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A review by thebookishbollinger
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam
3.0
This book is written for a very specific kind of woman, Laura Vanderkam admits that her research focused on “successful” women with a very limited definition of success. She measures by woman who work, making at least $100,000 a year and have children. She challenges the “you can’t have it all” mindset by focusing more on how people choose to spend their time when they use the mosaic model to break down their day into 15-30 minute chunks.
While I do not fall into her definition of success (yet!) I gleaned some very insightful ideas for the future and still found it applicable to my current work/life balance. As someone who works full-time in the corporate world and working toward my MBA, my first response to “How are you” seems to always be “Oh I’m good, you know just busy!” Vanderkam challenges that response and why our society wants to perpetuate that harried lifestyle. Her research shows that when working women take the time to break down their schedules, they can see exactly where they are spending their time and make the necessary adjustments to focus time into things that fulfill them more.
I do understand that the women studied in this book had access to significant resources that won’t be available to the average woman, including hire a private chef to cook dinner throughout the week and bring the cleaning lady in multiple times a week to keep you from doing too many chores during time you could be spending with your kids! I think that the overarching principle of study how you currently do spend your time and make the necessary adjustments and challenge society’s version of the “we must always stay busy” can be applied to everyone across the board.
While I do not fall into her definition of success (yet!) I gleaned some very insightful ideas for the future and still found it applicable to my current work/life balance. As someone who works full-time in the corporate world and working toward my MBA, my first response to “How are you” seems to always be “Oh I’m good, you know just busy!” Vanderkam challenges that response and why our society wants to perpetuate that harried lifestyle. Her research shows that when working women take the time to break down their schedules, they can see exactly where they are spending their time and make the necessary adjustments to focus time into things that fulfill them more.
I do understand that the women studied in this book had access to significant resources that won’t be available to the average woman, including hire a private chef to cook dinner throughout the week and bring the cleaning lady in multiple times a week to keep you from doing too many chores during time you could be spending with your kids! I think that the overarching principle of study how you currently do spend your time and make the necessary adjustments and challenge society’s version of the “we must always stay busy” can be applied to everyone across the board.