I am now filling out Penguin’s Author Questionnaire. Among the requests was that I write my own synopsis/blurb for the book. After a while, I came up with this:

We all know there are 24 hours in a day; some of us talk of doing things “24-7.” But few of us multiply those numbers together. That’s too bad, because 168 hour weeks provide the most useful framework for thinking about our lives, and how we use our time. The premise of this book is that there is more than enough time in a 168 hour week for building a Career with a capital C, raising a family, getting adequate sleep and exercise, and nurturing your personal interests as well. This book is about how people spend their 168 hours, and how we can all spend them better. It is about focusing on the things you do best and that others cannot do nearly as well. It is about taking your career to the next level while investing in your personal life, and about where the time really goes. Drawing upon vast troves of research about time use in the past and present, and upon hundreds of interviews and time logs, 168 Hours makes the case that we have more time than we think – enough time to really have it all.

As I’m finishing up the draft of 168 Hours, I plan to send it to a number of test readers in order to see if parts rub people the wrong way or need to be explained better. I’ve also finally gotten around to checking some of the blogosphere’s take on my guest post for Lisa Belkin’s Motherlode blog.

Based on what I’ve read, I’m anticipating a few main lines of criticism for the message of 168 Hours, which is about how we spend our time, and how all of us can spend our time better. The most controversial part of this thesis will be my assertion that any perceived conflict between building a Career with a capital C and raising a family is overblown. Though I won’t claim to be writing as some great success story, inevitably, people like to point to the author’s life if they don’t like what you’re saying. The arguments:

1. You’re rich, and hence it’s easy for you. I freely admit that my husband and I do quite well for ourselves, and that money does make life easier. On the other hand, many other wealthy women I know have elected not to incorporate paid work into their lives in any fashion whatsoever. I think it would be far more hypocritical to extol the virtues of staying home when a) you have full-time help anyway and b) most people can’t afford it.

As a side note to this, there’s some interesting evidence that people perceive more time stress as their household income rises, even holding steady the total volume of market (paid) and non-market work (housework and childcare). In other words, the richer people become, the more likely they are to fret about work-life balance. Being in a high tax bracket and not fretting about it is actually more rare.

2. You have a lot of help. I do have some, though in my case, this is a substitute for having zero family around, and a husband who works more hours than many others. Beyond childcare, this help is confined to a once-every-two-to-three weeks residential cleaning service. I pay $80 for this. I eat out less than the average American.. If anything, I’m looking for more ways to outsource things in my life! The biggest way I “outsource” things is by ignoring them. My house just isn’t that clean. I admit that there are currently crushed Cheerios all over the floor. Maybe this makes me a bad person. But I fail to see how the universe would be improved if I spent more time cleaning my kitchen and less time working, exercising, volunteering, or interacting with my family.

3. You’re a lousy mother — much worse than me because I do____(fill in the blank). One of the reasons I think women’s life choices are considered so controversial is the difficulty of figuring out metrics of success. Should we judge a mother on how her children have turned out by age 30? We all know Supermoms whose children have turned into disasters, and super successful people whose parents neglected them. There isn’t a one-to-one correspondence. In general, spending more interactive time with your children is probably better than spending less, though according to the American Time Use Survey, the average parent isn’t spending that much time with their kids regardless of labor force participation. Stay-at-home moms of preschoolers only spend about 50 minutes per week reading with their kids. We all have different impressions of what a “good mother” or “good father” does. For instance, some people might say that a good mother is ready and able to financially support her family. By that metric, someone who puts a lot of effort into, say, sewing a Halloween costume, rather than maintaining a professional network, is failing miserably. I think parenting is best approached with confidence in your own competence in the short term, but humility about the long-term.

4. Just wait until your second kid is born… then you’ll see how hard it is. I find this criticism fascinating. I’m sure that having two children will be a lifestyle change, though probably not quite the lifestyle change that having one was. Anyway, I’d be more concerned about this if people hadn’t told me the exact same thing before Jasper was born. I wrote a post for The Huffington Post back in May, 2007 called “When You Work For Yourself, Is Maternity Leave Possible?” Jasper hadn’t quite arrived yet, and I wrote about how I planned to manage my workstream and all that. People emailed me in a tizzy saying I couldn’t possibly know how I’d feel after having a baby.

