Those of you reading the comments will see one from Annie Kate with a link to a review of 168 Hours. I thought it was an incredibly thoughtful review, and you can read it here, “A Homeschooler Discusses the Book, 168 Hours.” I keep another blog called Gifted Exchange that deals with issues of gifted education, and about half my readers over there are homeschooling parents. Just as the normal corporate world doesn’t work for many people, neither does the normal schooling world work for many kids. And so I’m very intrigued by the concept of homeschooling (I even wrote my senior thesis at Princeton about it!) On the other hand, there tend to be some philosophical differences I’d have with many members of the homeschooling community, most notably about the role of women, so I’m always interested to see where people land when reading something like 168 Hours. Annie Kate especially recommends 168 Hours for teens pondering what they want to do with their lives. While noting that 168 Hours may outrage some readers, she says:
Basing her ideas on many interactions with balanced, successful people, and backing them up with surprising data about actual time use, Vanderkam makes a compelling and refreshing case for taking charge of our 168 hours and investing them to align with our competencies and passions.
Also up this week: Over at BNET I wrote about the Salary.com survey on mother’s time, asking “How Much Is A Mother’s Time Really Worth?”
I asked readers “What Could You Do If You Weren’t Commuting?” The average commute isn’t that long, though certainly some people have doozies. What would you do with this time? Then, there’s the bonus question: is there any way to combine some of those activities into your commute? (even sleeping! Carpool with a colleague and trade off who gets to nap).
Finally, I talked about how you can “Conquer the Sunday Night Blues.” I suggest scheduling in something fun for Sunday night, and a reader made a good point that you can also put fun stuff during the day on Monday. I’m tempted to make Monday a nose-to-the-grindstone day, since I feel like I have the most focused energy for tackling big projects then. But there’s no reason you couldn’t at least schedule a fun lunch to break up the marathon.
Interested in a time makeover? I’m planning on running some time makeovers on BNET and here in early June. Where, exactly, each one runs may depend somewhat on the issues raised in each schedule. But broadly, these people would keep time logs for a little while, list some goals, and we’ll see how to make them fit in. You can respond in the comments or email me (lvanderkam at yahoo dot com).