You've already won the lottery

Having time to manage is a gift. So what do you plan to do with it?

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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 that having any time to manage is kind
of like receiving a windfall. When we approach it from

(00:25):
that mindset, we can move beyond a sense of time
scarcity and start to ask the more helpful time question
of what we'd like to do with it. Today's tip,
like some other recent ones, is from my new book,
Big Time, which will be published later this week. This
book is all about practical tips for falling in love

(00:49):
with your schedule. I know that time management as a
topic does not necessarily inspire universal affection. There is a
general sense that there is too much to do and
too little time to do it. In Why You'll Never
Finish your to do list is a popular topic for

(01:11):
productivity writers. Our metaphors do violence with time. We are
trying to beat the clock when we are not killing time.
I am also well aware that life often does not
go as planned, which might speak to the limitations of
trying to manage time rigidly. But there is another way

(01:34):
to look at time. Consider for a minute, how you
might feel if you are handed a winning lottery ticket.
You are not quite sure why this has happened. It's
not like you were a regular at the seven to
eleven buying tickets. One has simply been given to you,

(01:55):
and now improbably you have a pot of cash to man.
You could complain that you should have been given more money.
You could complain that now you have to pay taxes.
But I hope that your first reaction would be one
of hopeful possibility of all that you might be able

(02:18):
to do. I think there is a reasonable argument that
we should view time the same way. Longtime listeners know
that one of my random obsessions is the history of
the early Earth and of how life as we know
it came to be on this planet. Let's just say
that when you look at space all around us and

(02:40):
all that had to happen on our planet for life
to happen, it is kind of amazing. And then once
life came to be, it almost got wiped out several times.
For instance, the end Permian extinction some two hundred and
fifty two million years ago caused approximately ninety percent of
the species on Earth to go extinct. Wow, somehow the

(03:04):
ancestors of the creatures that eventually became us, made it
through that and later through the asteroid that wiped out
the dinosaurs, or even if you are not into all
of that, considered that a slightly different set of historical
events might not have brought your parents together. And with that,

(03:25):
a slight change in the moment of your conception means
that you would not exist as you. None of us
has any business being here, and yet here you are,
and here I am too. In other words, with our existence,
we have already won the lottery. The fact that we

(03:48):
have time to manage at all is incredibly improbable, and
yet we do not only do we exist. If you
are listening to this show, there's a very good chance
that you were born into or have moved to, a
free and prosperous society, one that allows for incredible agency

(04:12):
over the day to day experience of our time. Like
any lottery winner, we could complain that the prize should
have been bigger. We could complain about the taxes, just
as people complain that some people have fewer constraints on
their time, and that we have to do some things
with our time. But so much is within our power

(04:35):
to direct. Most likely it's at least a few hours
a day, maybe more. Wow. I hope you will consider
this different mindset. I believe time is big enough for
what matters to us, and when we start from the
perspective that time is a completely improbable gift, we feel

(05:00):
empowered to make choices that help us build the lives
we want in the time that we've got. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

(05:27):
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(05:49):
listen to your favorite shows.