Off the Clock

Off the Clock Plot Summary

Introduction

Does it seem like every day is packed to the brim, yet at the end of the week, you wonder where all the time went? Many of us experience this strange time paradox: technically, we all have the same 24 hours each day, yet some people seem to accomplish so much while feeling relaxed, while others constantly feel rushed and behind. The difference isn't about having more time—it's about having a different relationship with time. Time freedom—the sense that you control your hours rather than being controlled by them—doesn't come from working less or magically creating more hours. Rather, it emerges from developing a mindset that recognizes time is simultaneously precious and plentiful. This seemingly contradictory truth holds the key to feeling less busy while achieving more. The journey toward time freedom begins with understanding that it's not just about managing minutes, but about cultivating awareness, making intentional choices, and transforming how you experience time.

Chapter 1: Track Your Time to Reveal Its True Flow

Time tracking reveals powerful truths about where our hours actually go, not where we think they go. Robert Kauffman, a school principal with twenty-one years of experience, discovered this when he began monitoring his time usage through the National SAM Innovation Project. Like many educators, Kauffman felt overwhelmed by the constant demands of his position—crisis management, administrative work, and a never-ending stream of interruptions at Hillside Elementary School in Michigan, where he worked with many English-language learners. When a data collector shadowed Kauffman for a full week, recording his activities in five-minute increments, the results were eye-opening. He discovered he was spending 39.2 percent of his time on instructional leadership—better than the average principal's 30 percent, but still less than he wanted. The tracking revealed how much time was consumed by cafeteria supervision, answering emails, and paperwork that could be handled by others. Armed with this awareness, Kauffman redesigned his schedule. He created "Teaching Tuesdays" to demonstrate techniques to teachers, designated times for providing positive feedback, and built in thirty minutes daily for personal matters. Most importantly, he left open space in his calendar because "whatever comes up comes up." To maintain accountability, Kauffman and his designated school administration manager checked in daily to evaluate if his time aligned with his priorities. The results were transformative. Within six months, Kauffman increased his instructional leadership time to 51 percent—equivalent to gaining twelve additional days of high-impact work. This shift improved teacher performance, leading to a 4.2 percentage point increase in student math proficiency. As fellow principal J. Thomas Roth noted after implementing similar changes: "It's rare that I'm there past 4:30 P.M. anymore. I can leave for the day knowing what I've accomplished." Time tracking doesn't need to be permanent or all-encompassing. Even tracking for two weeks—one "typical" week and one "atypical" week—can reveal patterns. The goal isn't documenting every minute, but developing mindfulness about time. This awareness creates choice, and choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. The most powerful time tracking insight is often discovering that we have more space than we think. Claudia André, a lawyer who unexpectedly conceived triplets, tracked her time at three points during her first year as a mother of five. Despite warnings that she would "never sleep or have time for herself again," André found that even with five children, she averaged three hours of personal time daily—more than many people without triplets claim to have. Tracking time is just the first step. Next comes envisioning how you'd like to spend your time and implementing daily checks to ensure reality matches intention. Even without tracking every hour forever, we can tend our garden of time by planning "realistic ideal days," creating three-category priority lists (career, relationships, self), and reflecting on what worked and what didn't. Just as Central Park was transformed when it was divided into zones with gardeners who took ownership, our lives bloom when we become our own master gardeners of time.

