This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.
Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?
Think again.
More Americans listen to podcasts than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.
And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.
Learn how podcasting can help your business.
Call 844-844-iHeart.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is that it is a bad idea to turn a 30-minute task into an hour-long one.
You are almost universally better off focusing on one task fully rather than trying to fit it into something else.
So, as I am recording this episode, people are marking the fourth anniversary of COVID uprooting daily life for so many of us.
At this point four years ago, my kids had been out of school for a few weeks already.
We were starting to realize that they weren't going back for the rest of the school year.
I know so many parents had to work remotely with their kids around them for many months.
Wise families soon figured out that if it was at all possible to swap coverage for little kids between parents or with older kids or other relatives or with neighbors that you decided to form a pod with everyone was going to get more done.
You can get more done in four focused hours than you can get done in eight hours, when you are being interrupted every few minutes.
Plus, there are no good ways to meet the needs of a four-year-old and a client simultaneously.
You wind up feeling frustrated and cranky.
No doubt the four-year-olds and the clients get frustrated and cranky too.
Better to switch off and be fully present for one at a time.
I mention this because I spent a lot of time pre-COVID trying to convince people that, while working from home was great, it was not a smart way to save money on childcare.
I would see parents trying to build businesses with toddlers underfoot.
And in many cases, they would wind up feeling like they were failing at everything.
So they would come to me and ask me for help with time management.
But I would note that this wasn't a time management problem.
It was a focus problem.
Even if money was a little tight, it was best to figure out this focus problem first.
By paying for a few hours of childcare each day, these entrepreneurial parents could focus on building their businesses to the point where the revenue could pay for the childcare and then some.
Thanks to that focus, they could also be more relaxed and play with the kids when they weren't working, rather than trying to respond to client emails at the same time.
So it goes for much in life.
Trying to manage too many things at once is a great way to turn a 30-minute task into an hour-long one.
If you are trying to answer a few emails while you're on a Zoom call, it is going to take twice as long to get through those emails.
If you are trying to write a report while answering Slack messages as they come in, that report is going to take twice as long.
I know that it often feels efficient to try to cross two things off the list at once, particularly if you are stuck in a really boring meeting.
Sometimes the problem is that we don't want to acknowledge what we are doing.
We need to catch up with work on the weekend, but we don't really want to be officially working on the weekend, so we try to flit in and out of it.
Then our families are annoyed, and we've taken twice as long to get everything done.
Better to go to a coffee shop for two hours and then come home and be present, versus being on your phone for the entire day, while you are theoretically, with your family.
There is absolutely nothing efficient about having something take longer than it should.
Just because you can theoretically manage more than one thing at once doesn't mean it's a great idea.
Sometimes we have no choice, as happened for many people during COVID.
But when we do have a choice, fully focusing is the way to go.
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 iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
A shocking public murder.
This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
I screamed, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
A tragedy that's now forgotten.
And a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Laurie Siegel and on my new podcast, Mostly Human, I'll take you to some wild corners of the tech world.
I'm about to go on a date with an AI companion at a real world cafe right here in New York City.
There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.
Mostly Human is your playbook for how tech can work for you.
Anyone can now be an entrepreneur.
Anyone can build an app and it's very empowering.
Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
