0:00

Prodigy is a production of I Heart Radio.

0:03

Have you ever tracked your time, like seriously

0:06

measured all the things you do on a weekly basis

0:08

and quantified it so you can get perspective.

0:12

I haven't, and the concept is so

0:14

foreign to me that I doubt I ever will.

0:17

But I am curious about how much time I've wasted.

0:21

Wait, actually, hang on, Okay,

0:23

Oh my god, I've played eleven

0:26

hundred hours of a single computer

0:28

game called Overwatch and I

0:30

still suck. Wow,

0:33

let's move on. When

0:35

I first started, I heard, they taught me the basics,

0:37

then gave me my first show. They

0:39

gave it to me because I didn't know much and

0:41

it was supposed to be a light lift. I

0:45

actually still produce it, and after working

0:47

on like thirty other shows, I realized why

0:49

it's so easy. It's called

0:51

Before Breakfast and it's about time management,

0:53

productivity, and work life balance.

0:56

The creator and host is Laura Vanderkam,

0:58

and she obviously actuses what she preaches.

1:02

Each episode is bite sized, about

1:04

five minutes each weekday about a single

1:06

topic that will improve how you spend your time.

1:09

Laura sends me a week's worth of episodes almost

1:12

a month in advance. She also notes

1:14

the time code anytime she makes a speaking error.

1:18

She quite literally might be the most efficient

1:20

host in the entire industry, and

1:22

the show is incredibly successful. It gets

1:25

over ten million downlards a year and has more

1:27

sponsor requests than anything I've ever seen.

1:30

Her podcast vocal delivery is so measured,

1:32

and her listeners don't hesitate to let us know any

1:34

time I make an air, which we actually

1:36

really appreciate. Laura is incredibly

1:39

smart and a genuinely good person. Every

1:41

time I listened to an episode, I learned something, So

1:43

of course she's the perfect person for this show.

1:46

My name is loeber Ante, and this is

1:48

Prodigy.

1:59

Laura vin Cam is the author of several

2:01

time management and productivity books, including

2:04

Juliet's School of Possibilities, Off

2:06

the Clock, I Know How she does it, what

2:09

the most successful people do, Before Breakfast

2:11

and One sixty eight Hours.

2:13

Her work has appeared in publications including The

2:15

New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast

2:18

Company, and Fortune. She's the

2:20

host of the podcast Before Breakfast and

2:22

the co host with Sarah hart Unger, of

2:24

the podcast Best of Both Worlds. She

2:27

lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and

2:29

five children. Here's a clip

2:32

from a Ted talk she did. When

2:36

people find out I write about time management,

2:40

they assume two things. One

2:44

is that I'm always on time, and

2:47

I'm not. I was once

2:49

late to my own speech on time management. We

2:53

all had to just take a moment together and savor

2:55

that irony. I'm fascinated

2:58

by the concept of time, mostly

3:01

because it is such a

3:04

democratic element of our

3:06

lives, Like everybody has the exact

3:09

same amount of time, and

3:11

yet we do entirely different things

3:13

with it, um and and so when

3:15

you meet these people who are doing amazing

3:18

things with their lives, I mean amazing things professionally,

3:21

and then they also have really cool personal lives too,

3:24

I mean, who knows what else they have going for

3:26

them. I'm not denying they might be smarter

3:29

or richer or whatever else than anyone else,

3:31

but they don't have more time.

3:34

And so I have long

3:36

been fascinated by how these

3:38

people are spending their time

3:40

and what the rest of us can learn from their allocation

3:43

of twenty four hours um to

3:45

see what changes we can make in our

3:47

own lives as well. So I began

3:50

exploring that topic probably about a dozen

3:52

years ago. And then once you start

3:54

writing about a topic, and talking about a topic,

3:56

you you know, learn more about it. And so that's

3:59

what I've been doing. Ever so, so

4:01

you were studying these like habits

4:03

and time management of some successful

4:05

people, I guess, so, yeah, I mean

4:08

I started having people track

4:10

their time for me. And I noticed that in the past

4:12

when I was doing interviews of

4:14

folks because I spent a lot of years writing

4:16

for different publications UM, I

4:18

would often ask people about their schedules

4:21

and it just seemed to be such

4:23

a practical way to get an insight

4:25

into their lives UM. And and

4:27

as I wrote about this, I realized that people also

4:30

have stories about their lives UM

4:33

that seem interesting

4:35

to them, like they think they explained what's going on.

