“Time is our most precious resource.” I’ve heard it, said it, written it and discussed it again and again. On consideration, time is a funny kind of resource. We don’t really know how much of it any of us have over the long term. Over the short term, everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, the same seven days in a week. How we feel about those hours and what we are able to do with them, though, that’s the rub, the really interesting thing about time.
Washington Post journalist Brigid Schulte wrote Overwhelmed: Work, Love, And Play When No One Has The Time to gain insight in to how we think about time and use time – and why so many of us feel so stressed about it. Schulte had read that a “time specialist” claimed that working women had, on average, thirty hours of leisure every week. A working mom with two small children and an endless list of responsibilities, at home, at work, at school and in the community, Schulte couldn’t believe the assertion. She contacted the expert, started a detailed “time diary,” and began a lengthy investigation into modern life and contemporary time management. Overwhelmed is a funny and fascinating study. The book has relevance for everyone, but it’s focus and main audience are working moms. Issues stemming from middle and upper middle class gender norms are at the heart of the book. She’s writing it, in part, to figure out why she and her most of her female friends and acquaintances felt as though their lives were spinning out of control.
Schulte writes crisply and cleanly, with humor and a just enough irony to keep us smiling. She tracks down time researchers and a host of characters who have studied, written about, and/or offered advice on time and time management. Taking the longer view, Schulte frames her investigation within broader examinations of what the “good life” might mean and how men and women have tracked their time over the years. She doesn’t critique capitalism, technology, or the new economy. Her line of inquiry is not theoretical. Instead, Schulte consistently returns to basic questions about everyday middle class life: How do people juggle multiple responsibilities? Why are so many people stressed about time? And why do women feel so much of the pressure?
Organized into large sections, the book offers broad interpretations of changing expectations and behavior. Investigations of “work” highlight the prevalence and corrosive notion of the “ideal employee.” This person has no family, no external obligations, and no interests save work. It seems that many of us carry around an ideation of this creation with us – even though researchers have proven that the concept is illusory and doesn’t even lead to the best worker. The section on love similarly examines the dangerous consequences of the “ideal mother” and the section on play argues that the lack of play, especially among women, has all manner of negative consequences. Play is important for our well-being and health.
Schulte finishes the book with some common sense recommendations. Focus on what is important. Keep lists. Plan, do and review. Be intentional. And at a high level, don’t let expectations of perfection get in the way of happiness or completion. These are appropriate for working mothers and for most humans. They also called into question for me ways that we teach and talk about time management. It isn’t just tactical; it’s about who we want to be and how we want to live.
A surprising strength of Overwhelmed is in illuminating the many ways the businesses, organizations, and government can rethink policies and practices to improve the lives of people. Affordable and convenient childcare, for example, offers a tremendous return for families and for society. Schulte’s work emphasizes that these are not “women’s issues” – even though they are often framed with that label.
Reading Overwhelmed reminded me of the insidious ways that we put pressure on ourselves, and each other, to do more. It gave insight into ways that this might play out among women, especially women with children. Schulte seems, at least from the outside, to be well on top of a very full lifestyle – even with her feelings of being overwhelmed. The book is very much an eye-opener in explaining why she feels the way that she does. I can relate – as can anyone with a family and a job and multiple obligations – to the many ways that we are pulled without enough time or energy to meet those many demands and expectations.
Overwhelmed is an interesting book and – if you will pardon the irony – very much worth your time.
David Potash