Second Cup: Notice your free time

Acknowledge the leisure time that exists, so you can savor it

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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 notice your free time. It is easy
to tell ourselves a story of having no time for ourselves,

(00:27):
but not as much as I want. Is a different
story from none. Best to notice the free time that
does exist and make the most of it. The other night,
I spent a delightful forty five minutes reading on my hammock.
My four year old was playing a video game with

(00:47):
my husband, and the older kids were all occupied. I
had done my work for the day and there were
no pressing chores, so I grabbed a book and went
out and enjoyed the early songir. Because I track my time,
I put that lovely forty five minutes on my time log.

(01:09):
Doing so meant that, no matter what else happened that week,
I knew I was still the kind of person who
had time to read on the hammock. I could try
to tell myself that I'm harried and frenzied, starve for time,
But Laura, did you see that hammock entry. The reason
this matters is that I have seen a lot of

(01:31):
people decide that they truly have no free time whatsoever.
And I get it. We are all working hard, we
are all working long, we all have other responsibilities too.
I am not saying anyone is living at the spa.

(01:52):
But the problem is that when the story is none,
we discount the leisure time that does exist. I once
had some one show me a time log with a
complaint about her lack of free time. The time log
showed several hours spent at the spa. This person put
a note next to this entry saying, this never happens. Oh,

(02:17):
come on, I'm sure it doesn't happen daily or even
all that frequently, But clearly it doesn't never happen either,
So why not celebrate that you did make time during
your busy life for some relaxation. When we tell ourselves
a story that we have no free time, we don't
enjoy the free time we have as much. We discount

(02:40):
it as too short, or too infrequent, or stolen from
something else. When we notice our free time, on the
other hand, we can look forward to it and savor it.
We can figure out how to carve out more such
intentional moments in our lives. So as you go about

(03:01):
your day, notice when you do have some discretionary time,
what do you do with it? Often we pick up
our poonds and scroll, but there are other options. Maybe
try tracking your time for a week and seeing when
leisure time does appear. It's probably not much, but thirty

(03:23):
minutes to read at night isn't nothing. An hour to
relax while everyone is occupied isn't nothing. Best to notice
and enjoy what we can in the meantime. This is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of

(03:46):
our times. Thanks for listening 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

(04:09):
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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