Well, Jasper was born and… things happened pretty much exactly as I anticipated. I don’t mean that all was peaches and light (I never guessed that my husband would take a business trip to Europe when Jasper was 1-week old — it took me about 6 months, several apologies and a commitment that we’d handle things differently the next time around before I forgave him for that one). But I know myself, and know how I handle stress. Given that we had a child without any health issues, life more or less continued, albeit with a sidekick. Two will be more of a juggling act, but writing 168 Hours, I’ve talked to women with far more than 2 kids who make it all work. Plus, I’m not sure why the demarcation between 1 and 2 is the important one. Perhaps there are people who would tell me, if I was expecting my fourth child “oh wait until he comes. Four is so much different than three!”

Again, I can completely understand that a special needs child might be different, but that usually isn’t what people are talking about. Just the normal chaos of having multiple kids under age 5.

Update 11/19: Well, Sam arrived in late September, healthy as could be (thank God). I’ve been going back through to edit previous posts, but I couldn’t find much in this one to change. Having 2 kids is more work than having 1, of course, but life has more or less continued, albeit with a second very cute sidekick. There are some newer posts on this blog about time management with an infant. It’s basically just the fundamentalist version of time management during the rest of life!

I’m starting to get some great information coming in from volunteers who’ve kept time logs for 168 hours (I learned, for instance, that my little brother has an incredible social life… but that is a different matter).

One finding: working parents of small children often have a reasonable amount of time in the mornings. It may not seem like it, as we rush to get everyone dressed, fed and out the door, but the time logs reveal a different picture. Toddlers can get up at the crack of dawn — easily 6AM. Parents tend not to leave for daycare and work until 8AM or so. If those two hours appeared between, say, 4PM and 6PM, we’d view this as an open spot in the schedule for family time, but we tend not to count the mornings.

There is, though, no reason not to. Families that have trouble coordinating family dinners can have family breakfasts. No need to cook something elaborate — just talk over cereal and coffee. Parents can aim to get up 15 minutes before their children, and so be ready to focus on them, rather than grooming routines and dressing. If it takes you much longer than 15 minutes to get ready, then you need to streamline this process (I usually shower the night before if I need to be somewhere looking nice at a certain time in the AM). In ten minutes on Sunday nights you can pick outfits for the whole week. “Launching pads” for cell phones, backpacks, etc. can lessen time spent hunting around for them. Rather than glancing at the clock, set a watch for 15 minutes before you need to be out the door, and then just relax until it beeps.

It may be harder to do “field-trip” type activities in the early morning (the library and museums are probably closed) but in the summer at least it’s light enough to go to playgrounds, or play in the backyard. You can read stories together, go for a walk or run with the baby jogger (and hence get some exercise, too!) The point is to be intentional about it, rather than focusing on the end result of getting out the door. Time is valuable, no matter where it appears.

Back in 1990, sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the phrase “second shift” to describe the household labor married women did once they came home from their paying jobs. The thesis was a bit overblown then, and definitely is now as the number of hours women devote to housework has fallen precipitously. Back in 1965, married moms did about 35 hours of housework per week. These days, it’s down below 20, and only a bit above 14 if you have a full time job. Married women are spending more time with our kids than our mothers did, which in theory could constitute a second shift, but we spend a higher proportion of this time on interactive activities than women did four decades ago — the fun stuff like reading together, playing together, etc.  Referring to this as shift work probably isn’t quite right.

But that’s not to say that many moms — and dads! — aren’t working a second shift. We are. It is almost 11pm right now, and I am hacking my way through my work to-do list. I picked up Jasper at 5:30pm today and we hung out together until about 8:30. My husband and I had dinner, and then we both went back to work for the past two hours.