Chapter 2: Create Meaningful Moments That Expand Time

Memory is the secret currency of time. When people say they want "more time," what they often really mean is "more memories." Our brains process time in a fascinating way—routine moments get compressed in memory, while novel experiences expand it. This explains why childhood summers seemed endless but adult years fly by. Understanding this connection between memory and time perception offers a powerful strategy for feeling time-rich: make life memorable. Psychologist Liz Currin demonstrates this principle through her practice of mentally revisiting cherished moments with her now-grown daughters. She describes visualizing a "treasure chest" overflowing with memory gems, each representing an experience she can revisit. One particular memory she frequently returns to involves taking her young daughters to the neighborhood pool—nothing remarkable, just ordinary moments of bathing suits, sunscreen, swimming, and fruit cups. Yet these mundane details, preserved through intentional remembering, keep her connected to those earlier years. Our brains compress routine experiences—like driving the same commute 235 mornings a year—into a single memory unit. As philosopher William James noted, "Emptiness, monotony, familiarity, make it shrivel up." This explains why entire years can disappear into memory sinkholes. However, during novel or emotionally intense experiences, our brains create more memory markers. NYU psychology professor Lila Davachi explains that "in an environment with a lot of variety and change, you're forming far more memory units than in an environment with very little change." Dorie Clark, a personal branding expert and author, applied this principle after realizing work had consumed her life in New York City. "People asked me the question 'What do you like to do besides work?' and I didn't have any kind of answer for them," she recalls. This epiphany led her to create a project: having at least one uniquely New York adventure each week. She visited the Hasidic Brooklyn, the Armory, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, caught comedy shows, biked along the West Side Highway, and explored food courts in Queens. By year's end, she had documented far more than fifty-two New York-specific memories. Clark's project succeeded because she became intentional about choosing experiences. She subscribed to Time Out New York and scheduled these adventures rather than saying "someday." The project changed how she experienced the city: "Now New York itself is this rich landscape of memories and associations where it wasn't necessarily before." In my time-perception survey, people who agreed that "Yesterday, I did something memorable or out of the ordinary with my time" were 14 percent more likely to feel they generally had enough time. Creating more memories requires understanding the three versions of the self: the anticipating self (who plans the future), the experiencing self (who lives in the present), and the remembering self (who looks back at the past). The challenge is that the experiencing self often sabotages plans for adventures by saying "I'm tired" or "I'll just watch TV." To overcome this, adopt a two-part mantra: "Plan it in" and "Do it anyway." Your anticipating self wanted to do something, your remembering self will be glad to have done it, and your experiencing self may even enjoy parts of it. You don't need extravagant adventures to make days memorable. Small changes create distinctive moments: trying a new lunch spot, taking a morning walk through a different neighborhood, speaking up in a meeting you usually observe, or having breakfast outdoors. By mindfully creating these memory anchors, you stop wondering where time went—because you'll remember exactly where it went, and time will feel fuller as a result.

Chapter 3: Declutter Your Schedule and Create Space

In The New One Minute Manager, the authors describe a master manager whose schedule is surprisingly open. When asked for a meeting, he replies, "Anytime this week is fine, except Wednesday morning. You pick the time." This scenario bears little resemblance to most professionals' calendars, which are typically packed with back-to-back meetings, leaving little space for deep work or reflection. Jeff Heath, who runs Matrix Applied Technologies with facilities spanning from Oklahoma to South Korea and Australia, maintains this rare calendar lightness despite his global responsibilities. "It's more of a mind-set," he explains. "Do I have all the time in the world? Well, I've got the same amount of time as everyone else. I think it's how you approach time." Heath's approach begins with truly valuing time. He never boards a fourteen-hour flight to Asia without planning exactly how to use those hours for work, sleep, and relaxation. This disciplined use of travel time reduces pressure on his other hours. While he works seventy-five-hour weeks when traveling, he works just thirty-five to forty hours when home in Tulsa, averaging a reasonable fifty hours weekly. But his most radical practice is maintaining "white space" on his calendar. "People like having meetings just because it makes them feel like they're busy, and useful, and productive," Heath observes. This cultural bias toward busyness creates a vicious cycle: when everyone's schedule is packed with meetings, people wait for appointed times to make decisions. Since everyone else has scheduled their meetings too, decisions get delayed. Heath breaks this cycle by empowering his team to make decisions without formal meetings. Because he isn't constantly in meetings, colleagues know they can call or stop by anytime. "It's like water," Heath says of schedule clutter. "It will find the openings if you let it. You've got to be really diligent about saying 'Not today.'" This approach has unexpected benefits—his apparent availability has led his parent company to entrust him with more global business lines after acquisitions. The essential insight is that time is a choice. In my time-diary study, people with high time-perception scores worked fewer hours (7.6) than those with low scores (8.6), but the difference wasn't dramatic. The distinction wasn't about working vastly different hours—it was about choosing not to fill all available space. People who feel time-rich often have clear boundaries and compelling evening plans that motivate them to work efficiently during the day. To create more space in your own schedule, consider declaring a "time jubilee"—a clean-slate approach to commitments. At a designated point, all optional obligations end, allowing you to thoughtfully choose what to reintroduce. When evaluating activities, ask: "What is my purpose here?" If there's no satisfying answer, it belongs in the "toss" category. Be equally careful with future commitments by asking: "Would I do this tomorrow?" If your immediate reaction is that you're too busy tomorrow, recognize that your future self will likely be just as busy. Building in space also requires calendar triage—regularly reviewing upcoming commitments and consolidating or eliminating where possible. Another time-freeing strategy is creating "time dividends"—investments that pay off repeatedly. Damon Brown, an entrepreneur and author who became a primary caregiver after his son's birth, mastered this by restricting his work to fifteen focused hours weekly. He wrote his three most important goals for each day on an index card, reasoning that fifteen important things weekly adds up to 750 important things yearly. Perhaps the most significant time decluttering involves digital distractions. In my study, people with high time-perception scores checked their phones an average of 5.35 times hourly, while those with the lowest scores checked nearly 13 times hourly. Research confirms that checking email less frequently reduces stress, even though not checking theoretically could increase anxiety about missing something. The key insight: doing nothing is sometimes better than doing something. Even ten minutes spent looking at the sky without filling the time can feel surprisingly long. As poet Mary Oliver wrote after spending a day "idle and blessed" watching grasshoppers: "Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?"

