Caught in the middle of a monsoon viral and visiting relatives, I was way behind my schedule for reviewing Laura Vanderkam’s 168 Hours. My deadline was looming large. I was stressed.
But by the time I finished reading the book I had not only recovered from the viral and made peace with a grumbling kin, but also managed to overcome a creative block, caught up on my French lessons and was still left with sufficient time to write this piece. I was quite happy.
The first thing Vanderkam, also the author of Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues, says in 168 Hours is that we have more time than we think.
To be honest, for a long time I was scared to open 168 Hours. It was probably another one of those self-improvement books that insist on a strict time-table, something I have been averse to since school days. But Vanderkam doesn’t take the conventional line, though she does insist on keeping a log book on how you spend your day.
Vanderkam begins 168 Hours with the description of a “good Tuesday” — a day when she practically runs around the city of New York without upsetting a single strand of hair — and says that it is possible to make every day of the week satisfying. She presents a new world indeed, one in which we don’t have a frugal 24-hour budget but a luxuriant 168-hour account. Vanderkam made me look at life not in compartments of 24-hour-long days, but as a week of 168 hours. By changing the cramped scenery she had grabbed my attention.
And that’s when she lured me into keeping a log of my days while insisting that the concept of time-crunch is a cultural narrative, a myth. She projects paucity of time as a culural psychosis.
I kept the log but was, of course, still unconvinced with her other argument. In two days my logs were telling a strange tale. Vanderkam was right. We are not busier than our ancestors but were reading, and internalising, W.H. Davies’ Leisure — “What is this life if, full of care/ We have no time to stand and stare?” — in school when we had all the time in the world. Cultural narrative? A myth? Hmmm.
My logs told me that there were some things I was doing much more than I thought: Internet surfing, sleeping, watching TV; while there were other things I was devoting very little time to: exercising, managing money, eating. But this time Vanderkam didn’t make me feel happy at all. While she was saying everything needs time, she also wanted me to believe that I had all the time in the world to do what I wanted. I felt there were a lot of things she wasn’t taking into account, like stress and motivation.
To make her point, perhaps, Vanderkam introduces Theresa Daytner who owns a large revenue company and is a mother of six. Ms Daytner goes trekking, spends time with her children, arranges a surprise party for her husband and meets US President Barack Obama. The key is not that she does so much but that she does it all with such ease. I found myself wanting the Daytner formula but Vanderkam gave me none.
Instead, Vanderkam asked me to look deeper. Defining work as “activities advancing you towards your career”, one of the things she spurs her reader to do is to find the “perfect job”: “Expecting someone else to have conceived of your perfect job is roughly similar to expecting someone else to read your mind”. Then she asks a series of questions and with each one you inch towards clarity: What are your core competencies, what job would exactly match your competencies, how could you create that job for yourself?
All this probing brought me close to the unaccountable aspects of my confusing logs. Like Sid Savara, whose story she narrates, I was spending too much time in household chores. Much like Sid, I liked cooking and keeping my house nice and pretty, but it seemed to be a drain on my time and energy. So I “outsourced” the “non-work” and committed that time to a much-needed exercise schedule. I also found time to dig up some folk music to satiate my parched creativity.
168 Hours is very communicative and Vanderkam’s voice is both convincing and assertive. But, she uses too many words and is often repetitive.
Nevertheless, Vanderkam has a lot to say and her book is not meant to be read in a hurry. For example, a chapter which deals with achieving a breakthrough requires you to visualise the next level in your career and figure out the people who will take you there. She clearly demands time and introspection. Fortunately, Vanderkam doesn’t look at readers as corporate prototypes but understands that her readers may include super-moms juggling house, kids and demanding jobs, couples facing mid-life ennui, and the young and ambitious. As she takes a fresh look at time, Vanderkam makes life look less burdensome, and the “want-to-do” list easy and achievable.
I had been pushing my French lessons for the-day-when-I-would-have-time. But now it’s back on my weekly calendar. Every French word I learn turns my day into a “good Tuesday”.