January 8, 2020 • 5 mins
Why you should treat your priorities like emergencies
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of my Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is the third in a five part series
on how to take control of your time in the
new year. This week, I'll be talking about five strategies
(00:25):
that I know will help you feel less busy and
get more done because they've definitely helped me. The first
strategy was to track your time. The second is to
build in an extra hour for something you'd really like
to do. The third strategy honor this phrase first things first.
(00:48):
My fellow productivity types will no doubt recognize this phrase
from the late Stephen Covey's famous book The Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People. Noting that people spent a ton
of time on things that were urgent but not important,
Covey urged people to spend more time on things that
were important but not urgent. By putting what he called
(01:09):
first things into our schedules first, we would massively increase
the chances that they'd happen. This is pretty much timeless advice.
Covey's book came out in nineteen ninety, which was before
people had smartphones. Digging all day long with group, text
comments and push notifications from apps. I'm not sure what
(01:31):
was urgent and not important in nineteen but it was
something people have always managed to waste time. But we
can choose to waste less time by treating what matters
to us as if it were urgent. If anyone listening
to this has watched my ted talk, then you've heard
me tell a story that's an example of this phenomenon.
(01:53):
I've seen thousands of time logs over the years, but
this particular one stood out. It was from a very
busy lady who worked in finance and had two young children.
She went out for a Wednesday night for something, only
to come home to find that her water heater had
broken and there was now water all over her basement.
Anyone who has had this happen to them knows it's
a huge mess, and her time log showed her dealing
(02:15):
with it, the aftermath, the plumbers, the cleaning crew. All
this was recorded on her time log and took about
seven hours of her week, which is quite a bit
of time. But when we talked about this afterwards, looking
at her log and discussed it, we said, well, what
if we'd had this conversation at the start of the week.
What if at the start of the week, we'd asked,
(02:37):
could you find seven hours for something that's a priority
to you, seven hours to train for a triathlon, seven
hours to set up those coffee dates with the people
who wanted her to mentor them. Well, no, of course
she couldn't just find seven hours. I mean, couldn't We
see how busy she was. But here's the thing. When
(02:57):
she had to find seven hours because was water all
over her basement, she found her seven hours. Time is
highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will
stretch to accommodate what we need or want to put
into it. And so the key to time management is
(03:18):
treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater.
We choose to get to them first things first. Now
I know this is easier said than done, but if
you think about your schedule this week, I want to
challenge you to look at it through this framework. If
something crazy happened, good or bad, you'd probably find the
(03:40):
time to deal with it. If your biggest client asked
you to come visit because she was about to drop
contracts for millions of dollars of work in your lap,
My guess is that you'd go. So what would you
not do as a result, Well, maybe that meeting about
office fridge policies would get rescheduled. So here's an idea.
(04:02):
If you keep saying you want to focus on client development,
if only you had the time, how about canceling that
meeting about fridge policies. Now, look at your schedule and
figure out what you chuck in an emergency, and then
ask yourself the hard question of whether it deserves a
place in your life. Now, you might be surprised how
(04:24):
much time becomes available when you think about putting first
things first. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
(04:45):
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 the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled
(05:08):
out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look
forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
of I Heart Radio for more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of my Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is the third in a five part series
on how to take control of your time in the
new year. This week, I'll be talking about five strategies
(00:25):
that I know will help you feel less busy and
get more done because they've definitely helped me. The first
strategy was to track your time. The second is to
build in an extra hour for something you'd really like
to do. The third strategy honor this phrase first things first.
(00:48):
My fellow productivity types will no doubt recognize this phrase
from the late Stephen Covey's famous book The Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People. Noting that people spent a ton
of time on things that were urgent but not important,
Covey urged people to spend more time on things that
were important but not urgent. By putting what he called
(01:09):
first things into our schedules first, we would massively increase
the chances that they'd happen. This is pretty much timeless advice.
Covey's book came out in nineteen ninety, which was before
people had smartphones. Digging all day long with group, text
comments and push notifications from apps. I'm not sure what
(01:31):
was urgent and not important in nineteen but it was
something people have always managed to waste time. But we
can choose to waste less time by treating what matters
to us as if it were urgent. If anyone listening
to this has watched my ted talk, then you've heard
me tell a story that's an example of this phenomenon.
(01:53):
I've seen thousands of time logs over the years, but
this particular one stood out. It was from a very
busy lady who worked in finance and had two young children.
She went out for a Wednesday night for something, only
to come home to find that her water heater had
broken and there was now water all over her basement.
Anyone who has had this happen to them knows it's
a huge mess, and her time log showed her dealing
(02:15):
with it, the aftermath, the plumbers, the cleaning crew. All
this was recorded on her time log and took about
seven hours of her week, which is quite a bit
of time. But when we talked about this afterwards, looking
at her log and discussed it, we said, well, what
if we'd had this conversation at the start of the week.
What if at the start of the week, we'd asked,
(02:37):
could you find seven hours for something that's a priority
to you, seven hours to train for a triathlon, seven
hours to set up those coffee dates with the people
who wanted her to mentor them. Well, no, of course
she couldn't just find seven hours. I mean, couldn't We
see how busy she was. But here's the thing. When
(02:57):
she had to find seven hours because was water all
over her basement, she found her seven hours. Time is
highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will
stretch to accommodate what we need or want to put
into it. And so the key to time management is
(03:18):
treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater.
We choose to get to them first things first. Now
I know this is easier said than done, but if
you think about your schedule this week, I want to
challenge you to look at it through this framework. If
something crazy happened, good or bad, you'd probably find the
(03:40):
time to deal with it. If your biggest client asked
you to come visit because she was about to drop
contracts for millions of dollars of work in your lap,
My guess is that you'd go. So what would you
not do as a result, Well, maybe that meeting about
office fridge policies would get rescheduled. So here's an idea.
(04:02):
If you keep saying you want to focus on client development,
if only you had the time, how about canceling that
meeting about fridge policies. Now, look at your schedule and
figure out what you chuck in an emergency, and then
ask yourself the hard question of whether it deserves a
place in your life. Now, you might be surprised how
(04:24):
much time becomes available when you think about putting first
things first. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
(04:45):
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 the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled
(05:08):
out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look
forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
of I Heart Radio for more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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