Stay in your sphere

Be more efficient by doing one kind of work at a 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 focus on one sphere of your work
at a time. Today's tip, like another this week, comes

(00:25):
from psychologist Tessa West. She is a professor at New
York University and author of the book Job Therapy, Finding
Work that Works for You. West explains that jobs have
different spheres, that is, different areas that require different sorts
of tasks. For instance, the spheres of my work are

(00:47):
my two podcasts, Before Breakfast and Best of Both Worlds,
my blog and newsletters, speaking and writing books. For a teacher,
the spheres of work might be less in planning, grading,
providing extra support tailored to students' needs, and other things.
A freelance graphic designer's spheres might be design administrative matters

(01:09):
like billing and marketing, or she might think of the
spheres of her work as each of her major clients.
Wes says that people are more productive and interruptions are
less costly when they generally stay within a sphere for
a while, rather than switching among different spheres of their work.

(01:31):
This makes sense to me if I am spending the
morning on before breakfast. There is an elegance and efficiency
to writing scripts, then reviewing audio files from a previous
batch of recordings, then brainstorming topics for future episodes. If
I need to let in the plumber to fix a leak,
it is fairly easy to get back in the zone

(01:53):
of before breakfast once he's gone, because I was so
focused on it before the interruption. On the other hand,
if I had spent the morning writing before breakfast scripts,
making notes for my next book, and working out travel
arrangements for a speech i'm giving, I would have been
less efficient to start with, and recovering from the plumber's
interruption would have taken longer because I might not be

(02:16):
so sure what to work on after. Given that we
can be more productive and less vulnerable to interruptions when
we're working within one sphere of our work, West suggests
planning each day by identifying the spheres you'll work in
that day and the tasks you'll do within each sphere.
Then she advises working in one sphere at a time,

(02:39):
not switching back and forth among the spheres planned for
the day. She suggests doing the miscellaneous tasks associated with
a given sphere, like emails right after you complete the
other work within that sphere. It could also be helpful
to plan work within a given sphere around the same
time that you will have meetings related to that sphere.

(03:01):
West suggests using physical cues like a whiteboard with color
coded tasks or post it notes on your desk to
remind you of your spheres and your tasks within itach.
I think working within one's sphere at a time could
work well for many people. Much like time blocking, working
in one sphere at a time will make you as

(03:22):
focused as possible and will probably lead to some insights
because your brain is in one particular space. What's more,
I suspect that planning which spheres you'll work on in
a given day also helps ensure that you actually work
in all the intended spheres of your core work. Over time,

(03:43):
it is easy to realize you have spent a whole
day on email and meetings, or a whole day in
reactive mode dealing with what's urgent without even touching a
particular aspect of your work or a major project that
you know is due soon. Planning which spheres you'll work
in lets you avoid that you probably won't work in

(04:04):
every sphere every day, particularly if you have a lot
of spheres, but you can be sure that over the
course of a week or so, you will invest time
in all of them. So if it feels like your
workdays are all over the place, consider planning your days
to stay in your sphere. You may just find yourself
feeling much more effective in the meantime. This is Laura.

(04:30):
Thanks for listening, and here's 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 vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a

(04:57):
production of iHeartMedia. Or more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.