168 Hours

I have many feelings about this book.

Source: Goodreads.

First of all, she admits pretty early on that this book is for a fairly narrow audience: people whose work life allows some kind of flexibility and who have some disposable income. While some of her discussion is applicable to pretty much everyone--if you only have a couple hours a day to devote to a hobby, are you choosing the one that's going to bring you the most satisfaction?--much of it is not.

So, that being the case, what did I like about this book? Her case studies are well-chosen and fascinating. Her points about having to make choices about your time vs your money are good ones (for instance: if you have some spare cash, but want half and hour twice a week back to do something fun with your kids, maybe it's better to pay someone else to take care of your lawn).

Most of all, I appreciated her rather pointed comments about TV, because the truth is, if I'm choosing to watch TV (as I am, this week, while the Australian Open is on) then I'm actively choosing not to do something else. This is a point I wish more people would come to grips with. There are few things more aggravating to me than someone saying about one of my hobbies, usually with an accompanying smirk and/or eyeroll, "You have too much time on your hands." My complaint here isn't merely that it's no one else's business what I do with my time; my complaint is that about nine times out of four, this is said by someone who's already mentioned multiple TV shows in the conversation. So my response is inevitably, "So do you."

I also think Ms. Vanderkam's suggestion to keep a time log for a couple of weeks is golden. As it is often said, "If it's not documented, it didn't happen." How am I supposed to know how I'm spending my time, how will I see what activities are sapping hours from my life without giving much satisfaction in return, if I'm not paying attention to where the hours are going?

So, yes, I liked this book a lot, for all that it was aimed well above my pay grade. It got a bit tedious toward the end, but most of the book is thought-provoking and worth the time spend reading it.

What are you reading this week?