Often, rather than always

Most of the time is usually good enough

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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 often is pretty much as good as always,
and often is a lot more achievable in a busy life.

(00:27):
Today's tip was inspired by someone who was wrestling with
the question of whether to pick her kid up at
school each day. She had a new job that allowed
her to work from home, and she had a reasonable
amount of control over her time, so it was theoretically
possible to pick her kid up at school at three
point thirty basically every day, but driving ten minutes to school,

(00:49):
waiting ten minutes in the car line, and then driving
ten minutes home was a thirty minute chunk out of
the afternoon at in time spent grabbing keys and shoes
and then gearing back up, and the chunk of time
got larger. Her kid could take the bus, but she
felt guilty then that she wasn't spending time with him

(01:10):
despite the flexible job. But I pointed out that none
of this was an either or situation. You can do
things often, but not always. Given that she did have
flexibility and autonomy with her time, she could structure different
days to look different. Maybe she could sign her kid

(01:30):
up for an after school activity that met at the
school one day a week, so she got a longer
uninterrupted work day on that day. Two days a week,
he could take the bus home, and then she would
say hello to him and then get back to work,
making the chunk of time taken out of work closer
to ten minutes rather than thirty. And then two days

(01:52):
a week she would pick him up at school and
just be done with work. Then she and her kid
could hang out and do something fun. She was driving
every day right at three point thirty, but she was
spending plenty of time with her kid and taking advantage
of her flexible schedule. I suspect that many times when
people say they always do something, they really mean often anyways,

(02:18):
people who say they always do family dinner often miss
a night here or there. They do not truly mean
that the primary breadwinner turns down absolutely all work dinners
or evening events. They do not mean that when a
family member goes to visit Grandma and the next date over,
everyone else zips over there for dinner too. What they

(02:39):
mean is that they generally eat dinner together unless there
is a good reason not to, but so it goes
for most things. Once you decide that often is generally
as good as always, you open up all sorts of possibilities.
I often go to bed at eleven PM. I consider

(03:01):
that my bedtime, but if I have a really good
book i'm reading, I might stay up later. I often
practice the piano, but I do not do it every
single day. I often put my kids to bed, but
sometimes I am traveling or doing other things at night,
and that is okay too. What might you choose to

(03:21):
do often rather than aiming for always? What might that
make possible in your life? Thinking more broadly is often
a good thing, because life is seldom either or In
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's

(03:42):
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 Vancam dot com.

(04:06):
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