Second Cup: Play Tetris with your schedule

Put the right activities at the right time

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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 play tetris with your schedule. Sometimes trying
to fit everything in can feel frustrating, but if you

(00:27):
recast it more as a game, you can maybe feel
a little more excited about it. So this episode is
first airing in September, which is always a time of
new schedules. In my family with five kids, somebody is
often starting a new school. Kids try different activities that

(00:50):
meet at various times. My sixteen year old will get
his driver's license soon, but he doesn't have it yet,
so our number of drivers ismed. I need to try
to preserve enough time to work. I like to have
open time on weekends for seasonal family adventures. Everyone needs

(01:10):
to get enough sleep, me included. This can sometimes feel
like a lot to fit into one hundred and sixty
eight hours. Sometimes I get frustrated as I am waiting
for one particular organization to post their activity schedule so
I can sign up for a class that a kid
really wants and that will affect what other activities he

(01:32):
can sign up for, and in the meantime, I see
those activities filling up, and well, there are a lot
of moving parts. But a few years ago I decided
to view this as something of a game. If you
are my age or so, you may have spent a
lot of time playing Tetris as a kid. Blocks in

(01:55):
various shapes drop from the sky and you try to
fit them into certain side holes in the right way.
If you create a full line, it disappears and you
survive to keep playing. If too many pieces stack awkwardly
on top of each other, you hit the top of
the screen and it's game over. I think this is

(02:18):
a good metaphor for a schedule too. Stuff takes various
amounts of time to do. There are certain windows of
time that are open and some that are not. The
biggest and strangest shapes have to be accounted for first,
and then you can move other things around to fit.

(02:40):
I certainly try to think strategically about the Tetris of
my schedule. How can we schedule things in order to
leave the most open time for other things, given that
we are usually up on weekends. Anyway, the nine to
fifteen soccer session is better than the eleven forty five
soccer session, as the latter will chop up a weekend day.

(03:05):
We found a swim program that offers two different options
Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday, and we could
select based on another activity that was only offered at
one time per week. Activities that happen right after school
and at school are preferable to others because there's only
one round of driving required, leaving at least one evening open.

(03:31):
Lets us have a low key family night, or at
least know we've got a spot for rescheduling lessons that
inevitably get canceled at some point. Things like my workouts
are flexible and so can be scheduled at any point,
but I know they are more likely to happen at
some points than others. That's one reason we are looking

(03:52):
into getting a treadmill for cold winter mornings. By thinking
of the schedule as a game, I guess I'm more
excited about little wins. It's not just phew, that's done.
It's like, hey, I just want another round of Tetris.
Maybe no one cares but me. Scratch that, I know

(04:13):
no one cares but me, But given how thankless family
scheduling can feel, I will take any positive reinforcement I
can get in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for
listening and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

(04:39):
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 and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod.
That's b E the number four than Breakfast Pod. You
can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts
at iHeartMedia that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all

(05:02):
the letters. Thanks so much. Should I look forward to
staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio.
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