Chapter 4: Master the Art of Being Present

KJ Dell'Antonia, author and regular New York Times contributor, lives in rural New Hampshire with four hockey-playing children. For years, she was perpetually rushing and running late to practices and games across New England. When she conquered her lateness habit by being realistic about preparation time, she felt ready for a new challenge: learning to linger in the moments of her busy life. As she considered what word might guide her new approach, Dell'Antonia discovered something curious: "Most words around taking time, spending time, going more slowly, have this negative connotation. Dillydally. Dawdle. They're all bad. They're all things you say to a recalcitrant toddler." After much contemplation, she settled on "linger" as her word for the year—suggesting a mature, luxurious approach to time rather than mere slowness. Dell'Antonia implemented lingering through practical strategies. First, when enjoying something, she stays with it rather than rushing to the next task. When her family eats dinner in shifts due to hockey practices, she remains at the table through "the second shift," encouraging others to stay longer too. Second, she views weekend hockey trips as opportunities for exploration. In Manchester, they discovered a chocolate shop they now visit whenever games take them there. Finally, she practices mental awareness, catching herself when tension creeps in: "I'll just be driving along, with my teeth clenched and shoulders up." She reminds herself, "Hold up: there is nothing wrong." This ability to fully inhabit the present moment—to linger—is a critical component of time freedom. The challenge is that the present moment is fleeting. As psychologist William James noted, it "has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming." Complete bliss is seldom possible in our temporal bodies, yet we can cultivate practices that enhance our experience of now. The foundation for lingering is first mastering punctuality. When you're constantly late, you're perpetually rushed, counting minutes until you reach your destination. Many chronically late people aren't rude—they're often people-pleasers who can't end conversations, or they're wildly optimistic about how long activities take. Breaking this pattern requires tracking how long things actually take and building in generous buffers. When Andrew Glincher, CEO of law firm Nixon Peabody, prepares to arrive somewhere, he adds fifteen minutes to his travel time, knowing people will stop him in hallways to talk. Beyond punctuality, lingering requires active savoring—feeling pleasure and appreciating that you are feeling pleasure. This two-layer experience expands time. In their book "Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience," researchers Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff describe how Bryant maximized his experience of summiting Snowmass Mountain. Beyond enjoying the view, he embraced his friends, recalled his back injury that almost ended his climbing career, projected himself into the future imagining looking back on this memory, and deliberately recorded sensory details to capture the moment. Bryant and Veroff identified dozens of savoring strategies: thinking about sharing the memory later, acknowledging each pleasurable sensation, reminding yourself how long you waited for this moment, becoming more alert, slowing down, expressing your appreciation to others present, and reminding yourself that nothing lasts forever. They also identified "Kill-Joy Thinking" tactics that undermine enjoyment, particularly thinking about other obligations when you should be present. To cultivate savoring, Bryant recommends mental time travel. When teaching undergraduates, he imagines himself years in the future, in a nursing home, wishing he could stand before a classroom of bright minds one more time. Then he opens his eyes and realizes, "That's today!" This constructed contrast awakens him to the joy of ordinary moments. You can practice savoring through a "Daily Vacation Exercise"—spending 10-20 minutes each day on an enjoyable activity like watching a sunset, visiting a bookstore, or walking in a park. During this time, notice each pleasurable sensation, label your positive feelings, and build memory anchors. By consciously lingering in these moments rather than mindlessly scrolling through social media, you remind yourself that you have downtime, making time feel more abundant.

