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154 reviews for:
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time
Laura Vanderkam
3.6 AVERAGE
154 reviews for:
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time
Laura Vanderkam
3.6 AVERAGE
I got a few great things from this, but I'm not sure I would have chosen it from the library if I'd known that the definition of a successful woman included having children and being rich.
I'd love to read a similar version of a wider spectrum of people who with some who let's say, had vocational jobs like teaching or nursing where the pay will never be £71,000 a year. Or were single without kids, or retired and volunteering 37 hours a week.
Very well read by the author herself.
I'd love to read a similar version of a wider spectrum of people who with some who let's say, had vocational jobs like teaching or nursing where the pay will never be £71,000 a year. Or were single without kids, or retired and volunteering 37 hours a week.
Very well read by the author herself.
This book is worth the read for most women, especially working mothers struggling with the work/life balance thing. Alot of the content is preaching to the choir-type stuff... but it's good to hear from others that you aren't alone! It's also eye opening to think about what time you DO have that maybe you don't realize, as well as to see examples from other ladies about how to open/reimagine your schedule and see the possibilities you have. Privilege isn't discussed here as much as it maybe should be, but that's hard and maybe it illustrates more about the target audience by omitting that. Or maybe I didn't read the book closely enough. I thought this book was interesting and practical.
Tracking time in timesheet is really easy, especially with a smartphone or tablet
The process of carving out quiet time. Can take various shapes and different times of day.
The boss that's approachable yet communicates their needs too, I.e. thinking cap.
Productive meetings so that people are prepared for what is needed during that critical meeting time!
Email…..am I making progress to things that are important to me? Am I solving the problems I want to solve?
List of 100 dreams! I have a version of this but will now developed it into a springboard for my life. Added challenge accomplish one challenge per month.
Bucketlist.org
And the end of the book is a great summarized list to inspire, get you started, or serve as a reminder later on when you feel like you have no ideas.
The process of carving out quiet time. Can take various shapes and different times of day.
The boss that's approachable yet communicates their needs too, I.e. thinking cap.
Productive meetings so that people are prepared for what is needed during that critical meeting time!
Email…..am I making progress to things that are important to me? Am I solving the problems I want to solve?
List of 100 dreams! I have a version of this but will now developed it into a springboard for my life. Added challenge accomplish one challenge per month.
Bucketlist.org
And the end of the book is a great summarized list to inspire, get you started, or serve as a reminder later on when you feel like you have no ideas.
I do not fault Vanderkam at ALL for focusing on women with families who make $100,000+ a year. That is a super easy bench-marker socially for "successful" and the ideal "she has it all" woman. So her explaining all of that in chapter one made some of the obvious privilege things in this book work for me.
That said: holy hell, I LOVED this book. Talk about a productivity guide and look at time management that makes perfect sense, especially for someone who works non-traditional hours and who chooses energy management, rather than strict hour-by-hour management. Vanderkam had successful women fill out half-hour "mosaics" of how they use their time in a week; looking at the picture for 168 hours a week makes so much more sense than trying to micromanage 24 hours a day. I'm going to try this and see what it looks like.
Her results essentially show a lot of what bothers me in life: "busy" is a narrative we love, "tired" is a narrative we love, and both are total lies. Most people work fewer than 40 hours and most people sleep 7+ hours per night over the course of a week. There's no shame in any of that, but rather, it's enlightening knowing that people love to buy into false narratives of management/tips/tricks/hacks/what have yous.
I'm going to go back and read some of Vanderkam's other books. But she's definitely given me food for thought on how to pair up activities in order to get the most out of them (i.e., if there's a TED talk I want to watch, perhaps I can pair it with a 15 minute elliptical workout and do double duty without needing to "find time" -- it's there already, I just need to make it work for me).
That said: holy hell, I LOVED this book. Talk about a productivity guide and look at time management that makes perfect sense, especially for someone who works non-traditional hours and who chooses energy management, rather than strict hour-by-hour management. Vanderkam had successful women fill out half-hour "mosaics" of how they use their time in a week; looking at the picture for 168 hours a week makes so much more sense than trying to micromanage 24 hours a day. I'm going to try this and see what it looks like.
Her results essentially show a lot of what bothers me in life: "busy" is a narrative we love, "tired" is a narrative we love, and both are total lies. Most people work fewer than 40 hours and most people sleep 7+ hours per night over the course of a week. There's no shame in any of that, but rather, it's enlightening knowing that people love to buy into false narratives of management/tips/tricks/hacks/what have yous.
I'm going to go back and read some of Vanderkam's other books. But she's definitely given me food for thought on how to pair up activities in order to get the most out of them (i.e., if there's a TED talk I want to watch, perhaps I can pair it with a 15 minute elliptical workout and do double duty without needing to "find time" -- it's there already, I just need to make it work for me).
First half is mainly her clients time logs but the second half gives really good tips!
I picked this up during a flying visit to the library as I was about to start into a really busy phase at work, and was hoping to get a few clever tips about time management.
