Say yes to an open hour

See what you'll do when you don't do the obvious to-dos

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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 to say yes to an open hour, even
if there is work you could be doing. Sometimes it's

(00:25):
good to see what you fill time with in the
absence of doing obvious to dos. So a few weeks ago,
I went to Boston for about twenty four hours. I
chose to leave my laptop at home. A lot of
this was about having really light bags, since I knew
I would be going to a concert right after getting

(00:47):
off the plane. I brought a magazine to read on
the plane, and of course I had my phone with
me for checking email. But I was still kind of
kicking myself on Saturday when I wound up getting to
the airport quite early due to the checkout time of
my hotel and the happy lack of traffic. If I'd
had my laptop, I could have gotten ahead on my

(01:09):
podcast scripts or my newsletters and so forth for the week.
What a waste to have a kid free ninety minutes
and not use it. But then I figured I could
challenge myself to do something else with this time. I
was in an airport which had several bookstores. As a

(01:30):
book author, I should be seeing what book titles are
being prominently displayed in bookstore front tables. I should see
what cover designs catch my eye as I am figuring
out the art for my next book. So I spent
a leisurely thirty minutes perusing one of those bookstores and
doing some research. Then I looked closer at a shelf

(01:53):
of nonfiction titles and saw one title called on Time
and Turtles by Si Montgomery. I'd read her book The
Soul of an Octopus, so I thought i'd pick this
other book up. I paged through and saw there were
some interesting quotes about as you would imagine time in turtles,
which was randomly something I was going to write about
in my next book. Believe it or not, there is

(02:15):
a brief turtle mention, And now I had more material.
So I bought that Montgomery book, spent a fun time
on the airplane reading it, and got some fodder for
my writing projects. Anyway, So it was work, even if
it wasn't the work I was thinking I was going
to do, and it was work that I tend to
not do enough of anyway. Now, obviously you could go

(02:40):
overboard here. I mean, I can't spend all my time
looking through books at bookstores, or I'd never write my
own book. But it was a reminder that sometimes it
is okay to say yes to an open hour. You
will fill that hour with something, But if you don't
fill it with the most obvious thing, you will no

(03:01):
doubt come up with something else. And sometimes that something
else might be worth spending time on. So think about
when you might have an open hour and be open
to a new way to spend that time. You never
know what might happen, and sometimes that is a good thing.

(03:22):
In the meantime, this 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,

(03:42):
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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