Plan your early finish fun

Boost efficiency by having a reason not to dawdle

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to plan your early finished fun. Deciding
what you'll do after you complete a task gives you
something to look forward to and keeps you from dilly

(00:26):
dallying on a project for longer than it requires. The
more you study your time, the better you get at
anticipating how long a given task will take. For instance,
I know it takes me about forty five minutes to
write a blog post. Writing drafts for a week's worth
of Before Breakfast episodes can take ninety minutes to two

(00:48):
and a half hours, depending on how long the episodes are.
One upside of tracking my time for the last six
years is that I've gotten better at estimating time. This
is a really useful skill for making challenging but doable schedules.
Some tasks, though, can expand to fill the available space.

(01:11):
One way to avoid that is to allocate a reasonable
quantity of time to the task, but then choose something
you will do when you finish early. That way, you
will look for ways to be efficient. You'll push through
rather than getting distracted with other things. For instance, suppose

(01:31):
your task for your lunch break is to write up
your patient notes from the morning. You might decide that
if you write up the notes efficiently and finish before
your lunch break ends, you'll go outside and eat your
lunch in the sun. If your task for the afternoon
is to prep for a job interview, you could decide
that if you finish preparing before it's time to pick

(01:52):
up your daughter from school, you'll go to the boutique
near her school and find a great accessory to add
flair to your inter you outfit. If your task for
the morning is to write up and circulate the minutes
and next steps from a big meeting held the previous day,
you could decide that, if you finish early, you'll listen
to a recorded webinar a colleague recommended about running effective meetings.

(02:16):
Deciding on the specific early finished fun activities will motivate
you to work with purpose. You're not rushing through your
important tasks. You're just approaching them with focus. You're refusing
to let your mind wander, and after you're done, you're
not going to continue fiddling with your work without adding
more value. You're completing the task well and efficiently. And

(02:40):
then you're having fun, specific fun, not the random and
inefficient email checks that we often use to fill this
time in your personal life. Early finished fund can really
be well fun finished sending in your kids school registration
forms and you can work on a puzzle for the
next one minutes. But during the work day, it might

(03:02):
make sense to think about early finished fund that will
boost your overall productivity. A walk could do that, but
so could a chat with your work best friend or
the enthusiastic junior staff. Or you're mentoring in certain kinds
of work. Seeing the beneficiaries of the fruits of your labor,
customers and action kids in your programs can be very motivational.

(03:25):
So go be energized by seeing the why behind your tasks,
or choose early finished fund that's about learning. Watch a
ted talk, read an article, read a book chapter that
sort of thing, And there can be a place for
frivolous early finished fund too. If you have put in
the expected hours and fulfilled your responsibilities, then consider yourself

(03:48):
free to go to the movies or bake a special
career meet a friend for happy hour. So today, as
you look at the tasks you need to complete, consider
whether you could motivate yourself to work productively and efficiently
by making a plan for early finish fun. If you do,
you can let me know how it goes at Laura

(04:09):
at Laura Vanderkamp dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.

(04:32):
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the number four, then
Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeart media dot com
that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.

(04:59):
Before break Fist is a production of I heart Radio.
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