Second Cup: Get it done by Thursday

How to buy yourself breathing room

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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 be done by Thursday. If you work
a Monday to Friday work week, aiming to be done

(00:24):
with most of your work duties by the end of
Thursday will buy you breathing room for things to go
wrong or to go very right. Longtime listeners know that,
at least for information type jobs, I advocate keeping Friday
as open as possible. This isn't so you can take

(00:46):
a long weekend, though of course that's nice from time
to time too. The idea is that most of us
benefit from having open space in our schedules. We don't
know on Monday all the things we will need to
do by the end of the week. If every minute
is already spoken for, then there is no place to

(01:07):
put anything new that comes up. That means not scheduling
meetings for Friday until you get to Friday and find
you really need to have them, But it also means
not having a full plate of things to get caught
up on. Some work duties are time specific. If you
have to file something daily, then obviously you can't do

(01:28):
it on Thursday for Friday, but some things are not
time specific. Ideally, you should construct your work schedule so
that everything that is not time specific is done by
the end of Thursday. So if you have to write
a report every week, get it done by the end
of Thursday. If you need to check in with your

(01:50):
clients once a week, do that by the end of Thursday.
Anything that you have to do regularly should be finished
by the time you end work Thursday afternoon or even
that way, Friday is actually really open. This habit does
a few things. First, you have a buffer if any

(02:12):
of your regular work duties take longer than usual, when
enough time is built in to do it by the
end of Thursday. Then if it takes longer, you still
have Friday to deal with it. If something big comes
up during the week, you also have time to deal
with it and your regular work duties. The big thing
might have displaced something from earlier in the week, but

(02:33):
there is space to get caught up on Friday. You
weren't counting on having that Friday for anything else. That
big thing could be a problem, an emergency you have
to deal with, but it could also be something really cool.
Maybe you get an inquiry about a really exciting new project,
or a client announces she'll be in town and wants

(02:54):
to meet. You can say yes, knowing that any regular
work duties that are displayed can be dealt with on
Friday without borrowing time from the next week, which will
no doubt have crises of its own. Getting it done
by Thursday also means that you have more mental space
on Friday. Many of us claim we'd like to have

(03:17):
more time to think. Friday can be that time you
can come up with ideas or think about how you'd
like to do things better. You can reach out to
people or maybe read that email a little closer and
see that the person is suggesting something that might actually
be really cool. You follow up and it leads to
an opportunity. In a world where people feel starved for time,

(03:42):
having some open space can make time feel luxurious. We
feel time rich. But all it really takes to get
to that state is making sure that whatever has to
happen has a time to happen earlier in the week.
Get it done by Thursday, and you'll find your work

(04:03):
life in general feeling more productive and less stressful. In
the meantime. This is Laura, Thanks for listening and here's
to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening

(04:24):
to Before Breakfast. If you've 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

(04:47):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.