On Monday 1st November PropelHer’s Book Club discussed I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam. 

 

In this summary of I Know How She Does It,, I’ll be briefly summarising the book to help you make a decision about whether you should buy a copy of the book for yourself.

 

In the beginning of the book Laura sets the scene. She writes that “this book is about how real people create full lives” and that is should help the reader learn about “how to enjoy and make the most of your time”. 

 

I Know How She Does It is the result of a research project Laura did, which was called The Mosaic Project. The Mosaic Project  involved studying the time logs (1,0001 days in total) of professional women. For the purpose of this research Laura only interviewed women who earned more than $100,000 per year and had at least one child, under the age of eighteen, living at home.  

 

The book is then split into three sections: Work, Home and Self. Work looked at how many hours the women worked (often we overestimate how much we work) and then raised questions around whether part-time work was really worth it and how do women manage to balance work and home life. From the book it became clear that when it comes to balancing work and life the total number of hours you work is less important than the flexibility. The final part of the Work section (Chapter 4: Make Success Possible) shares 5 strategies to try in order to make sure you are being as successful as you can in the workplace.  

 

 

The next section of the book was Home. The first part of this section focuses on being really present at home and Laura shares the ten secrets to happier parenting. Then the second half of this section is dedicated to helping you to make your home life easier. She highlights the other ways that women have made their life easier and in many ways is giving women permission to stop trying to do it all and instead get help where necessary and also look for different alternatives. 

 

The final section of the book is Self. As a working Mum you are more than just a Mum and a worker. You need to make time for yourself and the book looked at how much sleep and exercise the women in the survey were getting. Then the book looks at how to make the most of your leisure time whether that be finding more time for leisure activities or making the time you have set aside for leisure be used in the most fulfilling way.  

In the final part of the book Laura urges the reader to really look at the tiles in their own life. To look at a week as a whole and see how they piece everything together to work for them. She shares some final strategies to help and then sends you on your way.

That’s it! You now have an idea about what you can expect to find inside of I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam.

 

Like the sound of I Know How She Does It? Why not buy a copy of the book and read it yourself?

 

Buy your copy of I Know How She Does It from The Bookshop (and support local bookshops) or Amazon.

I Know How She Does It was read as part of PropelHer’s Book Club. PropelHer’s Book Club is an online non-fiction book club for ambitious women that meet monthly. Every month PropelHer’s Book Club reads a different book to help ambitious women concentrate on their personal development and professional success. You can see what else we have read so far here. If you would like to join PropelHer’s Book Club you can find full details here.

And don’t forget to share your book pictures! Tag @Propelherorg or use the hashtag #PropelHer