4:37

But even so these stories can be

4:39

wrong. UM. You have to have people

4:42

actually keep track of their time,

4:44

and then you start to see, oh,

4:47

no, they're really doing this, or you

4:49

know, they say they're doing X, but they're really

4:51

doing well. But those are both very interesting things. So

4:53

I time is, you know, we

4:55

all experience time, and

4:58

yet what we think to do

5:00

with our time is often very different from what we actually

5:02

do with our time. And that gap,

5:05

that mismatch between ideas

5:08

and lived reality is so

5:10

large that I find it fascinating. And

5:12

that's another thing that that drew me to this

5:14

topic too. Well, what's weird

5:16

for me. It's like, you know, you're supposed to work,

5:18

what eight hours a day, but I

5:20

don't think I could do very high quality

5:23

for like literally eight straight hours

5:25

a day. Yeah, well

5:27

nobody does. I mean that's the

5:29

uh, the funny part about it. Um.

5:32

I mean people take all kinds of breaks. They

5:34

shift tasks, um, they

5:36

go in and out of concentration, and

5:38

and that's natural. I mean, that's human nature. We all need

5:41

breaks. Um. We cannot focus

5:43

on anything for eight hours straight

5:46

um. And and that's also one of

5:49

the reasons that people think they

5:51

work longer hours than they do.

5:54

Um. You know, they do other things and come back

5:56

to it, but somehow the other things are

5:58

just never there. Um. So

6:01

people like, no, I work around the clock, so

6:03

well, you probably don't. People track

6:05

their time. They think they were eighty hours a week

6:07

or something. You track it, it's like fifty, well fifties

6:09

a lot, you know, but it's not eighty um.

6:12

And so you know, we want to make sure we're working

6:14

from accurate data if we

6:16

want to make wise choices about our time. Yeah.

6:20

Well, we'll say that you're definitely a good example,

6:22

at least in my opinion, because um, you're

6:24

by far the most organized host

6:27

and get everything like to me very early

6:30

and with notes and stuff. So

6:32

um, a bit spoiled there. But um,

6:34

I was curious because you have four kids or

6:37

five. I have five now, the

6:39

youngest was born during the course of Before

6:41

Breakfast being a podcast, so oh

6:44

that's right. Yeah wow wow, So

6:47

that I imagine requires a lot of careful

6:49

time management. Well

6:52

I guess, um. I mean

6:54

I've I've had kids for a long

6:56

time now, so I don't really know any different way

6:58

of working. Um. And you

7:01

know, for any of your listeners, I have very

7:03

good childcare for my kids as well, um,

7:05

you know, and my my husband's equally

7:07

involved with them too, So it's it's not like I'm

7:09

trying to work with five small

7:12

children sitting around me the whole day. Um.

7:14

But you know, it's I

7:17

think what many people have have figured

7:19

out is that kids can can force

7:21

certain efficiencies and certain um

7:24

ways of looking at productivity if you want to keep

7:26

getting things done, and you become a lot more aware

7:28

that stuff can go wrong. Um.

7:32

And when you know that stuff can go

7:34

wrong, you build a lot

7:36

more space, you build a lot more backup

7:38

plans into your life. But

7:40

when you do that, your schedule can be much

7:42

more resilient. Um

7:45

and and so you know, that's why we've

7:47

been able to keep putting out a Before

7:49

Breakfast podcast every weekday

7:51

morning for the past two and a half

7:53

years. Um. Is you know, we work ahead,

7:56

have ideas for the

7:58

next month of episode oodes. I'm usually recording

8:01

two to three weeks ahead of time. UM.

