Like taking three weeks off work

Devoting a little bit of time daily to a goal will add up

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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 small things done repeatedly truly do add up.
Even just a few minutes per day over the long

(00:24):
haul can add up to a significant amount of time.
This means that over the long haul, even big projects
can become doable if you just keep going. So when
people decide they need to tackle some huge project, let's say,
organizing their homes, they often get into the mindset that

(00:47):
they need big, concentrated amounts of time. Honestly, I just
need to take three weeks off work and get caught up.
If only I could take three weeks off work. Of course,
you can immediately see the problem with this line of thought.
You are unlikely to get three weeks off of work,
and if you do, you are not going to want
to spend that time organizing your home or doing any

(01:10):
other big life administration project. You are going to want
to go on vacation. Europe sounds nice, right, So setting
that out as a requirement means you stay stuck. But
let's say that a project really does require the equivalent
of three weeks off of work, presuming that the rest
of your life doesn't disappear. Three weeks of work is

(01:32):
about one hundred twenty hours. That is forty hours a
week for three weeks. So a different question is whether
you can find one hundred twenty hours in your life
to do something if you stretch out your time horizon
long enough. I'm guessing that you can. Here's something to

(01:52):
think about. There are three hundred and sixty five days
in a year. That adds up to eight thousands, one
hundred and sixty hours. If you spend twenty minutes each
day on a project, that is the equivalent of one
hundred twenty hours over the course of a year. Now,
that is a much more reasonable ask. Most of us

(02:15):
can find twenty minutes a day. If we tried, we
spend twenty minutes on random things all the time, doing
something consistently for twenty minutes a day would be the
exact equivalent of taking three weeks off work without actually
having to do that. Now, I understand that the equation

(02:35):
isn't quite that simple. Getting in and out of things
takes time, so there might be some efficiencies to concentrating
one's time on a project. An eight hour day is
not the exact same thing as twenty four twenty minute chunks.
Sometimes things take more than twenty minutes, and even if
you could break an individual component of a project into

(02:57):
twenty minutes, you might have to leave things out in
the middle, which could be discouraging. Many a would be
organizer has started taking things out of a cupboard, only
to have something come up. Now your kitchen looks even
worse than it did before. But I think these logistical
issues are solvable. One could do a lot while still

(03:19):
following a personal rule not to do anything that will
look worse after twenty minutes. You can spend twenty minutes
throwing away trash and a room looks better. You can
spend twenty minutes putting stuff in a donation box or
then moving the box to where it's supposed to go
out the door, and the room will look better. And
let's be honest here, if you did take forty hours

(03:40):
a week for three weeks to organize your house, my
guess is that you would take breaks during that time.
You'd still need to eat, there would be periods of
more or less intensity. By only aiming to do twenty
minutes a day, you might be able to achieve an
intensity that you wouldn't otherwise, you simply have to stick

(04:02):
with it. So it goes for many things in life.
You could read War and Peace and Anna Karenina in
Middle March and Moby Dick in a year by reading
twenty minutes a day, as those books are mostly readable
in thirty hours each. A lot of creative things can
be done in twenty minutes a day, sowing a quilt
block by block, for instance. Maybe other things like oil

(04:25):
painting require longer stretches of time, but if you scratch
that creative itch by sketching for twenty minutes a day,
you just might be motivated to find longer stretches of time.
I know, I've written some fiction and bits here and there,
and then when I've got something more substantial, I feel
motivated to make a writing retreat fit into my life.

(04:47):
Even big things can be done in small steps. Doing
something for twenty minutes a day for a year is
the equivalent of taking three weeks off of work. If
you are telling yourself that you need that for something,
maybe reconsider how you could configure that time. You might
be surprised at what is possible in the meantime. This

(05:11):
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

(05:40):
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.