I Know How She Does It

I Know How She Does It Plot Summary

Introduction

I often find myself standing in front of my closet at 7:30 AM, staring at a basket of clean laundry that needs to be folded, emails that need responses, and children who need breakfast – all while the clock ticks mercilessly toward my first meeting. In these moments, I feel the weight of the impossible expectation to do it all perfectly. Perhaps you've been there too, caught in the tension between ambition and presence, between career and family, between what society expects and what your heart desires. Yet what if we could reimagine this daily struggle? What if, instead of seeing our lives as a constant battle against time, we viewed them as a beautiful mosaic – intricate patterns where each tile represents a moment spent with intention? Through conversations with successful women who have crafted lives of both achievement and joy, I've discovered that the question isn't whether we can "have it all," but rather how we can arrange the pieces of our lives into patterns that honor what matters most to us. These women aren't superhuman – they're strategic, intentional, and refreshingly honest about both their struggles and their victories. They've found ways to invest deeply in their careers while creating space for family dinners, solo runs at dawn, and quiet moments of reflection. Their stories invite us to stop fighting time and instead learn to dance with it.

Chapter 1: The Mosaic Project: Understanding How Women Create Balance

Lynda Bascelli's life could easily be described as overwhelming. As medical director at a center for the homeless, she treats people living through trauma every day. With three school-aged children and a working husband, her schedule appears impossibly full on paper. Yet when I examined her time log, what struck me wasn't stress but spaciousness. Her mornings included journaling, yoga, and time on the elliptical. Her evenings featured guitar playing and poetry reading. Even during ten-hour days seeing patients, there was a rhythm that felt sustainable rather than frantic. How was this possible? Bascelli had developed what I came to call a "good enough" mindset. Her husband's flexible schedule allowed him to handle many household responsibilities. Her children had grown increasingly independent – "They grab their own food," she explained, adding that one child walked himself to the bus stop. They employed a college student who lived with them and helped with after-school activities. Perhaps most importantly, she had learned to "let a lot of stuff go." Her seven-year-old "goes to school in whatever she chooses to put on. It can be completely mismatched, but that's a victory – she gets herself ready." This perspective was cultivated through years of parenting three children – a journey that tends to mellow even the most stubborn perfectionists. It also stemmed from her work with homeless patients. "People run out of money, they run out of food stamps, they're cold," she explained. In this context, fretting over matching clothes seemed inconsequential. "Nobody ever died of going-to-school-in-the-same-shirt-as-yesterday disease," she noted wisely. To understand how women like Bascelli create balanced lives, I launched what I called the "Mosaic Project" – a time diary study of 1,001 days in the lives of women who earn over $100,000 and have at least one child at home. The results challenged the popular narrative that successful women are perpetually exhausted. Women in my study slept an average of 54 hours weekly (about 7.7 hours per night) and spent 3.3 hours exercising – more than public health guidelines recommend. They worked an average of 44 hours weekly – substantial but far from the 80-hour workweeks many assume are necessary for high achievement. What emerged was not a single pattern for success, but a mosaic of strategies as unique as the women themselves. Some worked split shifts, leaving the office at reasonable hours to spend evenings with family before logging back on after children's bedtimes. Others concentrated intense work hours early in the week to create space later. Many leveraged flexibility in when and where they worked, designing schedules that honored both professional contributions and personal priorities. The key insight wasn't about finding perfect balance each day, but about creating a life that felt balanced when viewed as a whole.