8:03

If I know I have something coming up that will

8:06

preclude working for a while, I

8:08

work even further ahead and try to record,

8:11

um. You know. And it's a lot of evergreen

8:13

content, so it's not like I have to react to

8:15

the day's news. Um. So that's

8:18

what's made it possible, just that thinking ahead

8:20

and planning for that, and making sure we have enough

8:22

of a buffer so that if something does

8:24

come up in in my life, for instance,

8:26

I still have several weeks

8:28

before I actually have to, you know, deal with that reality

8:31

of getting back to recording. Yeah,

8:33

that planning ahead. I mean, it's

8:36

supposed to be like a symptom of a d h D, but

8:38

like it's very very difficult for me

8:40

to work on things that aren't sort of like immediate.

8:43

But I feel like once I get to that part where

8:45

it's doing, I'm like, dang, I wish I'd started on this

8:47

a while ago. Yeah.

8:49

I mean, I often find that doing

8:52

a little bit every day is

8:55

helpful, and it doesn't have to be a lot,

8:58

um which can be helpful if if we're you

9:00

know, interested by all sorts of things,

9:02

or you know, like to flip from thing to things like well, even

9:05

you know, doing say fifteen minutes on a project,

9:07

but enough ahead of time, um that

9:09

you're doing multiple days of fifteen minutes

9:11

on a project can can build

9:13

a lot of open space into that

9:15

time before a deadline. Um so it

9:17

doesn't feel like such a crush at the end. Have

9:21

you figured out there certain

9:23

ways that you particularly

9:25

like work best. I

9:28

like to write

9:30

um in the morning, and

9:33

then I can do other things

9:35

that don't require quite as much intensive

9:37

creativity later in the day.

9:40

Um So I've really tried to structure my

9:42

work hours such that I'm working on the

9:44

things that require the most concentration in

9:46

the morning and then you

9:49

know, clear the little er things off my to do list

9:52

in the afternoon or you know, right before

9:54

lunch, when when my brain is a

9:56

bit more tired and

9:58

I still face temptation to

10:00

do it differently. And maybe a lot of your listeners

10:03

can sympathize with this, that we have a long to

10:05

do list. What do we think,

10:07

like, oh, well, I could not five of

10:09

these things right off in the next half hours,

10:11

So why don't I just do those five things first

10:13

and then get to the big thing? Right Like, I'll

10:16

just do myself a favor, do the little stuff, and

10:18

then I'll get to the big thing. You know exactly

10:20

where this is going. You're gonna run out of steam, You're

10:22

gonna be tired, you're gonna be needing to take a break by

10:24

the time you've gotten through those five small things, and

10:27

you won't get to the big thing until you are less

10:29

fresh and less able to focus. Um

10:32

So, don't clear the decks, save

10:35

that stuff for later, batch the little things.

10:38

Do your toughest work when

10:40

you are best able to handle

10:42

it. Um So that's, you know, really been

10:44

one of my my biggest things. I would say.

10:46

The one other thing that a lot of people find useful

10:48

and that I really do myself, is

10:51

I plan my upcoming weeks on

10:53

Friday's. So I take

10:55

about twenty minutes every Friday

10:58

to think through the week ahead and

11:00

say, well, what is most important for me to accomplish

11:03

professionally, What is most important

11:05

for me to accomplish in terms

11:07

of like my relationships, so family, friends,

11:10

things like that, and what do I want to do

11:12

um personally over the course of the next

11:15

week. And just figure out, you know, what are the big

11:17

things in all those categories, When do I

11:19

plan to do those things or if they're going to

11:21

require multiple steps work and those little steps

11:23

to get there. Go um, make

11:26

a rough map of the week. You know. It only takes

11:28

me about twenty minutes to do this, but

11:31

when I do this every Friday,

11:33

I have a far better sense of

11:35

the landscape of what's coming up. You

11:37

know, what I've committed to do in the future, and

11:39

also what I want to do in the future.

11:42

Um, And so it just vastly

11:45

increases the chances that

11:47

time is spent on those things

11:49

that I consider priorities. So I'd

11:51

suggest anyone who's feeling a little

11:53

like I've got so much going on, I feel overwhelmed.

