Zoom out

Time feels more abundant when viewed through a broader lens

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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 zoom out. When we look at time
from a broader perspective, we tend to see that frenzied

(00:24):
moments are balanced by more relaxed moments, and that time
is big enough to contain a great many things. I
know that a lot of people feel starved for time
these days, but I find that this is often because
we view time from a limited perspective. In my recent book,

(00:47):
Big Time, I write that this is because we are
looking only at the hours on say a busy Tuesday.
One reason that tracking a whole week is often surprising
for people is that they haven't even considered the time
on weekends or later in the evening, which can add
up even for busy people, and even during busy stretches,

(01:12):
there is often some downtime. When we zoom out looking
at times Big Time, we see this. I was reminded
of this on a recent weekend that, among other things,
featured my kid's jazz band performance, a driver's license test,

(01:32):
a mery mother's day brunch, two Parker classes, two tennis lessons,
a birthday party, a church lock in, a confirmation expo,
prom Scouts, and a Derby themed library fundraiser that I
went to. This is kind of a lot of stuff,
and yet there was downtime too. I managed to finish

(01:54):
the puzzle I was working on. I read at least
an hour in a new book. I watched The six
Ers when game seven of their series on TV. If
I wanted to tell a story of running around like
a chicken with its head cut off, I suppose that
I could, but that would be a very limited way
of looking at the weekend. Sitting on the couch for

(02:15):
two hours watching TV is not frenzied. Running around finishing
a one thousand piece puzzle is not frenzied. Lying in
bed reading isn't either. Because I have been thinking about
time like this for a while, I know to zoom
out and to try to few things holistically whenever I

(02:36):
am looking at a busy stretch. I've also been tracking
my time for over a decade now, so I know
that even if a week or a weekend contains a
lot of things, it will also contain several slower entries
on my timelog. Zooming out gives me a more accurate
picture of time, one that is generally not as frenzied

(03:00):
as the given moments that I might be prone to remember.
But I know a lot of people haven't tracked their time,
or aren't in the habit of looking at a whole
week or a longer stretch. So if you are staring
down a busy time, and I know may often is
for people as school aged kids, it might help to
zoom out. Looking at big time gives us a more

(03:23):
accurate representation. Perhaps this week has many activities, but there
may be weeks in July with fewer of them. Perhaps
this weekend has a lot going on, but there will
be summer weekends when things have quieted down. For me.
Weeks when both my choirs are practicing tend to have

(03:44):
a lot of choir commitments, obviously, but that only happens
about twenty six weeks a year. Half the year there's
only one choir, or for about three months there are
no choirs. That is a very different perspective. Life is
not just this one day a week, one hundred and

(04:08):
sixty eight hours is a better perspective than a day,
and I generally like to plan life in weeks, but
even one week is not all there is. A month
or a year might be a better perspective. Whenever time
is feeling crunched, zooming out can help us see that
downtime still happens. When we have a more accurate vision

(04:33):
of time, we can make wiser choices than always see
or a few crunched moments in the meantime. This is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Bread. If you've

(05:01):
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 listen to

(05:23):
your favorite shows.