There are upsides and downsides to this, of course. Often, I need a break in the early evenings. I’ve definitely been more productive in the last two hours than I would have been if I’d worked straight through to 7:30pm or so. A second shift also gives moms and dads more time with their kids without having to stick to an 8 hour workday. On the other hand, it reduces leisure time quite a bit, and can reduce couple time and sleep if you’re not careful. The key is to think of it as a concentrated, quiet burst of time, and call it quits at least 8 hours before you have to be up in the morning.

Just read about a fascinating study in this month’s Wired. Ran Kivetz, a professor of business at Columbia University, recently did some experiments that study our long-term reactions to various choices. According to writer Clive Thompson, “Doing the ‘right’ thing — putting our responsibilities ahead of momentary pleasures — often leaves us unhappy down the road. When we skip a vacation to work overtime or pass up that awesome vintage Porsche for a used minivan — sure, we pat ourselves on the back for a week or two. But as the years go by, we inevitably regret our monkishness and wish we’d enjoyed ourselves more.” Indeed, we’re more likely to behave self-indulgently when recalling a virtuous decision years hence.

This gets at a point I’m trying to make in 168 Hours — you have to be happy on a daily basis. You live your life in hours, not abstractions, and if those hours aren’t filled with things you enjoy, the mosaic of your larger life won’t be a positive one. That’s not to say spend freely and eat whatever you want, but since there are ways to make ourselves happier while doing things like working and ocupying our leisure time (hint: TV doesn’t help!), better to make those choices than delude yourself that there’s some bonus virtue gained by being miserable.

Yesterday was a good day.

I opened the apartment door around 7AM to find my Wall Street Journal delivered — with something I’d written in it. My 2-year-old son, Jasper, woke up and we played with puzzles and had breakfast before I put him in the stroller and walked in the easy New York City sunshine to his preschool two blocks away. I spent the next four hours writing. Then I took a 50-minute break to log 45 sweaty minutes on the stationary bike — reading a book I needed to review made the time go quickly. I wrote for three more hours. I packed snacks for Jasper and walked to pick him up  with the best intentions of bringing him to the Museum of Modern Art. Alas, it was closed as it is every Tuesday — so we had to regroup, buy a pretzel from a street vendor and walk down 5th Avenue, at least finding the new pair of sneakers he’d needed out of the expedition. We played at home until the babysitter came an hour later, and I hightailed it to Brooklyn to run a long-range planning meeting for the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus (for which I serve as the executive director). Our eager volunteers talked about how to commission more new music, how to improve our musical craft, how to make people feel more at home in this grand city. I zipped home on the L line and in a cab, and spent 45 minutes talking with my husband Michael about our days. It was roughly a 17-hour day by the time I went to sleep, with 8 spent working, 0.75 spent exercising (more if you count all my walking around), 4 hours spent with family, 3.25 spent on my volunteer work and another hour lost in transition, housework and puttering (it happens to the most intentional of us).

It was certainly a busy day, though not particularly more so than many other weekdays. What made it a “good” day was the high proportion of time spent on things that relate broadly to my abstract life goals. I wanted to be a writer and I am — there, for a million readers to see, in the gray print of a newspaper. I wanted to be a wife and mother. I wanted to live in New York for at least a while when I was young enough not to mind the grit of the place. I love to sing, and I love to create new things, be that music or books. I love the health and energy that comes from staying active — even as my belly seems to grow larger by the day.

But all these things are abstractions. All these things are grand ideas we usually think about in conjunction with phrases such as “when I grow up” or “someday” or “when I retire.”

A few years ago, though, I had a realization. While we think of our lives in grand abstractions, a life is actually lived in hours. The desire to be a writer must play out in daily hours of research, interviews, planning, cranking out drafts, polishing and finding places to write for. The desire to be a mother is manifested in hours of being there with your child, teaching him that even though he loves the new shoes he picked out, he has to take them off for a minute so mommy can pay for them and have the security tag removed. A marriage requires conversation and cuddling and a focus on family projects. A desire to sing well in a functioning chorus requires hours of weekly group rehearsals and solo practice as well as goal setting and administration; a desire for health requires a daily choice to move your body and get enough sleep rather than seeing what’s on TV.

