Laura Vanderkam > Quotes

“Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.”
― Laura Vanderkam

“You don’t build the life you want by saving time. You build the life you want, and then time saves itself. Recognizing that is what makes success possible.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“Time is elastic. It stretches to accommodate what we need or want to do with it.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“In life, you can be unhappy, or you can change things. And even if there are things you can't change, you can often change your mind-set and question assumptions that are making life less goof than it could be.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“Successful people know that small things done repeatedly have great power.”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do at Work: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Career

“Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert talks about this phenomenon in his 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness. “The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real,” he writes. “The frontal lobe—the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age—is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens.” This time travel into the future—otherwise known as anticipation—accounts for a big chunk of the happiness gleaned from any event. As you look forward to something good that is about to happen, you experience some of the same joy you would in the moment. The major difference is that the joy can last much longer. Consider that ritual of opening presents on Christmas morning. The reality of it seldom takes more than an hour, but the anticipation of seeing the presents under the tree can stretch out the joy for weeks. One study by several Dutch researchers, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life in 2010, found that vacationers were happier than people who didn’t take holiday trips. That finding is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the timing of the happiness boost. It didn’t come after the vacations, with tourists bathing in their post-trip glow. It didn’t even come through that strongly during the trips, as the joy of travel mingled with the stress of travel: jet lag, stomach woes, and train conductors giving garbled instructions over the loudspeaker. The happiness boost came before the trips, stretching out for as much as two months beforehand as the holiday goers imagined their excursions. A vision of little umbrella-sporting drinks can create the happiness rush of a mini vacation even in the midst of a rainy commute. On some level, people instinctively know this. In one study that Gilbert writes about, people were told they’d won a free dinner at a fancy French restaurant. When asked when they’d like to schedule the dinner, most people didn’t want to head over right then. They wanted to wait, on average, over a week—to savor the anticipation of their fine fare and to optimize their pleasure. The experiencing self seldom encounters pure bliss, but the anticipating self never has to go to the bathroom in the middle of a favorite band’s concert and is never cold from too much air conditioning in that theater showing the sequel to a favorite flick. Planning a few anchor events for a weekend guarantees you pleasure because—even if all goes wrong in the moment—you still will have derived some pleasure from the anticipation. I love spontaneity and embrace it when it happens, but I cannot bank my pleasure solely on it. If you wait until Saturday morning to make your plans for the weekend, you will spend a chunk of your Saturday working on such plans, rather than anticipating your fun. Hitting the weekend without a plan means you may not get to do what you want. You’ll use up energy in negotiations with other family members. You’ll start late and the museum will close when you’ve only been there an hour. Your favorite restaurant will be booked up—and even if, miraculously, you score a table, think of how much more you would have enjoyed the last few days knowing that you’d be eating those seared scallops on Saturday night!”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off

“Before the rest of the world is eating breakfast, the most successful people have already scored daily victories that are advancing them toward the lives they want.”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life

“Getting adequate sleep is a sign that the world doesn't need your attention for seven to nine hours each day. It keeps spinning as usual in its orbit. Who wants to admit that?”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“Though you will save many hours by seizing control of your calendar, and clearing away non-core-competency activities, in the long run, the best way to create more time is to actually get better at your professional craft.”
― Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

“I don’t have time’ means ‘It’s not a priority.’ We always have time for what matters to us.”
― Laura Vanderkam, Juliet's School of Possibilities: A Little Story About the Power of Priorities

“In 168 hours, there is plenty of space to nurture yourself alongside your career and your relationships.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“You need to hit Monday ready to go ... To do that, you need weekends that rejuvenate you, rather than exhaust or disappoint you. Cross-training makes you a better athlete, and likewise, exercise, volunteer work, and spiritual activities make you a better worker.”
― Laura Vanderkam

“This is what happens when you treat your 168 hours as a blank slate. This is what happens when you fill them up only with things that deserve to be there. You build a life where you really can have it all.”
― Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

“The best morning rituals are activities that don’t have to happen and certainly don’t have to happen at a specific hour. These are activities that require internal motivation.”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life

“Sometimes life is hard for a good reason. Sometimes narratives serve no purpose beyond keeping you from the life you want.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“It is a metaphor for life, perhaps, in that everything is a metaphor for life. The berry season is short. So how full, exactly, do I intend to fill the box? Or, if we slice away the metaphor, we could just ask this: what does the good life look like for me?”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“You don’t build the life you want by saving time. You build the life you want, and then time saves itself.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“Even if you don’t have kids at home, morning time can be great for nurturing your relationship with your spouse, other family members, or your close friends. One of the most disturbing “statistics” I read while researching how people use their time was that dual-income couples could find only 12 minutes a day to talk with each other.”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life

“Ultimately, self-control lets you relax because it removes stress and enables you to conserve willpower for the important challenges.”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life

“The discipline of joy requires holding in the mind simultaneously that this too shall pass and that this too is good. This alchemy of mind isn't easy, but the good life is not always the easy life. Happiness requires effort. It is not just bestowed; it is the earned interest on what you choose to pay in.”
― Laura Vanderkam, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done

“Fortunately, being mindful of family time—making a commitment to be there physically and mentally and enjoy life while doing so—makes memories possible. We control a lot less about our children’s outcomes in life than we think. They are their own people. But one thing parents do shape is whether kids remember their childhoods as happy. Creating a happy home is a conscious choice, as is creating a happy marriage.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of their Time

“If you wait until the end of the month to save what you have left, there will be nothing left over. Likewise, if you wait until the end of the day to do meaningful but not urgent things like exercise, pray, read, ponder how to advance your career or grow your organization, or truly give your family your best, it probably won’t happen, If it has to happen, then it has to happen first".”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life

“The key to this is realizing that life isn’t lived in epiphanies, and that looking for lessons and the necessity of big life changes in dark moments profoundly limits our lives.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“Reading fiction as you commute to a job you don’t like will make you feel somewhat more fulfilled; being in the right job will make you feel incredible.”
― Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

“Being off the clock implies time freedom, yet time freedom stems from time discipline. You must know where the time goes in order to transcend the ceaseless ticking.”
― Laura Vanderkam, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done

“You don't become a better parent or employee by not enjoying your life.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“SECRETS OF PEOPLE WITH ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD Tend your garden. Make life memorable. Don’t fill time. Linger. Invest in your happiness. Let it go. People are a good use of time.”
― Laura Vanderkam, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done

“You have fewer than 1,000 Saturdays with each child in your care before they’re grown up.”
― Laura Vanderkam, What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off

“We have plenty of time. Averaged over the entire American population, people watch almost as much television as they work. If people don’t exercise, it’s because they don’t want to exercise. Time becomes the scapegoat. Time becomes the scapegoat for all sorts of things, which explains the phrase “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”
― Laura Vanderkam, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

“We don’t think about how we want to spend our time, and so we spend massive amounts of time on things—television, Web surfing, housework, errands—that give a slight amount of pleasure or feeling of accomplishment, but do little for our careers, our families, or our personal lives. We spend very little time on things that require more thought or initiative, like nurturing our kids, exercising, or engaging in the limited hours we do work in deliberate practice of our professional crafts. We try to squeeze these high-impact activities around the edges of things that are easy, or that seem inevitable merely because we always do them or because we think others expect us to. And consequently, we feel overworked and underrested, and tend to believe stories that confirm this view.”
― Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think