Chapter 5: Invest in Happiness Through Strategic Choices

Chris Carneal, founder and CEO of school fundraising company Boosterthon, developed a morning routine that transformed his relationship with time. Rising at 4:55 AM, he completes a CrossFit workout by 6:00 AM, then heads to a nearby Waffle House. There, he spends a few minutes praying and reflecting, then dedicates the rest of the hour to big-picture thinking about his business. By 9:30 AM when he arrives at the office, he's already completed 2.5 hours of focused work. This investment of early morning hours yields remarkable returns. "In those 2.5 hours, I get more done than I used to in a six-, seven-, eight-hour day," Carneal says. More importantly, it changes how he experiences the rest of his day. Before establishing this routine, he would feel distracted at work, anxious to end conversations so he could address pressing problems. Now, having solved important matters before arriving, he's "free to be reactive" with his team of 600 employees. "I can walk slowly through the halls. I can high-five more people. I can feel fine when I'm interrupted." Carneal's approach illustrates a fundamental principle: strategically investing resources—time, money, and mental energy—can maximize happiness and create a sense of time abundance. In my time-perception survey, those who strongly agreed they "spent time in ways that made them happy" were 22 percent more likely to feel they had enough time in general. Money is the most straightforward resource to invest in happiness. While it cannot automatically produce joy, it can strategically reduce pain points in how you spend your time. Commuting consistently ranks as the low point of most people's days, so spending more to live closer to work could significantly improve daily happiness. Similarly, outsourcing disliked chores and errands—lawn mowing, home repairs, or shopping for mundane items—frees up time for more enjoyable activities. Childcare offers another opportunity for strategic investment. Beyond the obvious benefit of focused work time, childcare can enhance family experiences by allowing parents to engage with children in more meaningful ways. Having help with younger children means you can chaperone a field trip with an older child or fully focus on one child's activities without constantly chasing siblings. Beyond money, time itself can be invested to yield happiness dividends. Carneal's early mornings exemplify "paying yourself first"—allocating prime hours to what matters most rather than whatever is left over after others' demands. Katherine Reynolds Lewis, a successful journalist who wanted to write a book, tried dedicating Friday afternoons to this goal but found herself continually sidetracked by the week's accumulated tasks. When she switched to Monday mornings—giving her best hours to speculative work before tackling client projects—she made breakthrough progress, eventually landing a book contract. Time investments need not be large. My survey showed that people with high time-perception scores exercised 3.4 times weekly (versus 1.9 times for those with low scores) and engaged in reflective activities like journaling, meditating, or praying more than twice as frequently. These small investments created a greater sense of time abundance. The third and most profound investment is mental—developing the skill of finding joy amid inevitable difficulties. Layla Banihashemi, a neuroscientist diagnosed with breast cancer at age thirty-two, endured a year of grueling treatments. During her worst moments, she focused on making it through just the next twenty minutes: "When you're feeling sick, and you think I'm just trying to make it through the next few minutes, it brings your focus down to such a narrow place." Similarly, Amelia Boone, a champion obstacle course racer, has mastered the art of suffering through brutal competitions. In the 2011 World's Toughest Mudder—a twenty-four-hour race in freezing temperatures—she endured by compartmentalizing the race into smaller segments and finding unexpected moments of joy, like connecting with competitors and witnessing the sunrise after a night of misery: "I have never felt so euphoric to see the sun." This mental discipline—what might be called the "discipline of joy"—requires holding two seemingly contradictory truths: this moment will pass, and this moment has value. As Banihashemi reflects: "One thing that I devote much less time to is worrying about the future. I think any experience of suffering is worthwhile if you let it change you." This perspective transforms how we experience time, making even difficult periods feel more spacious and meaningful.

