Second Cup: Why time matters

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good morning, I'm Laura Vanderkim. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Every weekday morning, I'll be sharing a productivity strategy that
will help you make the most of your time at
work and at home. My mission is to help you
take your day, your week, maybe your life from great

(00:22):
too awesome. I value your time, so normally we'll dive
right into the tips, but since this is the first episode,
I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself
and talk about why time matters to me. Professionally, I
write and speak on time management. I'm the author of

(00:43):
several books, including A hundred sixty eight Hours, What the
Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and Off the Clock.
I'm also the author of a brand new book that's
out this week called Juliette's School of Possibilities, A little
Story about the power of Priorities. It's a time management fable,
the story of a young consultant whose life is falling

(01:05):
apart on various dimensions until she learns from her mentor, Juliette,
about the difference between business and a successful, well lived life.
I also co host another podcast called Best of Both Worlds.
My co host Sarah Hart Unger is a practicing physician,
and she and I talk about how people successfully combine
work and family. On the personal side, I definitely spend

(01:29):
a lot of time thinking about how best to combine
work and my family. My husband Michael, and I are
raising four spirited children. They are currently eleven, nine, seven
and four. You'll be hearing more about our adventures and
future episodes as we navigate everything from middle school to
preschool and the logistics of two career family life. As

(01:50):
for Hobbiest, I run every day and I sing soprano
in my church choir. People often ask me how I
came to this topic of time management. Unfortunately, it is
not because I am always on time everywhere I do
try to be. But I was once late to my
own speech on time management. Quite the ironic moment for
all involved. That said, there wasn't some moment when life

(02:15):
was falling apart. I'm not the normal self help narrator
who hit rock bottom and had some epiphany that everything
must change. That makes for good reading, but my life
is just not that interesting. Instead, it was more gradual.
I've long enjoyed reading and discussing people's schedules, and this
interest became more urgent when I became apparent for the

(02:36):
first time twelve years ago. Anyone who's been through that
transition knows that a lot of the literature about work
and life is pretty negative. We need to just throw
up our hands and declare that no one can have
it all. As you can imagine, I found this literature
fairly depressing. But I'm also a curious person. I've worked
as a journalist in the past, and so I wondered,

(02:59):
is this leak picture true. I began studying people's schedules,
not just how people talk about their time, but actually
having them keep track of their time half hour by
half hour, usually for a week. I've found some interesting things.
As I've studied thousands of time logs over the past
ten years, I've learned that there truly is space for

(03:21):
what matters to us in all spheres of life. People
like to talk about dark moments, but time is vast
enough for good moments too. Plenty of people are successfully
combining rewarding careers with fulfilling personal lives, whether that's raising
happy families, being involved in their communities, doing some sort

(03:43):
of crazy athletic endeavor on the weekends, or all of
the above. After all, there are a hundred sixty eight
hours in a week. If you work forty hours, so
that's a full time job, and sleep eight hours per night,
so that's fifty six per week. That leaves seventy hours
for other things. If you work fifty hours, that leaves

(04:04):
sixty two hours for other things. If you work sixty hours,
that leaves fifty two hours for other things. And it
turns out that very few people consistently average more than
sixty hours of work per week over the long haul,
something we'll talk about in future episodes. Anyway, in forty
to fifty hours of focused work, you can get a
lot done. In sixty two to seventy two hours a

(04:26):
week of waking, non working time. You can spend quality
time with your family and enjoy personal pursuits too. Making
time for what matters might involve some creativity, but I
promise you the time is there. This is why I
find time management such a hopeful topic. I know that
time management might sound a bit boring or maybe even

(04:50):
small minded. Here we are spinning on an improbable planet,
in the middle of cold space. Around the globe, violence, cruelty,
and disaster is up in people's lives. Yet here I
am talking about how to turn a sixty minute meeting
into a forty five minute one. I get this, and
I also get that the best moments of life I

(05:12):
wouldn't we pay no attention to time, like a dinner
with old friends that makes an evening pass in the
blink of an eye. But none of this is inconsistent
with wanting to use time. Well, we only get so
much time on that planet in cold space. Economists preach
the virtue of optimizing any scarce resource. When people feel

(05:33):
in control of their time and their lives, they have
the mental space to help people facing violence, cruelty, and disasters.
They can use their talents to keep some of these
things from happening in the first place. As for that
dinner with old friends, well they probably won't just show
up at a restaurant you happen to like. You have
to decide to get together and arrange when that will happen,

(05:56):
and maybe book a babysitter too. Even feeling off the
clock requires thinking about time. I care about time because
life is lived in hours. What we do with our
lives will be a function of how we spend our hours.
In particular, I want to help people see that life

(06:19):
is not either or you can throw yourself into work
you love, doing what you can to make the world
a better place and nurture your relationships with the people
you love, and take care of yourself, to be thoughtful
about your time, and you can do all of this.
Time is precious and time is plentiful. There is no

(06:43):
contradiction here. I hope you'll join me on this journey
of making the most of the time we've been given.
Every weekday morning, I'll be here sharing a tip or
a strategy that's worked for me or for someone else.
If you've got a question or a strategy, you can
write me at Before Breakfast Podcast at i heeart media

(07:04):
dot com. Just indicate if you'd be willing to have
your note read on Before Breakfast. I plan to share
many listener questions and tips over the next few months.
This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

(07:29):
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 the number four.
Then Breakfast p O D you can also shoot me
an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media

(07:49):
dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
in touch, y