Know what you do best

eight Hours. That book was first published in late May of twenty ten, which means that it is fifteen years old this month. A lot has changed in the world since then, but we do, in fact still have one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week, and so I am revisiting some of the tips in that book that I think can still be helpful. Today's tip is to know what you do best. There are lots of ways people can spend their time. There are also limited

hours in the day. It is often more efficient to focus on the handful of areas where you can really shine, and then figure out ways to not spend your time on other things. This makes sense in a corporate context. If you make widgets, you generally don't also own a fleet of trucks that will deliver your widgets to customers. Depending on the size of the widgets, you use the post office or a commercial delivery service to do that for you. But we tend to be a bit less

focused in our own lives. Sometimes people have figured out ways to delegate things at work, but in our home lives, people spend all kinds of time on things that it might be better not to do. I think part of this is that we don't always know what our core competencies are. We don't know what we do best and that other people cannot do nearly as well. So it might be worth spending some time thinking this through. What do people keep asking you about, When do people seek

out your advice? What seems easy for you that other people find challenging. Sometimes there are things that we are good at across multiple dimensions and fields. For instance, in one hundred sixty eight Hours, I tell the story of Rold Hoffmann, the Nobel Prize win in Chemist. He spent his childhood hiding from the Nazis, watching the world through a hole in the wall. He became a very keen and patient observer, watching the changing light and the changing

seasons this way. Eventually, this helped him become a very good scientist, as he would patiently observe experiments and see small changes. His powers of observation led him to making some real breakthroughs in the field. Now, a Nobel prize is kind of the culmination of a life. But when I interviewed Hoffmann, he was actually at a writing retreat working on his poetry. As a second career, he had started writing poetry that was also based on his patient

observations seeing small changes in the world. This man's core competency was being a watcher, a skill that helped him survive as a child and then brought him fame later. Now we are not all chemical and poetical geniuses, of course, but we do all have certain skills. We also have certain zones of genius. So what are yours? What makes you feel alive? What makes you feel like you are making progress? I love writing. I love talking about counterintuitive

and exciting ideas. I like performing. What do you like? Look at how you are spending your time? How much time do you spend on these matters? How much time do you spend on everything else. I believe over time, we can find ways to spend more time on the things we do best and less time on other things. These days, I really try not to do things like run errands when I could be writing. Sometimes people ask me about doing things like coaching, but it's not really

something I do best or better than others would. I'd much rather be writing or speaking to a big group. What about you find your core competencies and you are well on your way to spending time well. It is worth the time it takes to figure this out, because knowing what you do best will help you spend your one hundred and sixty eight hours well. 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 Laura vandercam dot 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.