Chapter 2: Work: Redefining Success Beyond 9-5

Jessie Neville, an intellectual property attorney and mother of three young children, found herself at a crossroads after the birth of her third child. The stress of managing client demands and billable hour targets had become overwhelming, and she was fully prepared to quit her legal career. Her firm, reluctant to lose her expertise, offered her a contract that released her from billable hour requirements. She could essentially design her own schedule and be paid for what she billed. It seemed like the perfect solution, but Neville struggled with this newfound freedom. "I feel a little bit like a social experiment here," she confessed, noting how few female attorneys at her firm had three children. The uncertainty of how to structure her time led to inefficient habits. She would do "mom work" like running errands after her nanny arrived in the morning but before starting her workday. One Tuesday, she spent two hours tidying the house before her cleaning service arrived, not beginning billable work until 10:20 AM. "Work was in last place, behind pretty much everything else," she admitted. Yet something important was missing from this arrangement: "I do like the work," Neville realized. "It's suited to my skills. I like to problem solve. I like to help people. I like to look at details." After careful consideration, she made a surprising decision – to return to a salaried position with billable hour targets. With her family's support, she implemented a more structured approach to her days. She started taking the bus to the office, which forced her to leave home promptly. "I get here by nine every day. I leave a little after five every day," she explained. She delegated errands to her nanny and became more strategic about billing her time. The numbers told a compelling story: on a Tuesday in January, she worked just 5 hours and billed 3.3. Nine months later, on a comparable Tuesday, she worked 9 hours and billed 7.5. Despite nearly doubling her work hours, she still played with her kids in the morning, enjoyed family dinner, scheduled personal appointments, and read before bed. Working more hadn't required sacrificing family or self-care – it simply meant focusing on what she did best and eliminating distractions. Neville's experience challenges the assumption that success requires harsh trade-offs or that working mothers must limit their ambitions. The women in my study worked more hours than the average American (44 versus about 35), but this additional investment yielded disproportionate returns in terms of compensation and career growth. What's more, these women found ways to structure their hours that preserved what mattered most to them. They didn't achieve success by neglecting their families or themselves, but by being intentional about how they invested their time across all domains of life.

Chapter 3: Family: Creating Quality Moments Amid Busy Lives

Diana Hobbs, a project manager in San Antonio, approaches her weekday evenings with an intentionality that transforms what could be a chaotic march toward bedtime into something meaningful. On Monday evening, she, her husband, and their two children (ages four and six) took a family walk with the dog. Then she and her husband prepared dinner using vegetables from their garden. Wednesday brought a visit with her brother. Thursday, they picked strawberries and jumped rope with the kids, and Friday, they went out for ice cream. When I asked about her evening routine, Hobbs explained that she's always been conscious of these hours. "I used to go to night school after work," she told me. "You can pack in a lot after work. You can get a whole degree!" Now, she and her husband call each other during her bus ride home to plan the evening. "We talk about what we might do," she says. "If you come home and you're tired and you don't know what you're going to do, then surprises wear you out." Instead, they brainstorm plans so they can mentally prepare. If she's decided "I'd like to play a board game with the kids tonight," she can walk in the door excited about this activity rather than dreading the evening rush. Hobbs isn't alone in finding ways to create quality family time amid busy schedules. Eileen Hiromura, who works for Google in California, makes time for creative projects with her young children despite her demanding job and long commute. Her time log showed two hours spent building with Legos on Sunday, and weekday evenings included an entry of "color stained glass pictures with kids." She explained these were special coloring books on wax paper that, when hung in windows, create a stained-glass effect. "It's what we do at night," she says. "The black lines are thicker, so stained glass is forgiving." These artistic sessions have slowly transformed the decor of their home. "We have French doors all around the living room, and have room for about one hundred stained glass windows. We're at around sixty right now!" For many parents, mealtime provides another opportunity for connection. While "family dinner" has become a sacred concept in modern parenting discussions, Mosaic Project participants found creative ways to make meals work with their schedules. Some focused on breakfast instead, noting that morning meals often involve less arguing about food preferences than dinner. Others prioritized weekend meals, creating special Sunday dinner traditions or Saturday morning brunches. One family made homemade pizza every Friday night, turning meal preparation into a collective activity everyone looked forward to. What stands out across these stories is not perfect consistency, but rather the intention to create spaces where family members connect authentically. These women didn't measure success by achieving some idealized vision of family life every day. Instead, they recognized that meaningful moments often emerge from simple activities – playing board games, creating art, sharing meals – done with full presence rather than distraction. They worked with the constraints of their schedules rather than fighting against them, finding pockets of time where connections could flourish. This approach represents a fundamental shift in how we might think about balancing work and family. Rather than seeing these domains as locked in competition for our time and attention, successful women view them as complementary parts of a fulfilling life. The key is not minimizing time at work to maximize time at home, but rather being intentional about how we spend our hours across all domains.

