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cbaszler's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars. Some of this book is spent laying out strategies women use to piece together work, family, and personal time to create an overall mosaic that is fulfilling and achievable: flexibility in work place and hours, being intentional with time and tasks in work and at home, etc. Those parts read like a Women's Studies course textbook (definitely skimmable), not presenting anything new, but documenting the current landscape (mine included).
For me, the useful parts of this book provided perspective and encouragement to support women in the midst of this landscape, arming us to be successful. I appreciate the recognition of the important part work plays in a person's life, particularly in a woman's life, which doesn't disappear when she becomes a parent.
Three quotes from this book that I will take with me:
1. Life is stressful and life is wonderful; there is no contradiction here. These facts exist side by side.
2. The laundry can wait. Contentment shouldn't.
3. What is a deeply-held value, and what is merely a script memorized long ago? Sometimes life is hard for a good reason. Sometimes, narratives serve no purpose beyond keeping you from the life you want.
For me, the useful parts of this book provided perspective and encouragement to support women in the midst of this landscape, arming us to be successful. I appreciate the recognition of the important part work plays in a person's life, particularly in a woman's life, which doesn't disappear when she becomes a parent.
Three quotes from this book that I will take with me:
1. Life is stressful and life is wonderful; there is no contradiction here. These facts exist side by side.
2. The laundry can wait. Contentment shouldn't.
3. What is a deeply-held value, and what is merely a script memorized long ago? Sometimes life is hard for a good reason. Sometimes, narratives serve no purpose beyond keeping you from the life you want.
annabean's review against another edition
5.0
Laura Vanderkam is one of my favorite productivity/time management writers. She takes a positive spin on the women's "busyness" epidemic. She challenges us to re-frame our time by looking at the 168 hours in the a week rather than the 24 hours in a day. In this book, she asks women with big jobs and children to track their time for a week to see how the "do it." She uses this information to show some simple (but not easy) ways to make more time for the things that matter most. Spoiler Alert: this requires some hard choices and a clear understanding of your priorities. S I look forward to Ms. Vanderkam's next book.
kamileishman's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed this book! There were a lot of good tips on how to prioritize and make the most of your time to fit in both quality family time and work.
ksherman712's review
4.0
LK says working moms have approximately 30hours per week for leisure activities. 🤔 I definitely spend a lot of time reading, and wasting away on FB. I wonder if this is true. I started logging my time today, and can’t wait to see how I use my time. A few interesting tips in here on working split shifts, and building slack into your daily schedule. A few new practices... I’m going to read topical articles at the start of my work day instead of letting them pile up, and I’m happily getting off the Inbox 0 train....will report back.
sandreasen's review against another edition
3.0
I love books like this but I must say the content seemed to be almost identical to vanderkam's book 168 hours.
sophierayton's review against another edition
4.0
This book is aimed at American women in the workplace. I only match one out of those three, but I still found it very interesting and encouraging. There seems to be a lot of 'us' and 'them' mentality regarding women who have paid employment and childcare and those who do not. This book addresses that issue a bit, but in a somewhat defensive manner. Ladies - let's celebrate and encourage all of our sisters, no matter how they chose to live their life. You do you, and I'll do me, and we can all just get along fine.
everydayreading's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this book - I think it is so applicable to anyone, no matter their life circumstances, to help you think through your priorities, how to streamline your schedule, and how to make room for what matters in life to you (and what you can let go of).
eabrevaya's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
2.75
I was not the target demographic for this book so I knew some things would not be applicable to my life but I still hoped to get something from it so I picked it up anyways. I found there to be some useful bits of information like considering the week not the day and your life can be organized in whatever way fits your schedule and life can and will throw curve balls at you, there wasn't anything groundbreaking. The book was repetitive and could have been condensed. While many of the insights on the people in the project's schedules were interesting the author did not seem to extract any information that was not presented at face value when some really fascinating insights could have been pulled with a different approach. While overall the book was interesting it is not something I would go back to and reference or would recommend for anyone but a really specific individual.
kayladro's review against another edition
5.0
Obviously I don't have kids but this was still a super helpful and enlightening way to think about the half hours (aka mosaic pieces) that make up our lives. I love everything Laura Vanderkam writes!
starryeyedenigma's review against another edition
3.0
My rating: 3.7 Stars
The mosaic metaphor is that life consists of many tiles. Some tiles are stressful and some are wonderful. - Laura Vanderkam
Laura's statement above sums up her time management lesson in this book. It's funny how I've started opening up to more self help books lately. I read an awesome self help book called How to be a Badass last year and was able to take some very good lessons from the book, which are still working for me. And now this. I'm a new mom to an 8 month old and I've rejoined work post my long maternity leave, so it was an obvious choice to pick this book up, just because it talks about so much positivity about women who want to have it all and can have it all too, without feeling guilty.
What I really liked about this book is that it doesn't have too many lessons, but has a lot of facts about how real women are managing time- those statistics make it seem real. One can't pick up this book and say, well, its easy to preach, but let's see how you deal with it in real life- because that's exactly what the book does- it talks about women who aren't preaching, but actually practicing awesome time management in their lives - making time for their careers, family, children, exercise/health and themselves too! It really is possible, with a little change in mindset (using Laura's tips in the book) and some time management.
That said, I didn't give this book my awesome 4+ stars, just because, towards the second half of the book, I thought I had learnt what I needed to learn from the beginning itself, and the time logs started to feel slightly repetitive. Also, in my kindle, the book finishes at 80% and then the remaining 20% are just sources from where the author has picked up her statistics from, for the book. So that was a bit of a let down too.
My summary- a good read for moms or working moms, who just need a little bit of motivation to live life queen size :)
The mosaic metaphor is that life consists of many tiles. Some tiles are stressful and some are wonderful. - Laura Vanderkam
Laura's statement above sums up her time management lesson in this book. It's funny how I've started opening up to more self help books lately. I read an awesome self help book called How to be a Badass last year and was able to take some very good lessons from the book, which are still working for me. And now this. I'm a new mom to an 8 month old and I've rejoined work post my long maternity leave, so it was an obvious choice to pick this book up, just because it talks about so much positivity about women who want to have it all and can have it all too, without feeling guilty.
What I really liked about this book is that it doesn't have too many lessons, but has a lot of facts about how real women are managing time- those statistics make it seem real. One can't pick up this book and say, well, its easy to preach, but let's see how you deal with it in real life- because that's exactly what the book does- it talks about women who aren't preaching, but actually practicing awesome time management in their lives - making time for their careers, family, children, exercise/health and themselves too! It really is possible, with a little change in mindset (using Laura's tips in the book) and some time management.
That said, I didn't give this book my awesome 4+ stars, just because, towards the second half of the book, I thought I had learnt what I needed to learn from the beginning itself, and the time logs started to feel slightly repetitive. Also, in my kindle, the book finishes at 80% and then the remaining 20% are just sources from where the author has picked up her statistics from, for the book. So that was a bit of a let down too.
My summary- a good read for moms or working moms, who just need a little bit of motivation to live life queen size :)