#583 Big Time with Laura Vanderkam (A Career Well Spent Series)

**Laura Vanderkam** (0:00)
One thing that hasn't changed is there are still 168 hours in a week. Every Monday, when you're starting over again, you get to decide how to spend it.

**Helen Tupper** (0:10)
We're gonna talk about time. How do you make sure your time is well spent in your career? And the expert I'm gonna be talking to is Laura Vanderkam.

**Laura Vanderkam** (0:20)
Time is precious. There is only so much of it. I believe we do have a lot of time. Time is big. Time is big enough for what matters to us.
But part of having enough space for the things that matter to us is to be very judicious. Tracking your time for a week is one of the best things you can do to change your perception of time. I've been tracking my time for 11 years now.

**Helen Tupper** (0:42)
For somebody that is feeling, sounding a bit like me, like the time victim, and we're moving them to like the big time transformer, what other things could they start doing so they feel a bit more in control?
Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers Podcast, and you are listening to our Summer Series, which is all about a career well spent. Sarah and I thought that summer was a really good moment to reflect. Maybe you're flying somewhere or maybe your colleagues have gone on holiday and you've got a little bit more time to think. We would love some of that time to be spent thinking about your career, the impact and purpose and that is what this series is all about. We thought it would be even better if we borrowed some brilliance from some experts in this area. So in the four conversations that we've got in this series, you're going to hear us talking to people about purpose, about career longevity, about impactful work that really makes a difference, about building the right relationships and in today's conversation, we're going to talk about time. How do you make sure your time is well spent in your career? And the expert I'm going to be talking to is Laura Vanderkam. I followed her work for a while. She's got a new book out called Big Time. And the reason I love Laura's work is it is just so practical. I mean, like minute by minute, how do you track it? How do you think about where you're spending that? And I think she helps you go from a bit of overwhelm about where your time is being spent right now, to crystal clear clarity about what you could do differently. And I really hope that comes across in this conversation, which felt like a personal coaching session for me, if I'm honest. So I hope you can take lots of useful insights from it too.
I think we should just get straight into the conversation now.
Laura, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.

**Laura Vanderkam** (2:38)
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

**Helen Tupper** (2:41)
Well, I'm very excited to talk about time, but specifically to talk to you about time, because I have followed your work from afar for a while, a long time, and I've really loved it, and I found it really connected with me. It was your first book, 168 Hours, that was the first one that I connected with.
I remember talking to so many people about things.

**Laura Vanderkam** (3:04)
I was like, this is such a good book.

**Helen Tupper** (3:05)
It will help you think differently. I used so many phrases and ideas from that book. So it's great to talk to you about time. But also for our community, time is one of the topics that they are most interested in. So whenever we do episodes around time, it always gets lots of engagement. So the combination of your expertise and their interests, I know this is gonna be a brilliantly useful podcast for people.
So you've written lots on time, and most recently your book, Big Time. And I guess my first question is, since you wrote 168 Hours, it was my first connection with your work, to where you are now, what has changed in how you think about time and perhaps the problem to be solved with time?

**Laura Vanderkam** (3:54)
Well, one thing that hasn't changed is there are still 168 hours in a week. And this is, I mean, this is a little bit trite, but what I keep coming back to is that we do all have 168 hours in a week, every week. Every Monday when you're starting over again, you've got 168 hours in front of you. And to a large degree, you get to decide how to spend it. There are certain things we have to do, but there's also a lot of choice within that rubric. And so that has not changed at all.