11:56

I don't even know what I have on my plate take

11:58

that time every Friday, just

12:01

twenty minutes outside your life, looking at

12:03

your life, saying what am I doing, what would

12:05

I like to be doing, what do I need to be doing, what

12:07

logistics have to happen. You

12:10

build the habit of doing this, and life will feel

12:12

a lot more calm. Well,

12:14

I love that. I was about to, Yeah, ask you about list,

12:16

but I never really thought about the idea of having

12:18

like lists for things other than like

12:20

work stuff, you know, like personal

12:23

personal life and stuff too. Doing

12:25

those three categories and the idea of

12:27

making a three category priority list

12:29

is in and of itself powerful

12:31

because like you sit there and make a list

12:34

with three categories career, relationships,

12:36

self, it is so hard to make a

12:38

three category list and then leave a category

12:41

blank, Like our brains just don't

12:43

work that way. They're like, well, there's three categories.

12:45

I better put something in all of these categories.

12:48

And that right there can nudge

12:50

you to have a far more

12:53

balanced life because you are actually

12:55

thinking about it. Yeah, that's

12:57

really interesting. Your other podcast, could

12:59

you tell me about? Yeah?

13:02

So, it's called Best of Both Worlds, and

13:04

I co host it with Sarah hart Unger, who

13:06

is a friend of mine who is a practicing

13:08

physician, mom of three, um

13:11

blogger. She has another podcast that's

13:14

called Best Laid Plans. So very Busy Lady

13:16

UM. I really, you know, enjoy talking

13:18

with her. But the two of us talk all

13:21

things work and family from

13:23

the perspective of

13:26

being people who really love both.

13:28

And I feel like a lot of

13:30

the literature, a lot of you know, podcasts,

13:33

everything out there, tends to pitt

13:36

work against family, like these are

13:38

two opposite sides of a scale. If

13:40

one goes up, the other must go down. And

13:42

I haven't really found that to be the case much

13:44

in my own life that I mean to me,

13:47

they sort of it's all one part of my time,

13:49

and there's also other things I do with my time. It's not like

13:51

if I for every given hour I spend at work, I must

13:53

spend like one less on family. I mean, maybe I spend

13:55

one less doing laundry. I mean that's also

13:57

possible. UM. So we

14:01

we come at it from that perspective, and we've

14:03

built a good following of

14:05

other people who view time that way.

14:08

So people who generally have, you

14:10

know, jobs they're into they really

14:12

like, they enjoy UM and who

14:14

are also enjoying making the most

14:16

of their their personal lives too, and we release

14:18

episodes every Tuesday.

14:20

Um and would love to have people come listen

14:23

to us. Yeah, great, because

14:25

before breakfast is great um advice.

14:27

But the other one it's like two

14:30

people, so it's like more of a conversation. So I'm sure

14:32

that one's great too. All right, let's take a quick

14:34

break and set some goals. Be right back.

14:37

Welcome back to Prodigy. You can find more info

14:39

about Laura at Laura Vanderkam dot

14:41

com. That's Cam with a K. I

14:44

wanted to ask about, would you like short term

14:46

and long term goals? Um? Like,

14:48

sort of how you

14:51

how you work around, like I guess,

14:54

figuring them out and scheduling them,

14:56

especially with long term ones when it seems like there's so

14:58

much stuff to do Like short term

15:00

Yeah, I mean, goal setting

15:03

is a very inexact

15:05

science, and lots of people have different ways

15:07

they approach it. Um. I think

15:09

there's a difference between this sort of long term

15:11

bucket list type goals and

15:14

then the ones we have actually decided

15:16

to put into our lives in the near future.

15:19

Um and and so by separating these out

15:21

a little bit, you can feel far more

15:23

productive in your progress toward goals, so

15:26

sure, please make the bucket list. UM.

15:29

I have an exercise I sometimes do with people

15:31

in workshops that's called the list of a hundred dreams.

15:34

Um. It's just anything you want to spend more time

15:36

doing, like a hundred things you want to spend more time

15:38

doing. The idea is it won't just be

15:40

big stuff, because you know, bucket

15:42

list people come up with like twenty countries they want

15:44

to visit and then they stop doing it. Um.

