Second Cup: Often, rather than always

Most of the time is usually good enough

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Today's tip is that often is pretty much as good
as always, and often is a lot more achievable in
a busy life. Today's tip was inspired by someone who
was wrestling with the question of whether to pick her
kid up.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
At school each day. She had a new job that
allowed her to work from home, and she had a
reasonable amount of control over her time, so it was
theoretically possible to pick her kid up at school at
three point thirty basically every day, but driving ten minutes
to school, waiting ten minutes in the car line, and

(00:51):
then driving ten minutes home was a thirty minute chunk
out of the afternoon at in time spent grabbing keys
and shoes and then gearing back up, and the chunk
of time got larger. Her kid could take the bus,
but she felt guilty then that she wasn't spending time
with him despite the flexible job. But I pointed out

(01:13):
that none of this was an either or situation. You
can do things often, but not always. Given that she
did have flexibility and autonomy with her time, she could
structure different days to look different. Maybe she could sign
her kid up for an after school activity that met
at the school one day a week, so she got

(01:35):
a longer uninterrupted work day on that day. Two days
a week, he could take the bus home, and then
she would say hello to him and then get back
to work, making the chunk of time taken out of
work closer to ten minutes rather than thirty. And then
two days a week she would pick him up at
school and just be done with work. Then she and

(01:56):
her kid could hang out and do something fun. She
was driving every day right at three thirty, but she
was spending plenty of time with her kid and taking
advantage of her flexible schedule. I suspect that many times
when people say they always do something, they really mean
often anyways, people who say they always do family dinner

(02:21):
often miss a night here or there. They do not
truly mean that the primary breadwinner turns down absolutely all
work dinners or evening events. They do not mean that
when a family member goes to visit Grandma and the
next date over, everyone else zips over there for dinner too.
What they mean is that they generally eat dinner together

(02:43):
unless there is a good reason not to, but so
it goes for most things. Once you decide that often
is generally as good as always, you open up all
sorts of possibilities. I often go to bed at eleven PM.
I consider that my bedtime, but if I have a

(03:03):
really good book i'm reading, I might stay up later.
I often practice the piano, but I do not do
it every single day. I often put my kids to bed,
but sometimes I am traveling or doing other things at night,
and that is okay too. What might you choose to
do often rather than aiming for always? What might that

(03:26):
make possible in your life? Thinking more broadly is often
a good thing, because life is seldom either or In
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
To making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura Vancam dot com.

(04:06):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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