Yesterday was, of course, a 24-hour day, and this is certainly the way most of us are accustomed to thinking about our hours. But as I’ve been trying to be more mindful of my time, I’ve come to believe that it’s more useful to think in terms of that “24-7″ phrase people bandy about, but seldom multiply through. There are 168 hours in a week. My busy Tuesday was a good day, but so was my lazier Sunday spent going to church, walking for two hours in Central Park and — yes — working for about 4 hours during Jasper’s naps and after he went to bed. Anything you do once a week happens often enough to be important. The cycle of 168 hour weeks is big enough to give a true picture of our lives. Years and decades are made up of a mosaic of repeating patters of 168 hours. Yes, they evolve, and yes there is room for randomness, but not paying attention to the mosaic is still a choice. Largely, our lives will be a function of how we choose to set these stones.

I like to eat well. In theory, this could take a lot of time, but I find that by focusing on incredibly simple meals with a few ingredients — many of which can be stored for months — my husband or I can make dinner in less than 15 minutes of hands-on time per night. The key is stocking up on frozen meats (pre-marinated if you wish) and pantry staples and sauces during once a month trips to a grocery store. Then you supplement with quick stops for fresh produce (or have such things delivered). Mix and match what’s in your kitchen and voila! A healthy dinner is served — usually in 2 pots or less. Some recent winners:

* Teriyaki pork tenderloin with asparagus and mushroom risotto. Ingredients: pre-marinated frozen pork tenderloin, asparagus, box of flavored risotto, can of mushrooms.

* Salmon with soy-maple glaze, green beans and brown rice. Ingredients: frozen salmon topped with soy sauce and maple syrup, green beans and boil-in-the-bag brown rice.

* BBQ pork chops with peaches and toasted pine nut couscous. Ingredients: frozen pork chops topped with BBQ sauce and cooked with cut up peaches, box of flavored couscous.

* Angel hair pasta with mushroom-marinara sauce and salad. Ingredients: pasta (cooks in 3 minutes!), jar of sauce, extra mushrooms cut up and thrown in, plus salad-in-a-bag.

* Red-pepper pizza with salad. Ingredients: frozen pizza, red pepper cut up and baked on top, salad-in-a-bag.

* Baked chicken with apples and leeks. Ingredients: chicken, apples, leeks. Shocking! Bonus points for soup starter of lobster bisque. Ingredients: can of lobster bisque soup.

Breakfast is cereal, milk and coffee, with fresh fruit thrown in depending on what’s in season. Everyone is on their own for lunch but I buy frozen Healthy Choice type meals for myself. Snacks: string cheese, almonds, dried apricots, Wasa crackers with peanut butter. Dessert is dark chocolate, pudding or ice cream. Throw in some red wine and things start to feel pretty decadent!

Phew! Get a link on the home page of the New York Times and you can get enough traffic to really slow a webpage down!

I was the guest blogger for Lisa Belkin’s Motherlode blog on Wednesday of last week, with a piece titled Parents Who Don’t Waste Enough Time. The gist of the piece was that in our efforts not to shortchange our children, sometimes parents shortchange our careers by not spending some “inefficient” time focusing on long-term priorities and creative daydreaming. I maintain (as I do in 168 Hours) that there is enough time in a 168 hour week to invest adequately in both career and family and self (yes, I really do sleep 8 hours a night!)

Anyway, I’m happy to report that the post sparked a lot of discussion, and I’ve been getting great offers to keep time logs from some people who checked out my websites. I’m still looking for some more volunteers (though I’d really like a few men too!)

So why is this post a few days late? Partly, it’s because I couldn’t access my own admin page due to the increased traffic coming from the New York Times, and partly because I was on “vacation” last week — roughly 168 hours — at the New Jersey shore with my extended family.