Chapter 4: Self-Care: Finding Space Within Full Schedules

Alicia Meulensteen, an executive at a major nonprofit, woke around 5:00 AM one Wednesday in February. While her husband, baby, and three-year-old slept, she quietly pumped milk and changed into gym clothes. By 5:45 AM, she was out the door to attend a spin class a few blocks from her New York City home. After returning by 7:00 AM to help get her children ready, she dropped them at daycare and headed to her midtown office for a day filled with meetings. That evening, after arriving home around 5:00 PM, she focused on family time – playing with the children, having dinner, giving baths, and reading bedtime stories. She was in charge of getting the baby to sleep, which she accomplished before 8:00 PM, while her husband handled the more time-consuming bedtime routine for their three-year-old. As she heard him still working to settle their toddler, Meulensteen made a decision that might surprise those who assume working mothers have no time for themselves. Instead of using those uncertain minutes to clean or check email, she slipped out to the nail salon around the corner from their TriBeCa home. "They're open until nine thirty or ten," she explained. "I'll get my nails done, I'll bring a book, something to read and kind of hang out for an hour, then walk home." Since the salon was just two minutes away, "I come home and I haven't really lost any time." Her husband would still be available to watch TV together before bed. This weekly manicure wasn't just about grooming – it was an intentional pause in her busy life. "I'm a big introvert and need alone time to recharge," she explained. "I make a point of being up before the family so I can unapologetically do my own thing in or out of the house." The weekly manicure let her "just zone out without anyone needing a thing from me." Contrary to popular narratives about harried working mothers, women in the Mosaic Project consistently found ways to nurture themselves. They slept an average of 54 hours weekly – about 7.7 hours per night – and 91% incorporated some form of exercise into their routines. They read books, enjoyed hobbies, and maintained friendships. Rather than viewing self-care as a luxury they couldn't afford, they recognized it as essential fuel for sustainable performance in all areas of life. How did they make this happen? First, they recognized that self-care doesn't require vast swaths of uninterrupted time. Lisa Camooso Miller, a communications executive, woke at 5:00 AM for CrossFit classes before her children stirred. Em Hillier, who ran two businesses while being the primary caregiver for her young children, worked on her enterprises from 7:30 to 11:30 PM most nights after her children were asleep, creating clear boundaries between her different roles. Natasha Dwyer, an Australian academic, made sleep a priority by being "obsessed with being horizontal by ten p.m." Her evening ritual included watching an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot with her two-year-old son before they co-slept, ensuring they both got nearly nine hours of rest. The most successful women approached self-care not as something that happened after everything else was done (it never would be), but as an essential component of their weekly schedule. They defended this time with the same commitment they brought to client meetings or pediatrician appointments. In doing so, they created sustainable lives that allowed them to show up fully present in all their roles – not because they were superhuman, but because they had learned to honor their own needs alongside those of their families and careers.

Chapter 5: Time Management: Practical Strategies from High Achievers

Jessie Neville struggled with a dilemma familiar to many ambitious professionals with families: how to find enough hours for meaningful work without sacrificing precious time with her young children. After taking eighteen months off from her legal career following the birth of her third child, she initially attempted to work whenever she could fit it in. The result was a scattered approach that left her feeling frustrated professionally and personally. One Tuesday in January, her time log revealed a revealing pattern. She arrived at work at 10:20 AM after spending two hours tidying up before her cleaning service arrived. Throughout the day, she found herself handling household administrative tasks during prime working hours. By the end of the day, she had worked just five hours and billed only 3.3 of them. "If I'm not going to succeed at work, I might as well go to Office Max and buy all this stuff," she recalled thinking, reflecting the internal narrative that she couldn't excel in both domains. Nine months later, after returning to a salaried position with billable hour targets, her approach had transformed dramatically. She now took the bus to the office, which created a non-negotiable departure time each morning. "I get here by nine every day. I leave a little after five every day," she explained. She delegated household errands to her nanny and became strategic about scheduling client work. The results were striking: on a comparable Tuesday, she worked nine hours and billed 7.5 of them – more than double her previous productivity. What changed wasn't Neville's commitment to her family, but rather her approach to structuring her time. She stopped treating work as something to squeeze in around the edges of life and instead created clear boundaries that allowed her to be fully present in each domain. When she needed to hit billable targets, her husband would take the children for a few hours on weekends. By making these deliberate trade-offs, she found she could achieve professional success without sacrificing family time. This strategy of creating clear boundaries between different domains of life appeared repeatedly in the time logs of successful women. Some practiced what I call "split shifts" – leaving work at a reasonable hour to spend evenings with family, then logging back on after children's bedtime to complete additional work. Others concentrated intense work early in the week to create more flexibility later. Many worked remotely one or two days weekly, eliminating commute time and allowing them to be physically present for school events or medical appointments. Perhaps most importantly, these women avoided what I call the "24-Hour Trap" – the assumption that balance requires fitting all priorities into each 24-hour period. Instead, they thought in terms of the full 168 hours of the week. Carolyn Polke, chief operating officer for a media company, couldn't make it home for dinner most nights due to her long commute and the timing of important meetings. Rather than feel guilty about this, she created a different pattern: breakfast with her daughters every morning, later workdays Tuesday through Thursday, work-from-home Fridays that ended early, and fully present weekends. Any given day might not look "balanced," but the week as a whole contained ample time for career, family, and self. These practical approaches reveal that the key to time mastery isn't superhuman efficiency or working less – it's making deliberate choices about how you arrange the hours available to you. By being intentional about the structure of their days and weeks, these women created lives that honored what mattered most to them without perpetually feeling pulled in too many directions.

