Big Time (Laura Vanderkam)

 

I've always believed we could all do a little more if only we were a little more organize - and this book helped justify my thinking! She really celebrates the idea of dreaming big and planning small - what can you do every day to get you to your goal? 

I've read other books by this author. I agree with her approach to use of time.

Notes:

On what is the minimum you can do or can accept as enough, every day:   
p. 69  When the project itself is massive, sometimes the temptation is not to accept this ease and to feel like you should do more. 

Please, resist this temptation. When you race ahead, unless you can actually see the finish line, the pace stops being sustainable. Plus, if you get ahead, you might be tempted to start skipping days, and then you can lose momentum. Better to keep going with just a little more than nothing, knowing that the difference between nothing adn a little more than nothing is cumulatively great. 

p. 144 Charlie Brown says, "Some day, we will all die, Snoopy!" The dog replies, "True, but on all the other days, we will not." ....so let's get going and do something.

She really encourages you to keep a time log so you can figure out how you're spending your time, then ask yourself:

p. 173 What do you like most about your schedule?
Look at the major categories of how you spend your time.
Do these numbers reflect how you'd like to spend your time?
What do you think realistic, ideal week would look like?
What would you like next week to look like? 

p. 179 Tactic 2: How to run a weekly planning session

1. Choose a regular planning time

2. Look at the landscape? What do you have going on next week?

3. Make yourself a priority list for the upcoming week.

4. Look at everything else (obligations, expectations, logistics, of who needs to go where, etc.)

5. Make sure you have something you are looking forward to.

p. 182 Build a better workday.

Spend time doing the things you like to do most

Spend 15 minutes deepening a work friendship

Take two intentional breaks each day

Goodreads says:

A beloved productivity expert’s mind-opening and schedule-expanding guide to making the most of every hour.

Most of us have an adversarial relationship with time. We’re constantly trying to beat the clock―behavior rooted in a fear that time is scarce and must be obsessed over, hoarded, and ultraoptimized. But what if there is a different way to view time, one that could make our hours feel abundant? What if we believed that we had enough time to advance our careers, enjoy meaningful relationships, pursue hobbies, and more? In Big Time, time management expert Laura Vanderkam shows us how to make this our reality.

Drawing on original research about how hundreds of real people spend their time and her own experience of tracking her time for a decade, Vanderkam shows how even busy people can come to feel that time is abundant. Big Time offers simple, tested tactics with high impact, such as developing a “ringmaster” mindset; breaking big goals into daily, bite-sized pieces; and making little bets within a schedule to increase the odds of a breakthrough. Through actionable advice for managing a complex life, Vanderkam demonstrates how we can feel liberated by the time we have, instead of restrained by it.

By turns surprising, thought-provoking, and encouraging, Big Time shows readers that the daily experience of time can be quite spacious―and that, managed well, each day’s hours can be a source of happiness and satisfaction.