Second Cup: Build in a little social time

Make the most of being in person

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good Morning, This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to build in a few minutes before
and after scheduled meetings or appointments so you can connect
with other people. This will let you invest a little

(00:29):
time in your relationships and keeps you from being late
to everything else. So if you tend to be more
task oriented or schedule oriented, which I will freely admit
to being, you may go through life focused on what
you need to do at what time. You may also

(00:51):
not leave much transition time in between things. You finish
one meeting, you put your head down and make notes
about your follow ups, and two minutes later you are
power walking down the hall to your next meeting. And
in many ways that is fine. You are showing up
where you need to be. But if you are bothering

(01:14):
to be in the same place as other people, which
we often don't have to be these days, it might
be nice to connect outside the scheduled agenda. Racing from
one thing to the next means there's no time for that.
Something similar can happen in our personal lives. You sprint

(01:35):
out of your office to make it to your yoga
class and then you leave as soon as the class
is over, or you arrive at your kid's school approximately
thirty seconds before the program begins and you leave right
at the final bows. You got to do everything. But
if you bother to be somewhere in person, sometimes it's

(01:57):
nice to connect with the other people who are there
in person too. To some degree, that is a big
part of the point of being there. Now. I know
not everyone looks at life this way. Some people are
more people oriented and they always make time for conversation
they're wondering what I'm talking about here, But that has

(02:20):
a tendency to also make people late to many things,
and that is not great either. So either way, it
helps to just actually build in five to ten minutes
on either side of an activity to interact with the
other participants. If you've got a meeting from eight to
nine in the morning, you aim to have your next

(02:42):
thing start at nine point fifteen or possibly even nine thirty,
so you can chat with colleagues as you are refilling
your coffee. For those who automatically chat over coffee, that
buffer means you are not late to the next thing.
For those of us who are more task oriented. It's

(03:02):
a nudge to remind ourselves that we don't have to
race out. We have built in space in the schedule
to accommodate a chat about jones vacation or Bob's new puppy.
Whether you spend too much time or too little time
on an activity, simply building a certain quantity of space

(03:23):
into the schedule can help manage those tendencies. You create
space if you otherwise, wouldn't you build it in if
you do it anyway. Either way, you get to have
your connection and still stay on time. That really is

(03:45):
the best of both worlds. If you try building in
a little social time, you can let me know how
it goes at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
to making the most of our time.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Hey, everybody, I'd love to 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 the number four then breakfast Pod.
You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

(04:30):
Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before 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

(04:54):
favorite shows.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
MHM.