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Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to zoom out. When we look at time from a broader

perspective, we tend to see that frenzied moments are balanced by more relaxed moments, and that time is

big enough to contain a great many things.

I know that a lot of people feel starved for time these days,

but I find that this is often because we view time from a limited perspective.

In my recent book, Big Time, I write that this is because we are looking only at the hours on, say, a busy Tuesday.

One reason that tracking a whole week is often surprising for people is that they haven't even considered the time on weekends or later in the evening, which can add up.

Even for busy people and even during busy stretches, there is often some downtime.

When we zoom out, looking at time as big time, we see this.

I was reminded of this on a recent weekend that, among other things,

featured my kids' jazz band performance, a driver's license test, a Merley Mother's Day brunch,

two parkour classes, two tennis lessons, a birthday party, a church lock-in, a confirmation expo, prom, scouts,

and a derby-themed library fundraiser that I went to. This is kind of a lot of stuff. And yet,

there was downtime, too. I managed to finish the puzzle I was working on. I read at least an hour in a new book.

I watched The Sixers when Game 7 of their series on TV. If I wanted to tell a story of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I suppose that I could. But that would be a very

limited way of looking at the weekend.

Sitting on the couch for two hours watching TV is not frenzied running around.

Finishing a 1,000-piece puzzle is not frenzied.

Lying in bed reading isn't either.

Because I have been thinking about time like this for a while, I know to zoom out, and try to

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