Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
    168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
    168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
    Audiobook7 hours

    168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

    Written by Laura Vanderkam

    Narrated by Elizabeth London

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    There are 168 hours in a week. This book is about where the time really goes, and how we can all use it better.

    It's an unquestioned truth of modern life: we are starved for time. With the rise of two-income families, extreme jobs, and 24/7 connectivity, life is so frenzied we can barely find time to breathe. We tell ourselves we'd like to read more, get to the gym regularly, try new hobbies, and accomplish all kinds of goals. But then we give up because there just aren't enough hours to do it all. Or else, if we don't make excuses, we make sacrifices. To get ahead at work we spend less time with our spouses. To carve out more family time, we put off getting in shape. To train for a marathon, we cut back on sleep. There has to be a better way-and Laura Vanderkam has found one.

    After interviewing dozens of successful, happy people, she realized that they allocate their time differently than most of us. Instead of letting the daily grind crowd out the important stuff, they start by making sure there's time for the important stuff. They focus on what they do best and what only they can do. When plans go wrong and they run out of time, only their lesser priorities suffer.

    It's not always easy, but the payoff is enormous. Vanderkam shows that it really is possible to sleep eight hours a night, exercise five days a week, take piano lessons, and write a novel without giving up quality time for work, family, and other things that really matter. The key is to start with a blank slate and to fill up your 168 hours only with things that deserve your time.

    Of course, you probably won't read to your children at 2:00 am, or skip a Wednesday morning meeting to go hiking, but you can cut back on how much you watch TV, do laundry, or spend time on other less fulfilling activities. Vanderkam shares creative ways to rearrange your schedule to make room for the things that matter most.

    168 Hours is a fun, inspiring, practical guide that will help men and women of any age, lifestyle, or career get the most out of their time and their lives.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAscent Audio
    Release dateJun 7, 2010
    ISBN9781596595934
    168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
    Author

    Laura Vanderkam

    Laura Vanderkam is a contributing editor at Reader's Digest and is the coauthor of Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. She lives with her husband in New York City.

    More audiobooks from Laura Vanderkam

    Related to 168 Hours

    Related audiobooks

    Self-Management For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Life’s Too Short

      Jul 29, 2019

      Life’s Too Short
      5 min read

    • Article

      Master The Four-hour Work Day

      Jan 22, 2019

      Tim Ferriss wrote about the four-hour work week, which involves outsourcing your work. That’s not what we’re talking about. The four-hour work day involves super-concentrated periods of work, split into four hour-long blocks, to help you nail a workl

      1 min read

    • Article

      Do less, ACHIEVE MORE

      Jul 29, 2021

      Do less, ACHIEVE MORE
      3 min read

    • Article

      Blinkist

      Jun 18, 2020

      Ever wished you were better read but simply can’t find the time? Blinks Labs think they have the answer. Blinkist lets you choose from over 2,500 non-fiction titles on a huge range of subjects, all condensed and served up in handy 15 minute sections.

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Art Of Time Management

      Oct 29, 2018

      The Art Of Time Management
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hinemoa in harmony MY MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS

      Jun 5, 2022

      Once she was known for being a children’s TV presenter and wife to Paul Holmes. Now at 56, Dr Hinemoa Elder has found her place in the world as a psychiatrist, health researcher, successful author and proud Maori woman. She will mark Matariki by taki

      5 min read

    • Article

      20 Questions with Kate Just

      May 2, 2023

      20 Questions with Kate Just
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Story “I Wrote My Own Eulogy”

      Dec 29, 2021

      When I was pregnant with my first baby in 2009, I had a very specific idea of what the next stage of my life would look like. I would somehow balance parenting a newborn and managing my business, as well as self-care, a social life and maintaining a