Chapter 6: Flexibility: The Key to Long-Term Career Growth

Brandy Hebert lives in Maine but works for a major consumer products company headquartered in the Midwest. Every fourth week, she travels to company headquarters, spending four consecutive days on-site with colleagues and clients. During these travel weeks, her time log revealed she socialized or worked late every evening – investing in relationships that sustain her career. The remaining three weeks each month, she works remotely, maintaining those connections virtually while being present for her family. This arrangement gives Hebert something precious: the ability to live where she wants while building a successful career. "I work in an office one week out of every four, and so I sent two logs, from a travel week and a nontravel week," she explained. While her travel weeks involve intense work hours and evening commitments, she compensates during her remote weeks with more family time and personal activities. The flexibility to structure her schedule this way has enabled her to advance professionally without relocating her family or missing key moments in her children's lives. Hebert's story illustrates a crucial insight from the Mosaic Project: flexibility matters more than raw hours worked when it comes to creating a sustainable career. In fact, 75% of participants did something personal during traditional work hours – doctor appointments, school volunteering, exercise, or shopping. Meanwhile, 77% did work during evenings or weekends. This fluidity between domains wasn't a sign of poor boundaries, but rather a deliberate strategy for making all aspects of life fit together. The traditional model of success assumes that serious careers require rigid schedules – being physically present in an office from early morning until evening, five days a week, year after year. This structure inherently limits who can participate, pushing out those with significant caregiving responsibilities or other priorities. But the women in my study demonstrated that alternative models exist and can lead to remarkable achievement. Some leveraged formal flexibility policies, working remotely one or two days weekly or adjusting their hours to accommodate family needs. Others created informal arrangements, leaving early on days their children had activities and making up the time elsewhere. Many used technology to remain accessible while not physically present. A surprising number worked what I call "split shifts" – leaving the office at a reasonable hour to be with family, then logging back on after children's bedtime to complete additional work. These approaches weren't without challenges. Women who worked split shifts sometimes sacrificed personal time or sleep. Those who checked email during family activities occasionally struggled to be fully present. But they recognized these as conscious trade-offs that enabled them to maintain careers they valued alongside rich personal lives. As one consultant put it, "I don't find that hard boundaries work for me. I need fluidity to make all the pieces fit." What's particularly significant is that this flexibility didn't limit these women's career growth – it enabled it. By creating personalized work patterns that accommodated their full lives, they could remain in demanding roles through various life stages rather than stepping back during intensive parenting years. They could pursue opportunities that required travel or intense project work because they had the flexibility to adjust other aspects of their schedules. Rather than seeing flexibility as a concession that signals reduced commitment, these women recognized it as the very thing that allowed their long-term professional development to flourish.

