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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 mentioned 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 child care.

I would see parents trying to build businesses with toddlers underfoot, and in many cases,

...