Second Cup: Look at next year's schedule

A little foresight makes more fun possible

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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 look at the next year's schedule. Many
organizations and institutions create their calendars a year or more

(00:27):
ahead of time, and the calendar already exists for pretty
much any future year that you might be alive to experience.
So why not look ahead a little bit so you
can be prepared. So a year or so ago, my
choir director was mentioning choosing a work for the spring concert,

(00:47):
and he noted that in twenty twenty four we could
choose a longer, more challenging work for late spring, since Easter,
which we also sing a lot for, would be early.
I hadn't really thought about that, but sure enough, I
looked at the calendar and saw that Easter would be
March thirty. First, I looked at my kid's school calendar,

(01:11):
which the district had posted a year ahead of time, too,
and saw that spring break would be the last week
of March, a reality which can suggest slightly different planning
than when it's in late April. I then decided to
keep looking ahead and saw that since Christmas falls on
a Wednesday in twenty twenty four. That year's Christmas break

(01:35):
that is the one that straddles twenty twenty four into
twenty twenty five, will be almost two weeks long. I
have been fantasizing about a trip to the Southern Hemisphere,
and while I don't know if that will happen, that
would be a much better year to do it than
a year when the kids only get a week off

(01:55):
over the holidays. Yes, all of this is a long
time in the future, and yes I planned far ahead
in twenty twenty and wound up with everything canceled. Still,
there are certain things that are unlikely to happen if
you don't plan ahead, and looking at the upcoming calendar
can help you think about possibilities. So why not take

(02:19):
a little time to do it. If your kid's school
calendar for upcoming years has been published, look at it.
If you are part of another huge institution, like a university,
you can look at those calendars too. Certain holidays that
move around each year, like Easter or Thanksgiving, might be
worth studying, and it might be helpful to see the

(02:42):
day of the week that holidays fall on too. That's
because when something like the fourth of July happens on
a Wednesday, that winds up being a peak week for traveling,
since many offices will be closed for part of it.
But many people don't look at this, and they notice
this only a few weeks before. If you look enough

(03:05):
ahead of time, you could put in a request for
time off if you need to do that. You can
also avoid randomly scheduling stuff like a doctor's appointment for
the week of July fourth that you are just going
to wind up canceling once you see the holiday falls
midweek and you know you'll want to be gone. You
can also avoid getting caught unaware if school ends on

(03:27):
a Monday or Tuesday in June. Most camps won't start
until the Monday after. If you will need to work,
best to know that you'll need to figure out coverage
for those days. More lead time just means more options anyway.
I know we can spend too much time pondering the future.

(03:50):
I am well aware of that. However, I don't think
there's any problem with just being generally aware of the
contours of the future. Given that many institutions do their
schedules quite a bit ahead of time. This allows you
the chance to plan ahead for days off and to
make more seamless transitions. You don't need to solve all

(04:10):
problems or seize all possibilities, but it becomes easier to
do so when you know at least roughly what the
calendar looks like. So look ahead to next year's schedule
and you can start figuring out how to make the
upcoming years the best they can possibly be. In the meantime,

(04:33):
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. 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,

(04:53):
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's B the number
four in Breakfast Pod. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast 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.

(05:18):
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