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for 168 Hours

    4/5

    172 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      Extremely out of touch. I felt less like a human being and more like a corporate project by the end of reading this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Simple and effective. As many self-help books, this one doesn't tell something very surprising or shocking, but something you still have to hear. Listening about the stories of people working 50/60 hours per week like me but managing to have a good life balance was very inspiring. I was motivated from the beginning to use the strategies the book suggests (first of all, tracking my time) and to care more about how I spend my time. I definitely suggest it.
    • 5/5
      What an insightful book!! Totally worth reading! A serious study upon time management!!
    • 5/5
      I have loved this book so much that I have read it and re-read it, I think 4times by now. You might think that something is wrong that I need to keep re-reading it, but it's not. My life have transitioned from full time working in one field and being married to changing careers completely to another field and adding mom to that list. Also changing from working outside in an office to working from home while taking care of my new-born. This book has always given me hope and been a little light for me to steer back to where I want to go and what I want to do
    • 4/5
      Innovative look at how we really use our time. Main take aways: collect your own data about actual time use first. Data driven decisions! Use the time that you have including planning for big dreams and fully using the 10 minute and 30 time blocks available. A good reminder that I'm in charge.
    • 5/5
      Foarte practica și cu o abordare noua vizavi de Time management.
    • 5/5
      Laura Vanderkam is the best at breaking down complex ideas about time management and offering practical solutions.
    • 5/5
      The book motivated me to make some changes in my life, I recommend listening if nothing else just for fun.
    • 3/5
      A well-written book combining time management and core competency concepts. If something isn't your core competency, stop doing it and get someone else to do it. Although good advice, not always realistic. We can't all afford maids and gardeners. She does make the valid point that 168 hours in a week are plenty of hours to get things done. The problem is most of us spend time on unimportant things, such as TV and Facebook. And we then complain that we don't have enough time. The book does provide a lot of advice for finding more time to play with your kids, which wasn't relevant to me. Nonetheless, she makes valid and specific recommendations in many areas that would be useful to most people. I listened to this as an audiobook, which made good use of my 168 hours.
    • 3/5
      OK so I did enjoy how she broke down the hours in a day. And talked about the places that we waste our time. A big area that I really disagreed with though… She thinks homemaking is an extra activity a.k.a. a hobby …. not a life profession or a chosen profession. I am a homemaker. I take my job seriously. I was looking for ways to be more effective and not squander my time while keeping House. But she very much makes housekeeping an extracurricular activity that should be outsourced if at all possible.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      While this book is written for rich people (based on a lot of the tips), there is enough really great and clearly articulated information to make it a book that is useful for everyone. I found the chapter length of the audiobook a little on the long side but apart from that, great book.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      We're all pressed for time and rushing around. At least, that's what a lot of self help books, online articles, and your brain would have you think. But author Laura Vanderkam challenges you to reassess that: even if you work a 50-60 hour week and get enough sleep there are enough hours to fit in what you want to do - we just have to be intentional about how we use them.Suggesting keeping a time log, writing a list of things you want to do and start working your way through it, and looking at time management from a work and home perspective, Vanderkam perhaps has little new to say, but nonetheless I found it useful as I think intentionally about how I use my time. There aren't a lot of specific time management techniques, so there's ample room for you to decide how it will suit your own life. She's very much coming from the perspective of a working mother which, on the one hand, I liked because I felt assured I could, perhaps, have kids some day and not short myself on sleep. But it also meant that a lot of the "home" section was not applicable as a single woman, because much of her focus was spending time with spouse and kids. Some of her advice is very first-world, for example, if you don't like groceries or housework, outsource more of it. Much like budgeting, time management is about opportunity costs: if I do this, I can't do that. But we don't always think of it that way. As a result, the biggest takeaway from the book is simple: take back control.
    • 3/5
