"Time," or a lack thereof, is an omnipresent theme and obsession of busy modern life, and certainly of a working mom’s life. It rose to the top of one of our past surveys as the #1 thing you need more of. (And I’ll give it blame for our recent Momorandum schedule)! So we had to raise an intrigued (and maybe slightly skeptical) eyebrow when we heard about journalist and Executive Mom Laura Vanderkam’s new book hitting shelves today, titled:
168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think
Here’s the premise – and it makes a lot of sense: rather than look at time in the usual way we block it, in 24-hour days, if we think of time in terms of the 168 hours that make up a week, that cycle is more reflective of the picture and pattern of our lives, with important fluctuations day to day in how we spend it. And we particularly love one of her underlying motivations for looking at time differently, which is to debunk the maddeningly prevalent idea that women cannot do things like have a "Career" and a "Family" all at once.
In setting about to research the use of time, Laura had a couple of important revelations which populate the book:
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Those who believe work and family are mutually exclusive have a misleading idea of how people actually spend their family time now, and how that compares to the past.
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There are some equally giant misperceptions about "work," including the fact that we are all overworked.
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Having the right job matters, possibly more than anything else, in how you perceive the time you invest in it each week.
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Focusing your time on your "core competencies" is not only a helpful way of prioritizing work, it is an important way of prioritizing at home, and determining what you can outsource (laundry, maybe?) in exchange for some freed-up time to play with the kids.
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We don’t spend enough time thinking about what we’d like to do with our free time (of which everyone actually has some). And we can better use the bits of time that get interspersed in our days for bits of joy.
You may not be moved to try to grid all of your 168 hours as Laura suggests, but just raising your awareness of how you time is spent across those hours is eye-opening and potentially behavior-changing.
Now, of course, you just need time to read the book…
Learn more at http://www.my168hours.com/blog or shop for 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think