Second Cup: Solve one nagging problem today

0:00This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the survivor files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with the Elizabeth Smart on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio. Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to solve one nagging problem today. Don't let something that is not quite right be a drain on your energy.

1:02Tackling just one thing means you'll get it done, and you'll also make your life a little better. I am guessing that a lot of us have nagging problems that regularly hurt us. For instance, for a long time the door on my four-year-olds bedroom squeaked. If I was slipping out after he fell asleep, I worried I was going to wake him. Or this. To get from my front door to the path to the pool you had to cross a patch of gravel. That is fine and choose, but bad with bare feet. That was a problem for barefooted kids coming to and from the pool who sometimes then needed to be carried. I realized recently that I'd bought my 17-year-old a bunch of movie posters years ago, and they were still in the mailers they'd come in. I kept getting junk email from some company in a foreign language, and it was not obvious to me which link was the unsubscribe one. So I just hit delete, punt it forward, getting more newsletters

2:06the next day. Proverbs like these don't seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and they aren't. But they also aren't that hard to solve. But the little time or maybe a little money, most of these problems could be solved quite easily. So today, pick one nagging problem in your life and solve it. Just one. If you, like me, get spam newsletters in a language you don't speak, learn the word for unsubscribe in that language and find it in the emails. I am guessing you can do this in a minute with Google. Two minutes in the can of WD-40 that is in your garage, hit eliminate most squeaks. Of course, some nagging issues are a little more complicated but maybe not very. A handful of planters solve the problem of a painful gravel path. A frame store can frame art or pictures. And then you or someone you hire can hang those up.

3:08I'd recommend choosing one of those nagging issues to get on today is to do list. Or when you next encounter the problem in your life, just deal with it. Instead of getting annoyed or resorting to your usual workaround. Now there's no need to bite off more than you can chew. You don't have to solve all your nagging problems today. You're busy. I know the thought of doing it all is probably overwhelming. So don't. But solving one problem today will for sure remove one sort of friction from your life. Then maybe tomorrow or maybe next week you can solve another. New ones will pop up but in general the direction will be right. I'd love to hear what nagging problem you solve today. Can you let me know what you choose? You can reach me at Laura at LauraVandercam.com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening. And here's to making the most of our time.

4:17Thanks 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering the ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the

5:18pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I survived nine months in captivity and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files. Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.