      I'm sort of allergic to self-help books. But once in a while I indulge in one that purports to show me a way of taking control of the way I spend my time. This one isn't bad.Vanderkam wrote this after establishing a blog about using your time effectively, and of course it starts with the kind of exercise that brings out my hives: List 100 things you want to do with your time. I immediately resist, although it would undoubtedly make me think of all those things I think I want to do but don't explore. The second exercise is more useful to me - keep a time log. It's the kind of no-brainer my brain tends to avoid, but it can be amazingly useful. For instance, do I really want to spend the first hour and a half of my day surfing Facebook and playing Words With Friends before I even brush my teeth? Maybe it's not the most helpful way to energize my morning.The book itself is in some ways an exhortation to use your time mindfully, even if you have a tough job or a houseful of kids. It doesn't directly address the vast time field of the newly retired, but I can adapt the message. I think.
    • 4/5
      How many hours do you spend working? Now, during those hours, how much is spent on actual work – responding to emails, finishing up that project, sitting in productive meetings? How much of that time is spent on truly non-work tasks – checking social media, being in a meeting where everyone repeats what they argued last meeting, or socializing with coworkers at the water cooler? When you begin to break down your time and get a good look at how its spent, you begin to realize you have a lot more time than you initially would’ve thought.“…You have to place many bets, and leave nothing you can control to chance. In other words, be open to possibilities, and plan for opportunities.”In 168 Hours, Vanderkam breaks down these hours into the primary categories of work and home, asking what amount of time is spent on the tasks that you are good at (your core competencies). She goes on to make a number of suggestions on freeing up your time to focus on those core competencies such as reading to your children, furthering your career, and getting much needed “me” time. As I read through this book, I went back and forth on how applicable some of the suggestions were. For example, I don’t have any children but a large chunk of the family (and even career) section is on spending time with them. Or, an item that I’ve seen other reviews bash, her opinion on knitting and sewing as being entirely unnecessary which I greatly enjoy (but maybe that’s because it could be considered one of mine own core competencies).Additionally, I really enjoyed Vanderkam’s writing style and her bluntness with calling things how they are. For example, that women do the bulk of household chores while men may only be responsible for mowing the yard, but that lawn care is one of the most common outsourced tasks. Or that as a society we are okay outsourcing child care but thing it a luxury to outsource household chores. While I don’t think I’ll ever pay someone to do my laundry or cook for me, I do see her point. Much of the time the issue I found with this argument, which she eventually briefly addresses, is multitasking such as using meal prep time to chat with your spouse or teach your children how to cook.Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and found some useful tips on better managing my time. I would recommend this to others who are similarly looking to better manage their time. However, with all books of this nature, its important to take away what can be applied to your life and don’t expect any one book to be the answer to all your problems – take it with a grain of salt.
    • 2/5
      This books makes me reaffirm my policy of not reading books by journalists. I was expecting a detailed time management study of different people, but in fact it was a very brief outline of their work life and very little on their organisation.
    • 4/5
      Challenged me to truly examine how I spend my time and to stop insisting that I just "don't have time." I choose how I spend my own time. I have two small children, and I'm starting a small, online business. Tracking my 168 hours was monumentally informative, and I never would have done so without Vanderkam. I also love that she's freelance writer with two kids, so her ideas on how to manage home and job were inspiring. I'm not at home with the kids so I can clean house. I should focus on time with the kids and not how spotless my floors are.
    • 2/5
      Helpful: 168 hours should be enough time to achieve balance if you stop wasting time on the Internet, etc...The book caused me to look at my schedule and attempt to streamline.However, the book's format read as a journal the author kept about how she manages to apply time management principles to a privileged, upper-income, urban lifestyle. Outsourcing laundry in New York City probably is a solid idea--and less expensive than one would expect to free up a large chunk of time. But, the book is generally not relatable for average Americans.
    • 3/5
      In the beginning I couldn't put this book down. It sounded all so true, so valuable and I believe a lot of the ideas are great, until the home section. Unfortunately, although the author makes a strong argument for why she believes outsourcing so much of the housework of our lives is worth it, I just don't believe it's an attainable goal for myself and many others. I had hoped, as a SAHM, I'd get more ideas on how to balance housework, my own life goals and spending time with my kids. I feel like because the author is a working mom, she doesn't really understand how the other half lives, and devalues it more than necessary. Although some tips and the overarching ideas are helpful, in my opinion, she could have used a co-author that would have helped make the other side of the book more useful.