15:47

But a hundred items is pretty hard to get to, so you

15:49

have to keep coming back to it. But

15:51

then once you've got a long list of stuff

15:53

you might want to focus on spend time

15:55

doing, you can do another

15:58

exercise to kind of drill down two things you want to focus

16:00

on in the next six to twelve months. And

16:03

that kind of depends what time of year it is, it would

16:05

but I like to think of it this way, like in the professional

16:08

front and picture yourself at the

16:10

end of the year and you are giving

16:12

yourself a performance review. So

16:15

we're we're talking in early August. You could

16:17

pretend it's December of this year

16:19

and you're looking back over the past

16:21

year, giving yourself a performance review

16:24

and let's say it's been just an absolutely

16:26

amazing year for you professionally, Like,

16:29

if that were to be the case, what three things

16:31

would you have done in the course of the year that

16:34

made it so awesome for you? Right, so you

16:36

can write those things down and

16:38

do this for your personal life as well. Um,

16:40

you know, picture yourself as a guest at a holiday

16:42

party at the end of the year and you're you're telling people

16:45

about the amazing things you did in your personal

16:47

life over the course of the year, and you think

16:49

about, well, what would those say

16:51

three things be that you would keep telling

16:54

people about because you were so excited and think that they

16:56

were such amazing things that happened in the course

16:58

of the year. And so now between

17:00

those three professional things and those

17:02

three things you're talking about at a holiday party,

17:05

you have a list of six goals

17:07

for the rest of the year. Like, these are the things you want

17:09

to be talking about at the end of the year. And if you haven't

17:12

done them by this point in the year, maybe you can use the

17:14

next four five months

17:16

to do them. But now you know

17:18

them and you know that those are the things that

17:20

should actually start informing your

17:23

time. Um, you know, the bucket list items

17:25

are great like, yes, go to Fiji at

17:27

some point. That's awesome, spent three weeks there, I think

17:29

you would have an amazing time. Um.

17:31

But a more immediate goal might be

17:34

you know that you've landed this particular

17:37

client that you have talked to occasionally

17:39

but haven't really put the work into getting

17:41

and you know in the next five months you are going to start

17:43

your first project with them. Great, Well,

17:45

that's something you can start putting on your schedule,

17:47

like call them, have lunch with the people you know they're

17:49

you know, pitch something to them like this. These

17:52

are things you can actually do that

17:54

will be far more likely to lead to

17:56

the end of your result. Yeah,

17:58

how do you How does your list like

18:01

that and your schedule like manifest?

18:03

Are you writing it down and on post

18:05

it notes? Are putting it in your calendar? Well?

18:08

Certainly you can. I mean you can make the list of

18:10

end of your goals on whatever you want.

18:12

Um. You know some people have fancy planners or

18:14

you know, but I don't know. You could cross stitch it or whatever

18:17

you want to do. Um. But

18:19

it's more that you know what these things are and

18:21

and refer to it frequently, because

18:24

then when you do that Friday planning we talked

18:27

about, you know, Friday afternoon, looking to the next

18:29

week, you can keep asking yourself, well,

18:31

am I'm making steps over the next

18:33

week toward those larger six

18:35

to twelve month goals? Like if you want

18:38

to run a marathon by the end of the year,

18:40

probably you need some runs on the calendar

18:42

for the next week. And on Friday you can look to the next

18:44

week and say, well, when am I going to do that? You know, when am

18:46

I gonna do my longer run? When am I going to do um

18:49

some of my speed work. Put that onto

18:51

your calendar. UM. And if you keep doing

18:53

this Friday after Friday, making sure that there

18:55

is space um to make steps towards

18:58

your long term goals in the week you are from

19:00

are likely to actually achieve those

19:02

long term goals. Yeah,

19:04

that's great. I definitely need to do

19:06

that. What are some of the things

19:09

that you hear a lot from your

19:11

listeners or just things that really resonate

19:13

with people. I guess um throughout

19:16

you know the course of making before breakfast. Yeah,

19:18

there's a couple of things I've I've said, I talked

19:21

about that I think really flip switches

19:23

for people, Um, what is to

19:25

think of life in terms of weeks

19:28

rather than days? Um, A lot of us

19:30

are sort of operating on a twenty four

19:32

hour mindset, whereas you know, anything

19:34

that is important to you is supposed to happen in the

19:36

next twenty four hours, and if you haven't

19:38

done X, Y or Z in twenty

19:41

four hours, you are in some way of

19:43

failure. And yet many things

19:45

in life don't actually have to happen

19:47

every day in order to still

19:49

be important in your life. I mean,

19:52

most people say their jobs are important, but they don't

19:54

do their jobs all seven days of a week. So

19:56

why are we only you know, why do we consider

19:58

them important if we're only doing them, say five

20:00

days a week, Well, you know, there's seven days in a week.

