Second Cup: Full time doesn't mean all of the time

You can enjoy the rest of your life, even if you work long hours

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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 full time doesn't mean all of the time.

(00:24):
Recognizing that even a full time job generally leaves a
lot of space for other things can help make a
full and happy life possible. So certain phrases really don't
convey situations accurately, and the phrase full time is one
of the worst culprits. Full time implies the full amount

(00:49):
of your time, but in many cases, a full time
job amounts to approximately thirty five to forty hours a week.
I remember when I first did the math and realized
that a week has one hundred sixty eight hours. If
you sleep eight hours a night, so that is fifty
six hours per week, and subtract fifty six and forty

(01:14):
from one hundred sixty eight, you get seventy two hours
left over. Now, some folks do work more than forty
hours a week, but not that many. The tail on
this normal distribution gets thin really quickly. People go around
saying things like you spend the majority of your waking
hours at work, but for the vast majority of people

(01:38):
that is not true. At all. Unfortunately, using the word
full to describe thirty five to forty hours per week
of work causes all sorts of issues. For instance, some
folks assume that they should work part time because they
have a family, and because they don't want work to

(01:59):
get the full amount of their time, they want their
families to get part time too. But if full time
work isn't actually full time, this story gets less clear cut.
Working forty hours and having seventy two hours for other
things is already tilted more toward life than work. It's

(02:20):
unclear what would be more balanced about working twenty hours
and having ninety two hours for other things. There may
be reasons for this, but it isn't more balanced. The
other problem with the word full is that folks who
do work full time often assume they have no time

(02:41):
for other things. I mean, how could they work is
consuming the full amount of their time, except that it isn't.
In seventy two waking non working hours, it is quite
possible to find three to four hours to exercise or
two to three hours to vuluntier, in addition to spending

(03:02):
lots of time with family members and friends. If you
have never tracked your time before, I suggest trying it.
One of the first things people see is how much
time they have outside of work, even if they are
working full time hours. If you are home from work
at five thirty pm and go to bed at ten

(03:24):
thirty pm, that is five hours each day Monday to
Friday to attend to the rest of your life. Plus
there's likely some time in the morning too. If you
are up at six thirty am and leave for work
at eight, that's another ninety minutes that can be acknowledged

(03:44):
as existing. You probably don't spend all of it in
the shower. And then there's weekends. There are thirty six
waking hours between six pm Friday and six am Monday.
That is almost the equivalent of a full time job
right there. Once you recognize that full time work still

(04:05):
leaves a lot of time for other things, this opens
up possibilities. Instead of assuming you have no time, you
can start to assume that you do have time, and
you can start asking what you'd like to do with it. Personally,
I think this is a much more useful mindset. You

(04:27):
start to see that it might be possible to get
up and run for thirty minutes two mornings a week
and read for forty five minutes at night most nights.
You might be able to go play in a pickleball
league on Tuesdays and still have space for lots of
just hanging out. Full time isn't full time at all.

(04:50):
It is some amount of time, but generally there is
space for everything else 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

(05:17):
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

(05:39):
your favorite shows.