It was actually a pretty balanced vacation in terms of time spent on various things. I rarely completely tune out work — I love what I do, and so I spent about 2-3 hours per day working on the book project or checking in on things. I did some reading. I went on four runs. I also went to the beach  twice a day and played with Jasper and his cousins.  I ate a lot of fudge and ice cream And watched zero TV.  So now I’m feeling pretty relaxed and ready to start the week. I could have not checked email at all, but then I’d be in a total panic trying to catch up, which would have ruined this weekend. Instead, I got to spend the morning with a friend and her daughter at the playground. Fun stuff!

For 168 Hours, I am still seeking people to participate in “time makeovers.” This involves keeping a time log for 168 hours (one week), and answering a few questions about things you like and don’t like on your schedule. I’ll then give a few suggestions for tune-ups. Ideally, people participating in these makeovers would be willing to participate in book publicity a year from now.

Keeping track of your time  is not too laborious. I’ve been doing these makeovers on myself for the past few weeks and have found them helpful for identifying places where time can be used more effectively — everything from stocking the freezer with frozen meat to reading fiction during Jasper’s weekend naps.

If you’d like to give it a whirl, please email me at lvanderkam at yahoo dot com. I’m looking for people in all walks of life and in different geographic regions. I have spreadsheets I can send you to make the process of recording your hours easier. Thanks!

For 168 Hours, I interviewed hundreds of people about how they manage their time. Some of these people were also career and life coaches who advise other people on managing their time. Caroline Ceniza-Levine is one such person. She is currently running a company called SixFigureStart which coaches young people as they try to figure out “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

It’s a tough question. So in her workshops, Ceniza-Levine pulls out a signature exercise she calls the “List of 100 Dreams,” which I think is a fascinating way to figure out what we should and should not be doing with our 168 hours.

Here’s how it works. Start writing down a list of all the things you’d like to do during your lifetime. This could include 10 restaurants you’d like to try, 10 financial goals, places you want to visit, etc. Go ahead and include a few you’ve already accomplished, like graduating from college, or having kids. You’ll probably be stumped by the time you get to 100, but if you find brainstorming easy, call it the List of 1000 Dreams and keep going. The point is to shoot for such a big number that you’re not editing yourself. Winning a Nobel Prize in chemistry and maintaining a nice stash of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate covered caramels can all go on there.

Come back to this list several times over the next few weeks (or years) as you think of more items. Here’s a small sampling of mine, which I wrote in April as I was writing the chapter with this exercise:

* Attend performances of Bach B-Minor Mass

* Commission a major choral work

* See the Ring Cycle live

* Have fresh flowers in my office regularly

* Write a regular series of columns/articles for a major magazine or newspaper on an important issue that involves traveling to exotic places around the globe

* Get novel published

* Do African safari with my kids when they’re teenagers

* Hit the best-seller list for fiction and non-fiction

* Teach journalism and creative writing at a top tier college

* Have a clothing wardrobe I love that makes me excited to get dressed

And so forth. Once you’re tapped out, it’s time to look at the dreams you haven’t turned into reality. Go through the list and start knocking off items that are cheap or require a few hours or less. In the past few months, for instance, I got nosebleed section $20 tickets for a performance of the Bach B-Minor Mass at Carnegie Hall. I bought a nice orchid for my office.

Ceniza-Levine calls this exercising the “passion muscle.” The experience helps people figure out “what it’s like to like what they’re doing.” You will do a few things by grabbing this low-hanging fruit.

For starters, you will learn that some of your 100 Dreams have no business being on the official List. If “win an Oscar” is on your list, and also “act in a play,” and you knock off the latter with a community production of Evita and discover it wasn’t life changing, you can stop writing the speech in which you thank the Academy. That’s now mental energy that can be devoted to other things.

But most importantly, by trying lots of things you think you might enjoy, you will learn more about yourself, and what you actually are good at, what might be your core competencies, and which of the biggies are worth going for. You may be shocked by what you discover. This is why you just have to be open-minded and try things.