Chapter 6: Embrace Good Enough and Move Forward

Laureen Marchand, a sixty-six-year-old Canadian artist living in rural Saskatchewan, reached out for time management help while struggling with productivity. Her time log revealed she was working forty-one hours weekly across various commitments, but only twelve hours on her top priority: making art. She wanted to increase her studio time, so she committed to starting Monday mornings with painting. Despite this good intention, Marchand soon experienced a frustrating week filled with interruptions. She needed to drive seventy miles (round-trip) for a blood test, which complications turned into another seventy-mile trip the next day. A plumber came to install a water pump, a resident artist departed, and her grocery store shift expanded due to staffing shortages. By Friday, she felt drained and couldn't get to the studio until afternoon. Yet amid these frustrations, something remarkable happened: she logged 16.5 hours of art time—more than the previous week. The only real problem was her expectation of a different outcome. This insight led to a transformative mantra: "Make art when you can. Relax when you can't." Adopting this perspective freed Marchand from unnecessary suffering. She maintained her Monday studio routine but stopped feeling guilty when interruptions occurred. She practiced self-care—coffee with friends, Saturday-night dinners—and approached each day with acceptance: "I should have at least two of Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this week for art days. And I'll try to take them for what they are." This liberation from expectations yielded surprising productivity. Within weeks, Marchand completed her first painting since April, followed by an entire botanical series. She reflected: "Yesterday I finished the first painting I've completed since April, and now I'm planning the next one. I wondered if this day would ever come." Marchand's experience illustrates how perfectionism and unrealistic expectations waste time and energy. As psychologist Barry Schwartz explains in The Paradox of Choice, people fall into two categories: "maximizers" who seek the absolute best options, and "satisficers" who choose the first option that meets their important criteria. Maximizers spend countless hours researching decisions, comparing options, and often feeling regret afterward. They measure themselves against others, creating endless opportunities for envy—which writer Joseph Epstein called "the only one of the seven deadly sins that is no fun at all." Satisficers, by contrast, recognize that "the idea of the best is preposterous," as Schwartz puts it. "There is no best anything." In the real world, we face limitations of money, time, and physics. Good enough truly is good enough for most decisions. A house chosen because it's close to work, has four bedrooms, and offers pleasing landscaping will continue providing these benefits regardless of what a friend's house looks like. This "good enough" mindset applies equally to goal-setting. Rather than focusing on outcomes that can fluctuate for reasons beyond our control, focus on process goals—habits that, when performed consistently, lead toward desired results. Instead of resolving to lose fifteen pounds, commit to exercising daily, drinking water instead of sugary beverages, and eating vegetables at lunch and dinner. Making these process goals ridiculously achievable—what might be called "Better Than Nothing" or BTN goals—creates sustainable progress. When I challenged myself to run at least one mile daily, the small commitment felt manageable even on my worst days. Because the first mile is usually the hardest, once I'd completed it, I often continued running further. This small commitment led to a running streak that continued for hundreds of days. This principle of consistent small actions applies to creative work too. UK novelist Katy Cannon, who wrote five books, a novella, and three short stories in a single year, doesn't wait for inspiration. She works in focused twenty- to thirty-minute blocks, writing 800-1,000 words per session. At two to three sessions daily, she produces about 10,000 words weekly, completing a novel draft in seven to eight weeks. Are her books perfect? No, but as Cannon notes, "Done is better than perfect, because there is no perfect without being done." The secret to productivity isn't working around the clock but putting one foot in front of the other, achieving small goals repeatedly. Time is elastic—it stretches to accommodate what we choose to put into it. By embracing "good enough" and focusing on persistent small actions rather than perfection, we paradoxically accomplish more while feeling less busy.

