Play Tetris with your schedule

Put the right activities at the right time

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 play tetris with your schedule. Sometimes trying
to fit everything in can feel frustrating, but if you

(00:27):
recast it more as a game, you can maybe feel
a little more excited about it. So this episode is
first airing in September, which is always a time of
new schedules. In my family with five kids, somebody is
often starting a new school. Kids try different activities that

(00:50):
meet at various times. My sixteen year old will get
his driver's license soon, but he doesn't have it yet,
so our number of drivers is limit. I need to
try to preserve enough time to work. I like to
have open time on weekends for seasonal family adventures. Everyone

(01:10):
needs to get enough sleep, me included. This can sometimes
feel like a lot to fit into one hundred and
sixty eight hours. Sometimes I get frustrated as I am
waiting for one particular organization to post their activity schedule
so I can sign up for a class that a
kid really wants and that will affect what other activities

(01:32):
he can sign up for, and in the meantime, I
see those activities filling up, and well, there are a
lot of moving parts. But a few years ago I
decided to view this as something of a game. If
you are my age or so, you may have spent
a lot of time playing Tetris as a kid. Blocks

(01:54):
in various shapes drop from the sky and you try
to fit them into certain sides holes in the right way.
If you create a full line, it disappears and you
survive to keep playing. If too many pieces stack awkwardly
on top of each other, you hit the top of
the screen and it's game over. I think this is

(02:17):
a good metaphor for a schedule too. Stuff takes various
amounts of time to do. There are certain windows of
time that are open and some that are not. The
biggest and strangest shapes have to be accounted for first,
and then you can move other things around to fit.

(02:40):
I certainly try to think strategically about the Tetris of
my schedule. How can we schedule things in order to
leave the most open time for other things, given that
we are usually up on weekends. Anyway, the nine to
fifteen soccer session is better than the eleven forty five
soccer session. As the latter will chop up a weekend day.

(03:05):
We found a swim program that offers two different options
Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday, and we could
select based on another activity that was only offered at
one time per week. Activities that happen right after school
and at school are preferable to others because there's only
one round of driving required, leaving at least one evening open.

(03:31):
Lets us have a low key family night, or at
least know we've got a spot for rescheduling lessons that
inevitably get canceled at some point. Things like my workouts
are flexible and so can be scheduled at any point,
but I know they are more likely to happen at
some points than others. That's one reason we are looking

(03:52):
into getting a treadmill for cold winter mornings. By thinking
of the schedule as a game, more excited about little wins,
It's not just phew, that's done. It's like, hey, I
just want another round of Tetris. Maybe no one cares
but me. Scratch that, I know no one cares but me,

(04:15):
But given how thankless family scheduling can feel, I will
take any positive reinforcement I can get 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

(04:39):
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the
number four then Breakfast Pod. You can also shoot me
an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia that Before

(05:01):
Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much.
Should I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.