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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 make your minutes matter.
Use time you would otherwise be wasting to do something you actually need to do at some point.
So your best time is available for your most important pursuits.
Everybody has moments of running behind when everything takes longer than you reasonably expected.
But from time to time, we also all have moments when we are ahead of schedule.
Maybe you need to leave home at 8.30 for an appointment, but you are ready to go at 8.10.
At times like that, it's easy to wander around the house tidying.
But what if, instead, you use that 20 minutes to batch the little things?
Hopefully, as someone who listens to this podcast, you have a running list of tasks you know you need to get to at some point.
Generally, you set aside a chunk of time to do all of these.
But when a low opportunity cost chunk of time presents itself, and you know you won't be able to use this time for other things, this is a great occasion to plow through them.
In 20 minutes, you could fill out that permission slip, order that birthday present, respond to those two meeting invites for next week, and book a doctor visit through the online portal, and hopefully still be out the door at 825 to give yourself a little buffer.
Now, when you get back to your desk after your appointment, the decks are clear, and you can dive into your highest priority project for the day.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying you need to clear the decks in general before getting to your high priority stuff.
One of the reasons I tell people to batch the little things and then designate a time for doing all the little things is that I don't want people to feel like they have to get through all the little stuff before they get to the big things.
If you tell yourself you'll get through all the little things in the morning before you start the day's important work, you will likely run out of steam and then get to your first meeting and you won't have the focused time you were hoping for.
But I also know that small bits of time are incredibly hard to use well.
People check email or read headlines. They check the comments on social media posts.
If you are just looking for the quick dopamine hit that these things create, then when you have bits of time that are hard to use well, you may as well do the things that you know you're going to need to do at some point.
So notice when you have one of these awkward gaps.
Keep a list near you. Then you can make your minutes matter.
Don't try to cram in too much. I don't want people to be late.
If you have a tendency to be late places, then don't do this at all because you are probably misjudging how much time you have.
That said, one of the reasons people wind up working later than they want to is that they don't make the minutes matter during the day.
Small bits of time get wasted on things that didn't really have to happen.
As for things that do have to happen at some point, the temptation to clear the decks first during uninterrupted stretches of time can be strong.
So then there are no actual uninterrupted stretches of time for important work that requires focus.
You have to wait until all your meetings are done and then things take longer than you want because very few people are at their best at, say, 5 p.m., Better to treat your minutes like they matter.
Use low opportunity cost time for the things that must get done.
Then you can keep other stretches open for things that move you forward.
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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