Chapter 7: Prioritize People for a Fuller Life

Elisabeth McKetta and Cathy Doggett have maintained a profound friendship for decades, despite living far apart—McKetta in Boise, Idaho, and Doggett in Austin, Texas. Their connection began when their mothers, who knew each other in Texas, encouraged them to meet while both lived in Boston in their twenties. Doggett, the more organized of the pair, suggested they meet every Monday to cook dinner together. When their careers and families took them to different cities, they maintained their connection through regular phone calls. "She holds me accountable," says McKetta of Doggett's commitment to their relationship. The friendship has weathered occasional conflicts, including an early clash when McKetta tried to reschedule a dinner for a speaker she wanted to hear. Doggett firmly declined: "I have made this plan for you. I have the food, and it's not going to be good by Wednesday." This clarity about expectations established ground rules for a relationship that has lasted decades. "She's been a witness to every single one of my adult evolutions," reflects McKetta. Their friendship helps both see the world differently and provides perspective during challenges. As Doggett puts it, sharing ups and downs "has made life less lonely and more meaningful." In my time-perception survey, people's scores rose in direct proportion to time spent with friends and family. While the average participant spent seventy-two minutes actively engaged with loved ones, those with the highest time-perception scores averaged ninety-six minutes. Time with friends and family tends to feel relaxed and good, making you feel like you have more time, while scrolling through social media produces the opposite effect. The challenge is that in busy lives, nurturing relationships often falls to the bottom of priority lists. Work gets done because mortgages need paying. Family interactions happen by default because you share living space. But friendships require intentional effort, especially with people you don't naturally see frequently. To prioritize relationships, treat them with the same intentionality as work. This doesn't mean scheduling family time in fifteen-minute blocks, but rather incorporating relationship priorities into planning: When creating bucket lists, include relationship goals alongside career and personal goals. If setting quarterly objectives, use the same three-category approach. During weekly planning sessions, include relationship priorities alongside work and personal tasks. This reminds us that there should be something in all three categories. For immediate family members whom you see regularly, the challenge is creating more meaningful moments within existing time. One-on-one interactions prove especially valuable amid family chaos. Peter O'Donnell, a consultant with six grandchildren, created a "Grandkids Best Day Ever" project, planning special solo activities with each child based on their interests—McDonald's and video games with five-year-old Kason, tubing and a fancy dinner with thirteen-year-old Hannah, and a knife-sharpening class with nineteen-year-old Kyra. Even everyday family time benefits from intentionality. Few people would show up at work at 8:00 AM with no idea what they'd do until 1:00 PM, yet many come home at 6:00 PM having given no thought to the hours until bedtime. Setting a relationship intention for the evening—whether discussing financial goals while doing taxes or turning car shopping into a date—transforms ordinary time into something more meaningful. Work relationships also benefit from intentional cultivation. Christopher Brest, who has spent eighteen years in the army, explains that even in military contexts, leadership comes down to people. A good leader builds loyalty by never asking subordinates to do something he wouldn't do himself, mentoring future leaders through one-on-one conversations, and occasionally injecting levity—"we might play football during physical training time instead of doing push-ups." The result: soldiers who trust their leader enough to follow any order. For relationships with people you don't see regularly, author Molly Beck recommends the "RO" (Reach Out) habit—contacting one person daily. Each Friday, identify five people to connect with the following week, including past connections you want to maintain, new acquaintances you want to develop relationships with, and interesting people your network suggests meeting. These emails can be simple—Beck's initial outreach to me was just 110 words—but they build connections over time. Sending 250 emails yearly with a 40% response rate creates a hundred potential conversations. The most important aspect of prioritizing relationships is being selective about whom you invest in. Quality matters more than quantity. As Elisabeth McKetta says of her friend Cathy Doggett: "She gardens them." Maintaining long-distance friendships "requires incredible discipline. It's like working on a book as opposed to answering email: you have to plan for it and inconvenience yourself to plan for it." This intentionality creates the off-the-clock feeling that comes from deep connection. As poet Wendell Berry wrote: "It is not a terrible thing to love the world, knowing that the world is always passing and irrecoverable, to be known only in loss. To love anything good, at any cost, is a bargain." People are worth the effort, and they make our finite time on earth feel infinitely richer.

Summary

The journey to time freedom isn't about having more hours but transforming your relationship with the hours you have. Throughout this exploration, we've discovered that time perception is malleable—shaped by our choices, habits, and mindset. As Bhante Henepola Gunaratana wisely observed, "Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom." The path forward begins with a simple truth: feeling like you have all the time in the world is about managing expectations rather than minutes. Begin by tracking your time to reveal its true flow, then create meaningful moments that expand your experience. Declutter your schedule to make space for what matters, and practice the art of being fully present. Invest strategically in your happiness, embrace "good enough" over perfectionism, and prioritize the people who make life worthwhile. Today, choose just one small thing to do differently—whether it's blocking off your Monday morning for important work, planning a weekly adventure, or reaching out to a friend you've been meaning to call. This single step, repeated consistently, will gradually transform your relationship with time, allowing you to feel less busy while achieving more.

About Author

Loading...

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.

Read more

Related Books by Laura Vanderkam

Loading...

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

Laura Vanderkam

And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and Home

★★★★☆4.3

Loading...

168 Hours

Laura Vanderkam

You Have More Time Than You Think

★★★★☆4.2

Loading...

Tranquility by Tuesday

Laura Vanderkam

9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters

★★★★☆4.2

Loading...

The New Corner Office

Laura Vanderkam

How the Most Successful People Work from Home

★★★½☆3.7

Loading...

I Know How She Does It

Laura Vanderkam

How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

★★★½☆3.7