to write a
report while answering slack messages as they come in, that
report is going to take twice as long. I know
that it often feels efficient to try to cross two
things off the list at once, particularly if you are

(03:53):
stuck in a really boring meeting. Sometimes the problem is
that we don't want to acknowledge what we are doing.
We need to catch up with work on the weekend,
but we don't really want to be officially working on
the weekend, so we try to flit in and out
of it. Then our families are annoyed and we have

(04:15):
taken twice as long to get everything done. Better to
go to a coffee shop for two hours and then
come home and be present verse being on your phone
for the entire day while you are theoretically with your family.
There is absolutely nothing efficient about having something take longer

(04:37):
than it should. Just because you can theoretically manage more
than one thing at once doesn't mean it's a great idea.
Sometimes we have no choice, as happened for many people
during COVID, but when we do have a choice, fully
focusing is the way to go. In the meantime, this

(05:01):
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
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

(05:30):
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.