Don't spend time cooking in the kitchen. You can still have a home cooked meal by opening a can of lobster bisque or microwaving a frozen burrito. (My kids thought this one was particularly hilarious.)

Even if you sleep 49 hours a week (seven per day), and work 40 hours a week, that still leaves you with a whopping unallocated 79 hours. I might not be the best at all of these skills but nobody else can do them for me seeing as they are things that fulfill me, or that I want to get better at doing (photography and microscopy). The idea that we’re under a ‘time crunch’ is a myth. The real crisis all of us are under is more along the lines of misuse of time. We spend our time doing things that aren’t very high on our real personal priority list. It’s not just the time we waste doing unimportant stuff. It’s also the time we spend being productive towards ends that really don’t mean very much in our life.” Well, my dream job is to be an astronaut. It's not going to happen. I am in my mid-30s, have no science education and a 15-year career doing something else. Almost every book in this genre makes a similar recommendation. I find it useless. If everyone were doing his/her dream job, would we have janitors? Port-a-potty maintenance crew, etc. Granted, there are some "undesirable" jobs that appeal to a handful of people (i.e. podiatrists, those people who rescue alligators/venomous snakes from human habitats) but most of us aren't working our actual, honest-and-true dream job. Better advice would be how to find meaning in your work, how to stay motivated and focused when the work gets boring (even dream jobs come with a side of tedious tasks), how to move forward, grow and get new challenges/opportunities in your field. Now, if you h-a-t-e your job, that's something to look at but I feel like many of us are working jobs that are medium-ish -- they are not too hard/too easy, they pay enough to pay the bills, there's an ebb and flow between challenge and overwhelmed -- where's the advice on how to make the most of that kind of job? The kind most of us have? 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.I’m planning to try logging my time for a week soon so I can better see how I’m actually spending my time and decide what changes I want to make.

This author impressed me with her ability to pose questions that made me ask questions in her book "All the Money in the World." I had high hopes for this book, too. But there were huge sections where her suggestions and reasoning were based on underlying assumptions that I just don't agree with at all. If she doesn't come right out and say it, she strongly implies that a woman who doesn't have a career aside from mothering and home-making is wasting her time and life. I don't agree. Several other things she writes about here just rubbed me the wrong way. For example, I'm not sure how bragging about fitting into your pre-pregnancy jeans one week after your baby was born fits into this book. And I suspect that once the author actually has school-age children, she might not be so gung ho about feeding them school lunches to save time. She claims the hot lunch offering in school are now "healthy." Hmm.I found her discussion of outsourcing household tasks (and the associated stigmatism) fascinating, particularly the opportunity costs of hiring someone and the concept of specialization (disguised as “core competencies”) in the assignment of household tasks or in choosing to support local task-specific businesses. While certainly hiring someone to do those loathed cleaning chores may be financially challenging, she offers a few ideas when considering your budget. From her outlook, prioritization is key, and her theme that “you can make what you want most work” rings strong throughout the book (and she certainly admits “no one said having it all would be easy”). The best way to master a time management technique is to understand the nitty-gritty details. How do you implement it successfully? Here are a few things to think about. Take short breaks Also, a lot of the studies in her book showcase women who "have it all." The woman who runs a multi-million dollar business, is raising 5 kids and hikes every week was one of the people she used as an example of someone who uses her 168 hours very wisely. The whole concept of being a woman who can 'have it all' is actually incredibly destructive and creates an enormous amount of psychological stress. Using time better IS essential to a happy and productive life. But trying to convince women that they should be able to do everything isn't healthy. OMG. HAHAHA. Seriously? Raise your hand if you have a dedicated assistant? OK, even if you do have an assistant, raise your hand if that assistant is tasked with managing your work schedule/calendar AND your personal schedule/calendar (i.e. haircuts, appointments, etc.). Yeah, didn't think so. Dear Laura Vanderkam: Mad Men is not a show that takes place in the present tense. I’m willing to go out on a limb and bet you’re either overestimating or underestimating what you’re doing with your time.

While 168 hours takes a slightly more condensed approach to time management than Gates' Law (see the quote above), the point is the same. You can get more done than you think if you understand how you are utilizing your time now, and make the necessary changes. Get rid of non-core-competency tasks by ignoring, minimizing, or outsourcing them. Always seek work that improves your core competencies, and minimize the rest.Sleep for 7 hours, max. 8 if you're a real lazy-ass. You can sleep when you're dead. Don't "sleep in" on weekends. Wake up earlier and go to bed earlier since "nothing meaningful" gets done after 10p anyway. Except. Everyone is different. Some people have their best "brain time" at different times. More useful: adjust your sleep schedule around your best hours of the day -- plan to sleep when you know you're likely to have the hardest time staying focused. To better manage your time, create a spreadsheet and log all 168 hours of the week. That way, you will have a clear understanding of where your hours are going. Good gravy, this lady is out of touch with reality. I went into this thinking it would be good for me. I, like many people that I know, am often over scheduled, scraping together free time, and could use some spare minutes here and there. This book was not helpful. At all. The idea of the book is that you have 168 hours in a week, so surely you have time to do the things that you want. That sounds reasonable, but here are some of the ideas she presented to help free up some time: If you’re serious about your career, it should not be hard to find two or three senior people in your organization or industry who honestly like you. But it is your responsibility to seek these people out.” You don’t need to be a time management guru to appreciate the potential. If you take into account the fact that it only takes 20 hours to learn a new skill, you’ll be well on your way to planning more exciting and efficient weeks than ever before.