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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 ask for more convenient appointments.
While sometimes you need to take the time slot you are offered, in many cases you can ask what else is available and find something that's more convenient for you.
Recently, I went back through my time logs from 2024.
Long -time listeners know that I have tracked my time in half -hour increments since 2015.
Perhaps that makes me sound a little eccentric.
But the upside is that I do know where my time has gone, and I can see patterns.
One thing I saw clearly is that I had few uninterrupted work weeks.
Between my five kids' various doctor and dentist appointments and my own appointments, it was the rare week without something.
I've realized for my older kids that I really need to ask for early in the day or late in the afternoon because it has become a lot harder for them to miss school.
But I realized that I wasn't giving myself the same courtesy.
Particularly in the first few months of the year, I was going to multiple physical therapy sessions each week.
They would offer me a time of, let's say, 11 a .m.
on Tuesday, and I would take it.
After all, I was technically available.
And it's certainly easier to make that time work than, say, 8 a .m.
when I'm rushing to get people out the door.
But the net result was that my work time was quite chopped up.
I am an efficient person, but there is a limit to how much deep thinking you can do when you are stopping and starting all the time.
And then there are the contractor visits.
Now, on some level, if I'm working from home, it seems costless to have the HVAC guys come by at some point between 8 a .m.
and noon. but it isn't.
I won't want to schedule stuff that can't be interrupted right when they might come in and no doubt they will have questions and I'll need to pay them and whoops there's another morning with limited focused work time.
Perhaps you have discovered the same thing.
If so, know this. You can ask for more convenient appointments.
A lot of service providers have early morning slots or late afternoon slots.
Some people even have evening or weekend availability, or at least they're open until 5 .30 or 6.
You may have to wait slightly longer to get an appointment, but your teeth will probably be fine if you make it to the dentist at seven months.
instead of six. As for contractor visits, sometimes this can be tricky.
Some people who work in offices and can't get time off easily actually pay someone to come sit in their homes to meet these people.
It might be worth paying $15 to $20 an hour to have someone sit there for four hours if you really need something repaired right then versus taking that time off work.
But even if you work from home, you can try to push all contractor visits to certain times.
Maybe you decide that Friday is the day.
If the contractor gives you a window of Wednesday at 8 a .m.
to noon, you can say, no one's available then, and you really need Friday.
Now, maybe it won't be this Friday, but if it is not urgent, then that can be okay.
attention and focus are valuable in their own right especially if your schedule is flexible it's easy to see that you aren't booked for a certain slot and say yes but no doubt you can do amazing and valuable things when your attention isn't fragmented so ask for more convenient appointments, and give yourself the gift of space.
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 at Laura at lauravandercam .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 your favorite shows.
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