Laura Vanderkam

"The time-management writer whose own data shows most people have more free hours than they think — if they actually track them."

Laura Vanderkam is a time-management writer and speaker whose work is grounded in a large personal database of time logs collected from hundreds of professionals, including mothers with demanding careers. Rather than treating busyness as fixed, Vanderkam's central argument across 168 Hours and her later books (I Know How She Does It, Off the Clock) is that most people have more discretionary time than they think, and that the real constraint is usually priorities and honest accounting, not the literal number of hours in a week. She writes a regular time-management column and has spoken widely, including a popular TED talk on how to gain control of your free time.

1 book featured·Time-management writer and speaker·Author, I Know How She Does It and Off the Clock
168 Hours Summary & Review: You Have More Time Than You Think — Read SummaryBrowse All Books ↓

Books by Laura Vanderkam

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Key Ideas & Recurring Themes

You have 168 hours, not 24

Reframing time in weekly rather than daily terms makes room for priorities that don't fit into any single day but fit easily across a full week.

Track time before judging it

A detailed weekly time log usually reveals that perceived time crunches (too much work, not enough sleep) don't match the actual numbers.

Build your week around core competencies

Identify what you do both well and enjoy, then minimize, eliminate, or outsource everything outside that zone, at work and at home.

Notable Quotes

"There is always time for what matters most. The key phrase, of course, is 'what matters most,' and figuring this out takes brutal honesty."
— 168 Hours
"I don't have time is often a euphemism for it's not a priority."
— 168 Hours

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Book Author Laura Vanderkam