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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 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 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 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, there is often some downtime.
When we zoom out, looking at time as 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, a Murley Mother's Day brunch, Two parkour 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 the puzzle I was working on.
I read at least an hour in a new book.
I watched the Sixers win Game 7 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 two hours watching TV is not frenzied running around.
Finishing a 1,000-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 view things holistically whenever I 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 time log.
Zooming out gives me a more accurate picture of time, one that is generally not as frenzied 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 with school-aged kids it might help to zoom out.
Looking at big time gives us a more 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 a lot of choir commitments, obviously.
But that only happens about 26 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, 168 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 of time, we can make wiser choices.
Then all we see are 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 Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas or feedback, you can reach me Before.
Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.
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