Instead of relying on the stereotype of the frenzied career mom, time management expert Laura Vanderkam adds hard data to the debate in I KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT: How Successful Women Make The Most of their Time (Portfolio; 6/9/15). Vanderkam collected hour-by-hour time logs from 1,001 days in the lives of women who make at least $100,000 a year. And she found some surprising patterns in how these women spend their 168 hours, including the good news that successful people don’t work as much as you would think. In fact, time diary studies find that very few people consistently work more than 60 hours per week, even if they claim they do. She shares specific strategies that her subjects use to make time for the things that really matter to them. For instance, they work split shifts, take it easy on the housework, and guard their leisure time. Vanderkam also reveals:
**How women create meaningful interactions with children, and partners. For example, instead of rushing home for dinner, women can use breakfast as their meal to spend time together as a family.
**Women spend more time with their kids and have more leisure time than they think. Instead of thinking in intervals of 24 hours, think in 168 hours instead. The weekends count as real life. This means women can and do work and play, sleep and cook and hang out with their kids…and it counts!
**The myth of working part-time: It doesn’t always mean you’ll be working significantly fewer hours. You might wind up working fairly similar hours for lower pay and at a high cost when it comes to promotion.
**Be strategically seen: Don’t fall into the trap of “I’m a working parent and therefore can’t go to post-work events.”
**Childcare: Be honest about how much coverage you need—and don’t feel guilty about it. Using child care is not a sign of parental failure. If it helps your income and work success—which can help your family—go for it.
**How sleep is the biggest source of distortion between impression and reality in people’s lives. If you work 60 hours and sleep 8 hours per night, that leaves 52 hours for other things.
Many of us have space to lean deeper into our careers if we wish, but stories and assumptions—that leaning in will require harsh trade-offs—have great power over our lives. Taking a clear look at all our hours at work and at home is the first step to building a life that’s truly balanced. I KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT shows the good life can be a full life. It will inspire people to build a life that works, one hour at a time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: LAURA VANDERKAM is the best¬selling author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, All the Money in the World, 168 Hours, and Grindhop¬ping. She is a frequent contributor to Fast Company’s website and a member of USA Today’s board of contributors. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and other publications. She lives with her husband and their four children outside Philadelphia. For more information see, www.lauravanderkam.com @lvanderkam