What I got instead was a different perspective on how to manage life. The focus on the 168 hour week was excellent, and I loved seeing all the time logs.
Some of the examples and ideas don't work for people who have more rigid jobs and a long commute, but there is a lot to be taken from the philosophy behind it.
It was also very well written and engaging, which really helped with the message.
What I got instead was a different perspective on how to manage life. The focus on the 168 hour week was excellent, and I loved seeing all the time logs.
Some of the examples and ideas don't work for people who have more rigid jobs and a long commute, but there is a lot to be taken from the philosophy behind it.
It was also very well written and engaging, which really helped with the message.
There were some great takeaways from this book. One: look at your time over the span of a week vs a day. I.e.: you may not be able to exercise every morning at 5 am because life happens, but perhaps you can squeeze in a walk one day, or wake up in the morning just a couple of days a week. Also, it can be depressing if you just look at what little you accomplish on any given day, but more encouraging to see what you can do in the span of a week.
I also loved this idea of looking at your life as a series of mosaics. It is so common for us as humans to focus on the challenging aspects of a day, etc. However, if we view our days/weeks/experiences as mosaics we can choose to focus on those brighter spots: the great conversations we had with kids, those brief meaningful moments and not just at the darker parts like when we yelled or had no patience.
The book just helped me think outside of the box--to be a bit more creative and also intentional with the use of time, etc. As a SAHM, it is easy to dismiss family time/weekend time etc as it is plentiful. But it also means that I don't use it wisely. I like how this book gave me ideas of how I could be more intentional with how I spend my time both with my family and also for myself.
I also loved this idea of looking at your life as a series of mosaics. It is so common for us as humans to focus on the challenging aspects of a day, etc. However, if we view our days/weeks/experiences as mosaics we can choose to focus on those brighter spots: the great conversations we had with kids, those brief meaningful moments and not just at the darker parts like when we yelled or had no patience.
The book just helped me think outside of the box--to be a bit more creative and also intentional with the use of time, etc. As a SAHM, it is easy to dismiss family time/weekend time etc as it is plentiful. But it also means that I don't use it wisely. I like how this book gave me ideas of how I could be more intentional with how I spend my time both with my family and also for myself.
I have mixed feelings about this book. Vanderkam uses data she collected as part of The Mosaic Project, a time-log study, to find insights on how successful women organize their lives. While I recognize and use many of these tips already, I was deeply disappointed in the study itself. The main reason is because she only collected time logs from people who made $100,000 and over per year. Vanderkam gives the reasons for this in the first chapter, but I don't think this helps many of us. Librarians, teachers, writers, people in the education and nonprofit sectors will never see that kind of salary. She says that most "successful" women don't work more than 50 or 60 hours a week, but what about women who are successful but don't, and never will make that much money? I freelance on top of my regular full-time workload, and I have to struggle to make my life work. Wait till you see my time logs. I use a lot of her strategies already, so maybe I should have written this book. I got really mad during the part where she talks about child care. She makes a blanket judgment that in-home care is inferior to center care. For one, some of us can't afford center care - and even if I could, I might not choose it, because my in-home sitters have been amazing. Vanderkam recommends nannies, which of course would be ideal, but I could never afford that in a million years. I realize I am extremely lucky to have the life I do, and I am so grateful for my in-home care, my husband, my parents, and friends who help me raise my child, do my work, and keep up with my house. But money makes things so much easier, and if Vanderkam had recognized this, this book would have been a lot more useful. The other thing that bugged me, as in other time management books, is that a few assumptions are made: most of these women have flex-time or some other work from home arrangement, and their jobs are white-collar (lawyers, accountants etc.) Duh, because those are the people who make the most money! What about retail and public-facing jobs, where we have to show up in the office, and often nights and weekends? Some of us also have management responsibilities on top of all of the public-facing stuff. Maybe I should write a time management book. Clearly, I am not learning anything anymore.
Ce livre me donne envie de devenir une femme de carrière (encore plus qu'avant). Il est super inspirant et donne d'excellents trucs, que vous gagniez 100 000 $ ou non, pour mieux concilier une vie de famille et une carrière sans compromis. On entend souvent ces femmes qui disent qu'elles vont devoir rester à la maison, travailler à temps partiel ou se trouver un emploi moins stressant si elles ont plus qu'un enfant, et ce livre prouve qu'il est possible d'avoir une carrière enlevante et une vie de famille épanouie. C'est aussi un excellent livre pour apprendre à mieux gérer son temps. Depuis que je l'ai lu, je suis beaucoup plus consciente du temps que je dévoue à chaque chose. Honnêtement, je recommande ce livre à n'importe qui qui veut des enfants ou en a. Il permet de mettre un terme à ce mythe de « superwoman » qui est capable de travailler et d'avoir des enfants... (comme si les hommes ne le faisaient pas déjà depuis toujours), et précise plutôt qu'il suffit de bien organiser ses priorités et de savoir faire des choix.