Quotes from Laura Vanderkam

Doing a lot does not mean you're doing anything important with your 168 hours.

You cannot remove randomness from the universe. You can, however, use your 168 hours to stack the odds in your favor. To do this, you have to place many bets, and leave nothing you can control to chance. In other words, you have to be open to possibilities, and plan for opportunities.

if you were offered $400 million to never do the stuff of your work again, would you be bummed about it, despite your riches? If you would, then it's time to ask a follow-up question. If you did land a windfall, and could still do the stuff of your job, what parts of your job would you change? Given that you'd never have to work a day in your life, what would you do more of and what would you shove off your plate?

This is the 168 Hours principle for work: Ideally, there should be almost nothing during your work hours—whatever you choose those to be—that is not advancing you toward your goals for the career and life you want.

I define "work" as activities that are advancing you toward the career and life you want. If they aren't, then they are not work. This is true even if they appear on your work calendar or you've always done them

If a negative state is assumed in life, then you have to call attention to its absence.

There is a lot of randomness in the universe, but truly lucky people recognize that fairy godmothers are lazy. If taking your career to the next level will require your fairy godmother to tip her wand, make sure the wand is pointed at you, and that you're standing as close to her as possible, so all she has to do is nudge the thing like a bored barfly fiddling with a cocktail glass.

mi] arma secreta para las conferencias telefónicas que sólo incluyen audio es hacer manualidades, usualmente, bordado en punto de cruz. Esto mantiene mis manos ocupadas y me impide leer artículos en internet, que es lo que solía hacer antes. Tiene que ser una manualidad que puedas abandonar en cualquier momento y que no exija demasiado. Para mí es mucho más fácil prestar atención cuando tengo las manos ocupadas.

Successful people know that hours, like capital, can be consciously allocated with the goal of creating riches—in the form of a changed world, a life's work—over time. Indeed, successful people understand that work hours must be more carefully stewarded than capital because time is absolutely limited. You can earn more money, but the mightiest among us is granted no more than 168 hours per week, and it is physically impossible to work for all of them.

The truth is that even ten minutes spent looking at the sky with nothing to fill the time can feel long.

Consciously lingering in pleasurable downtime reminds us that we have downtime. And that can make us feel like we have more time than when we let is slip through our hands.

Maybe there's something you can do to make your usual activities just a bit more memorable. Get matching T-shirts for a family excursion. Print up a silly photo for your desk, and switch it out frequently, or put a vignette outside your home office window (garden gnomes are the epitome of whimsy). Hang a disco ball or a string of lights

Like a successful modern corporation, you probably don't have more than half a dozen core competencies. Broadly, most people's core competencies fit into certain categories.

Building a career—and raising a family—are meaningful activities, but they require a lot of energy. To do our best, we need time we can count on to recharge, apart from these obligations. We need time to do things we find intrinsically energizing for ourselves, as individuals.

People who get the most out of life spend as much of their time as possible on these core competency activities, and as little as possible on other things.

So, each week, take one evening (or an equivalent number of hours) off from family and work responsibilities and do something that makes life feel meaningful and fun. This evening or block of weekend time can be spent as you wish, but ideally, it features a commitment to an activity, like playing on a softball team, being part of a community drama troupe, or, like Hannah, going to a regular meet-up with specific people for a specific purpose.

given chunk of waking hours. By defining this amount, we start to think of each day as containing a given quantity of temporal space. That time will be filled by something. I maintain that what we fill each day with is largely up to us, based on current

come from this rule. One night off can change the entire rhythm of the week. If your night off is Tuesday, you feel more tranquil during a rough Monday-night bedtime routine, because you know this mini-vacation is coming up. You manage your energy during the Tuesday workday so that you've got plenty for the evening. You think through potential problems and ways

Success in a competitive world requires hitting Monday refreshed and ready to go. The only way to do that is to create weekends that rejuvenate you rather than exhaust or disappoint you.

Time is elastic. It stretches to accommodate what we choose to put into it.

Why we all need a night off I developed this rule because I have seen the difference it makes in my own life, a difference not dissimilar from the glow Hannah developed. I love to sing. So I've made a habit of seeking out community choirs wherever I live. After moving to New York City in 2002, I joined three ensembles as a way to get my work-from-home-self dressed and out of the apartment at least three evenings per week.

Strategizing boosts efficiency; planning your toughest work for the time when you have the most energy means a task might take one hour instead of two.

A powerful and easy habit Friday planning is simple. Some people enjoy fancy planners, high-end pens, and washi tape. Some people like to make this session a treat, with a favorite beverage appropriate for the time of day, or a soaring movie soundtrack. All of those things are great; none of them are necessary. I use a notebook or a planner, and cross-reference with my calendar. Notes in an electronic calendar can work too. The tool doesn't matter. What matters is that you do it.

Work was all I did, and I realized that was upsetting." It was upsetting philosophically—there is more to life—but it also felt financially foolish. "I live in New York City. If all I was doing was working, I could do that from anywhere. I could do that from a shack in the middle of the desert," she says. "Why pay to live in one of the world's most expensive cities if I wasn't taking advantage of it?