168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

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The “Best of Both Worlds” podcast which I co-host with Sarah Hart-Unger airs every Tuesday where we talk about the challenges and joys of working and raising families.

There were also several insulting references to families that chose to have the wife/mom stay at home, which admittedly made continuing to read more difficult for me (I'm a stay-at-home mom). For example, while I might think I only sleep about 7 hours a day, I might not be taking into account, the time I take getting to sleep, or even napping. This really is a book about people living their dream lives and dream jobs and accomplishing their goals, and fundamental to all of that is first taking control of your time. When I flip over to the reports tab, the first thing I do is change the report so that I only see data for the week of April 26 - May 2. You can still have a home cooked meal by opening a can of lobster bisque or microwaving a frozen burrito.After all, as much as I enjoy watching shows on Netflix to decompress, I’d infinitely prefer to actually learn something new, like how to play the guitar.

After a thorough assessment of current time usage, Vanderkam provides advice on how to both design and implement your “ideal” 168-hour plan. Easily identify tasks that eat time: This is an especially effective way to determine which activities are taking up more time than perhaps you realized. As the title suggests, Vanderkam argues that each of us has 168 hours each week and how we use those hours is a personal choice. That means, after all of those things—assuming I’ve guessed correctly—I have 72 hours to spend on the other things I like doing. There are suggestions that just aren't for everyone and I think she could have more examples that don't all include outsourcing every possible part of your life, but overall, useful and insightful.

If you haven't done any reading on mindful time management, then I suppose this book is a decent place to start, as long as you remember that Vanderkam wrote it for people *exactly like her*, and take her advice with a pinch of salt. But for someone who makes less than that, or is just surviving paycheck to paycheck, some of Vanderkam's 'solutions' would be impractical. And I know Yoni Freedhoff, author of The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work, would not approve of Vanderkam's convenience food dinners. Because Americans spend bags of money on air conditioning and cars and coffee and other things which Laura Vanderkam thinks are a waste of money.

I gave an extra star just because I did get some useful ideas from the first 150 pages, but I'm going to save the other 2 hours from my 168 to bake a loaf of from-scratch bread with my four year old.If we re-examine our weekly allotment of 168 hours, we’ll find that, with a little reorganization and prioritizing, we can dedicate more time to the things we want to do without having to make sacrifices. If you’ve ever needed a kick in the butt or want to figure out how people seem to get so much done in a day, this is a great book to reassess your time usage and build a plan to better utilize and prioritize your time.

She encourages you to list your 100 dreams and core competencies and then arrange your schedule to reflect your aspirations, values, and strengths. In my line of work, I came to work when my boss said, stayed as long as I was scheduled to work, went to whatever meetings I was required to attend and thanked the Good Lord that I was employed. However, I respond well to blunt facts and her point that “everything you choose to do is a choice” forced me to consider how exactly I’m using each of the minutes in my 168 hours. Once you know how you’d like to spend your time, it’s important to figure out where the time is going now. I don't think people should read an excessive amount of self-help materials - at some point you just gotta start implementing what you read instead of being caught in the perpetual, never-ending reading cycle, yes?

How about showing your kids that grown-ups and families have work and that work--whatever honest work it happens to be--is worthwhile.