20:02

I just think people need to view life in

20:05

terms of one sixty eight hours, which

20:07

is twenty four times seven rather

20:09

than I mean,

20:11

there's just a couple of things just to think about

20:13

with that. If there's a hundred sixty

20:16

eight hours in a week, and you work forty hours

20:18

a week, so pretty standard full time job, and

20:20

sleep eight hours a night, which is fifty

20:23

six hours a week, you have seventy

20:25

two hours for other things. Which

20:28

is a lot of time. I

20:30

mean, it's almost twice as much time as you

20:32

are working. And yet almost anything

20:34

you read about full time jobs and full

20:36

time work, it emphasizes the full

20:38

like it takes the full amount of your time. Like

20:41

clearly it doesn't, right,

20:43

And yet this semantics has us thinking

20:45

in terms of like, oh, only Tuesday, like

20:47

the Tuesday is the only day that matters or something,

20:49

and so we don't see the week in its

20:52

entirety. Um. So I find that

20:54

that's something that has really

20:57

shifted a lot of people's

20:59

thing ging um, just about how they view

21:01

time. Anything you do three to four times a

21:04

week is important in your life,

21:06

but that doesn't mean it has to happen Monday, Tuesday,

21:08

Wednesday, Thursday. I mean it could happen Thursday,

21:10

Friday, Saturday, Sunday and it would be just as

21:12

important. Um. But you know, we

21:15

don't have to focus on only only the week

21:17

days to to make something, um,

21:19

seem important to us. Yes,

21:21

so thinking of things in sort of like a

21:24

broader scale as opposed to just like immediate

21:26

because we don't live our lives in days like

21:28

I mean we you know, Tuesday and Saturday

21:31

both have twenty four hours, and yet

21:33

they look very different for people.

21:36

Um whereas a week is a repeating cycle

21:38

of life as it is actually lived, Like you can

21:40

start to see what life

21:43

might look like because that is, you know, the

21:45

unit of repetition. Um. So

21:47

it just is a better way

21:49

to view time than any given twenty four hours,

21:51

which might be highly unrepresentative

21:54

depending on which twenty four hours you pick. Yeah,

21:58

that's really interesting and I never thought about that,

22:00

but yeah, that does make a lot of sense. But yeah,

22:02

there is there other stuff or anything else. Um.

22:05

Well, you know, I've had people track their time,

22:07

and a lot of people do not want to do this, which

22:10

I understand. I mean it sounds tedious,

22:12

it sounds not fun, and I know, I mean I've

22:14

I've actually been tracking my time on weekly spreadsheets

22:17

for six years now. Um, so I

22:19

know how I've spent every half hour of my time

22:21

for the past six years. And I am not about to tell

22:23

anyone about like, you know, it's boring for anyone

22:25

else other than me, But um,

22:28

I find it worthwhile because

22:31

we do tell ourselves all sorts of stories about

22:33

where the time goes, and these stories

22:35

may or may not be accurate. So in order

22:37

to get the most out of our time, I think

22:40

we need accurate data, and the only

22:42

way to really get that is to actually

22:44

track your time. UM. I'd suggest

22:46

people do it for a week again, because a

22:48

week is the cycle of life as we

22:51

live it, and you know, how you spend Tuesday

22:53

needs to be, you know, viewed alongside

22:56

how you spend Saturday, if you really

22:58

want to see what your life looks

23:01

like. UM. But almost everyone

23:03

who has tried this has been like,

23:05

oh, that is interesting.

23:09

Um, I never knew I did

23:12

X. I never knew I spent that much time on

23:14

why. Um, I thought

23:16

I worked this amount and I have

23:18

worked this amount. Or I thought I was always

23:21

emptying the dishwasher and it turns out I spent

23:23

less than half an hour on it in the course of the week.

23:26

Like, these are just various things people see.

