For anyone who's sick of letting to-do lists dictate their time, Laura Vanderkam, the bestselling author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, shares nine strategies for reclaiming your hours
Do you perpetually hope that someday life will be less hectic? One day, you tell yourself, you'll finally have time for the activities that you love — writing that book, completing that triathlon, traveling with friends.
But if the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it's that life is unpredictable. If we're not careful, dull, unfulfilling tasks can quickly occupy our precious hours, derail our best-laid plans, and make life feel like a slog.
In Tranquility by Tuesday, Laura Vanderkam explains that if you want something to happen, you need to design your life to make it happen. Work crises, childcare emergencies, and home repairs are inevitable, and the mundane tasks of life — cooking, cleaning, laundry — aren't going anywhere. To make time for what matters, you need a resilient schedule, not a perfect schedule. Based on a time diary study of over 150 people, Vanderkam shares nine strategies for building opportunities for joy, nourishment, and fulfillment into your week, such as:
• Three times a week is a habit
• One big adventure, one little adventure
• Effortful before effortless
This is more than a time management book about "how to do it all." It's a look at how real people changed their lives using Vanderkam's nine rules, and how you can do the same. It's about intentionally living the life that you want to live, and becoming an autonomous steward of life's possibilities. Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including The New Corner Office, Juliet's School of Possibilities, Off the Clock, I Know How She Does It, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and 168 Hours. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Fortune. She is the host of the Before Breakfast podcast and the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the Best of Both Worlds podcast.