Chapter 7: Mindfulness: Savoring Life Beyond Productivity Metrics

Emma Johnson's life took an unexpected turn when her husband sustained a severe head injury while on a business trip to Greece. Though he survived, the accident changed him, and their marriage couldn't withstand the transformation. They divorced shortly before their second child was born, and Johnson suddenly found herself solely responsible for supporting her family financially and emotionally. It would be easy to focus exclusively on the dark moments from that period – the fear, uncertainty, and overwhelming responsibility. Instead, Johnson chose to look at her life more holistically. She built a thriving career as a freelance writer and media personality, developing efficient systems that allowed her to complete assignments quickly. "I've just been doing what I've been doing for so long I've got it down to a little machine," she explained. "I've learned to ask questions in a very efficient way to evoke the answers I want." She scheduled interviews back-to-back and developed templates that streamlined her workflow, creating space for what truly mattered. And what mattered wasn't just work. Johnson's time log revealed a rich tapestry of experiences: walking her daughter to the bus stop each morning, lingering over breakfast with her three-year-old son, practicing yoga, hosting a radio show, going on dates, and taking her children on a ten-day solo road trip ("It was terrible. Terribly awesome!"). When I asked how she managed such a full life, she explained that she intentionally cultivated gratitude for both the calm moments and the chaotic ones. "I'm honoring all of those things," she said. "If anything is out of whack, I'm just not productive." Johnson's approach reflects a mindfulness practice I observed across many Mosaic Project participants – the ability to fully inhabit each moment rather than constantly rushing toward the next. Lynda Bascelli, the medical director we met earlier, deliberately chose to start her mornings with journaling and yoga rather than housework. Eileen Hiromura made time to color stained glass pictures with her children each evening, creating a ritual that became central to their family culture. Alicia Meulensteen slipped out to the nail salon while her husband handled bedtime, creating space to "zone out without anyone needing a thing from me." These women weren't practicing mindfulness as another productivity hack, but as a way of experiencing their lives more fully. They recognized that constantly dwelling on what wasn't getting done robbed them of the joy available in the present moment. Instead of viewing mindfulness as something that required additional time they didn't have, they incorporated it into their existing activities – being fully present during their commute, savoring family meals without checking phones, or enjoying the physical sensation of exercise rather than mentally rehearsing work presentations. Perhaps most importantly, these women had learned to resist the cultural narrative that success requires constant sacrifice and struggle. They acknowledged difficult moments without allowing them to define their entire experience. As one participant told me, "I used to have guilt. I don't have guilt anymore" after realizing how much time she actually spent with her children despite her demanding career. Another began creating what she called "First World Fridays" – a practice of catching herself when she complained about minor inconveniences and instead focusing on gratitude for her abundant life. This mindful approach allowed these women to experience both the challenges and joys of their complex lives without getting trapped in stories about what was missing or inadequate. They had learned that life is not a problem to be solved, but rather a mosaic to be appreciated – with both bright and dark tiles contributing to the overall beauty of the pattern.

Summary

At its heart, mastering time isn't about squeezing more productivity from each minute or achieving perfect balance every day. It's about intentionally arranging the tiles of your life into a mosaic that reflects what matters most to you. The women we've met throughout these pages demonstrate that it's possible to build successful careers, nurture loving families, and care for ourselves without constantly feeling we're failing at all three. They've done this not by discovering magical shortcuts or superhuman efficiencies, but by questioning limiting assumptions about how lives should be structured. The real breakthrough comes from recognizing that we have more agency than we think. We can choose to view our 168 hours as a blank canvas rather than a predetermined grid. We can reject the false dichotomies that tell us professional achievement and personal fulfillment are mutually exclusive. We can learn to be fully present in each moment rather than perpetually dwelling on what we're missing. And perhaps most importantly, we can stop measuring ourselves against impossible standards and instead create our own definition of a well-lived life. As one woman so beautifully expressed it: "Remember the berry season is short." Our time here is limited, but it is enough to create something meaningful, beautiful, and uniquely our own.

About Author

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Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including:The New Corner OfficeOff the ClockI Know How She Does ItWhat the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast168 HoursLaura is also the author of a time management fable, Juliet’s School of Possibilities and another novel, The Cortlandt Boys, which is available as an ebook.Her 2016 TED talk, "How to Gain Control of Your Free Time," has been viewed more than 5 million times. She regularly appears in publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Fortune. She is the host of two weekly podcasts, Before Breakfast and The New Corner Office and she is the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the weekly podcast Best of Both Worlds. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children, and blogs at LauraVanderkam.com.

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