23:28

Um. And And once you see the data,

23:30

you can adjust your story to reflect

23:33

the data. UM. Well, as long as

23:35

you want to adjust your story. Sometimes people don't,

23:37

but that's a different matter. UM.

23:39

But but I feel like when we have accurate data,

23:42

then we can make wise choices about our

23:44

time. This may be sort

23:46

of like a broad, difficult question, but like

23:48

I imagine a lot of people want to

23:51

be promoted, um you know and

23:53

or like you know, get a better job or what, and

23:55

they may be working towards that. Like have

23:57

you seen any things that have

23:59

worked for people, UM that are like for

24:02

for trying to do that thinking

24:04

about sort of paying into your career,

24:06

like building in time that

24:09

is not just about doing your day to

24:11

day deliverables, but thinking

24:13

about the broad picture of your career.

24:16

UM, what skills you have and how you can

24:18

spend time developing those skills who

24:21

you know, like what your network looks like

24:23

because UM, that is honestly

24:26

the way it's going to wind up happening is that

24:28

you know, you've worked with a manager tangentially

24:31

and a different part of the company and they have a better role

24:33

that opens up they think of you. It's

24:35

it's not like it's magically gonna happen. It's that

24:37

you met them UM through the course of doing

24:39

something, or somebody at a different organization that

24:41

you met UM at a conference

24:43

a year ago, and they think of something and you kept in

24:45

touch and now you go apply for it

24:48

and you've got a leg up for that. UM.

24:50

So it's thinking about how you can build in

24:52

time for making and maintaining those

24:54

relationships, UM, for figuring

24:56

out what skills are generally important,

24:59

and and just sort of being open

25:01

to trying things. UM. You

25:04

know that aren't just what is

25:06

immediately in front of you. UM.

25:08

So stepping back and taking that broader

25:10

perspective of what else would I like to

25:13

see in my professional life? Where can

25:15

I find space for that? Um?

25:17

And and and then making that happen? Is

25:19

there anything else that you want to mention? I wasn't gonna

25:21

ask any more questions? UM,

25:25

Oh no, you know, I well I think

25:27

that. UM. You know, when it comes to time,

25:30

we spend a lot of time thinking about what we don't

25:32

want to do, like what we want to spend less time doing,

25:34

and and so much of time management is kind of

25:36

focused on this, like how can I spend less time in my inbox?

25:38

How can I shorten my meetings? How can I

25:40

you know, like spend

25:42

less time washing the dishes or whatever

25:45

it is some hack we're going to find for this that magically

25:48

is going to shave thirty seconds off your dish washing

25:50

time, which would be awesome, but like

25:52

it's not going to change your life. UM. What changes

25:54

your life is thinking about

25:57

what you want to spend more time

25:59

doing and figuring out how

26:01

you can scale those things

26:03

up. Um. So, whether that's the

26:05

deep work at work or the networking

26:07

or skill development, whether it's more um

26:10

time spent quality relationship building,

26:12

whether it's more time for hobbies or exercise,

26:15

anything that's you know, boosting your own

26:17

personal or spiritual health. Like,

26:20

these are all things that we might want to spend more

26:22

time doing and figuring out how we

26:24

can scale those things up. It's just

26:26

going to be so much more likely to change

26:28

your life then figuring out

26:30

how you can spend two minutes less

26:33

on washing the dishes or

26:35

getting ready in the morning or anything like that.

26:37

So you know, I challenge people to really

26:40

think about time with that in mind,

26:42

that if you put in the important stuff first, everything

26:44

else kind of shrinks um

26:47

to allow for those big things to be there.

26:49

God, every time we talk or I work on

26:51

your show, I just always feel like I'm learning something,

26:53

So I really appreciate it. Well, thank

26:56

you, I appreciate I'd appreciate you having

26:58

me on Thanks to Laura. Highly recommend

27:00

our podcast Before Breakfast and Best of Both

27:02

Worlds for actionable tips delivered

27:05

directly to your inbox. You can subscribe to our newsletter

27:07

at Laura Vanderkam dot com. That's Cam

27:09

with the k Prodigy was created in

27:11

produced by me lober Ante. The executive

27:14

producer is Tyler Klang. For

27:16

more podcasts in My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

27:18

Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts