Your calendar and reality

Life often differs from what we have planned

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is that your calendar and your lived life
can look very different. By paying attention to the differences,

(00:25):
you can become more effective with your time. When this
episode is first airing in January, I am leading a
time tracking challenge where hundreds of people are logging their
time for a week. We are all trying to figure
out where the time really goes so we can make
wise decisions. If that sounds good to you, then feel

(00:49):
free to join in. You just write down what you're
doing as often as you remember, and keep going for
a week. Then you can cell reflect or change. When
I suggest people try tracking their time for a week,
I've had a few folks simply send me their calendars.

(01:11):
On some level, it makes sense, and hey, it sounds
far more efficient to email an existing file than to
actually write down your activities for a week. But there
are a few problems with this approach. First, many people's
calendars don't cover the hours outside say seven am to
nine pm. I mean, the hours might exist on the calendar,

(01:33):
but people tend not to actually put things in those slots,
and yet life continues to be lived in those slots.
Something happened. But what if people primarily use their calendars
for work, then their weekends might also not contain much
information as to what's going on. And yet that time

(01:56):
is real time too. It really happened, and it really counts.
But even if you're the rare sort who actually put
on your calendar what you intended to do all one
sixty eight hours of the week, including when you plan
to go to sleep and wake up, you can immediately
see that there is going to be an issue. Life

(02:17):
is not going to go exactly as you planned all
one sixty eight hours of the week. Some night, you
might stay up later than expect it, or go to
bed earlier. Some morning, you'd intend to shower at a
certain point, but you'd get an unexpected phone call and
might be laid out the door. You might cancel a
meeting and spend that time on something else. A family

(02:38):
outing ends at nine pm, not eight pm, because you
were all having a good time. Whatever you put on
your calendar is going to wind up diverging from how
you actually spend the one d sixty eight hours of
the week. And that is fine, how would anyone know
exactly what life would look like in the future If

(02:59):
we did know that, we do far more cool things
with that knowledge than just be able to guess exactly
how long the traffic delays would be on Thursday versus Friday.
So don't think of your calendar as a time log.
These are separate things. However, you can learn a lot
by comparing a time log that is a trapped record

(03:22):
of how you actually spent your time with your calendar.
One thing you will learn which time estimates are off.
Maybe you always block sixty minutes for a twice a
week meeting that has a bad habit of taking ninety minutes.
Once you see that discrepancy, you can start blocking in
a longer amount of time, or at least not planning

(03:46):
anything important for right afterwards. Or you could chat with
your fellow meeting attendees to see if you could be
more realistic about what you need to get done. You
might also see what is realistic for your energy levels
and what is not. Perhaps you constantly wind up canceling
your Thursday night plans you don't do what you'd put

(04:09):
on your calendar. That's good to know. Maybe you are
just worn out by the end of the week. That
might be a good night to leave open, or alternately,
schedule something you know you will not cancel. And finally,
you see how much other time there is a calendar

(04:31):
of stuff that went from say, seven in the morning
to seven at night Monday to Friday. Might make you
feel like life was absolutely full. But that is only
sixty hours. There are sixty eight hours in a week.
Where does the other time go? If you work long

(04:52):
hours Monday to end of day Thursday, you might feel
like that is all your time. You have no work
life bound. Let's but that is only half of the week.
Where does the other half go? It's worth asking this
question and maybe revising your story. So yes, calendars are great.

(05:17):
We need calendars to tell us what we plan to
do with our time. Just remember that they seldom match
up exactly with reality and they seldom contain all our time.
Best to get a holistic picture in the meantime. This
is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the

(05:41):
most of our time. Hey, everybody, 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,

(06:04):
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 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

(06:26):
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.