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More Ambition Doesn’t Necessarily Take More Time
A new way to manage your work week
This has been a tough year for working parents. Many people are attempting to do their jobs while overseeing children’s virtual schooling, a situation that basically requires feeling fragmented. I get it — I have five children of my own, and it always seems like there’s just not enough time to put in long hours at work and deal with my intense personal responsibilities. A recent McKinsey & Co. and LeanIn.org survey found that 40% of mothers of young children (and 26% of similar fathers) were considering leaving the workforce or downshifting because of these challenges.
But the good news for anyone facing this dilemma is that despite the popular perception, success does not require working around the clock. People often overestimate work hours; one study comparing people’s estimated workweeks with their actual time diaries found that people claiming 75-plus hour weeks were off by about 25 hours. I asked more than a hundred women with six-figure incomes to track their time for a week for my book I Know How She Does It; their average workweek was 44 hours.
