Books

Book Review: “I Know How She Does It” by Laura Vanderkam

This is a first for me! I’ve never posted a book review before, but I absolutely love getting book recommendations from my own favorite bloggers. Hopefully these posts will help you find books you do (or do not) want to read and/or listen to! (Side note: I am a huge audio book person. If you ever hear me say that I “read” a book, it is much more likely that I actually listened to a book while driving. Checking out books for free on OverDrive through the library is the bee’s knees).

I recently read (aka listened to) Laura Vanderkam’s I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time. This book caught my eye because I am absolutely one of those people who feels like they never have enough time to do everything they’d like. Southern belles of generations past may have lived a life of luxury by leaving the workforce post-marriage and having hired help to tend to the house, but today’s Southern belles are doing it all: employment, parenting, romantic relationships, active social lives, housekeeping, and more. Always more.

Book Review: "I Know How She Does It" by Laura Vanderkam | Fairly Southern

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I’ll start with the positives. There was some good content in this book, and I definitely learned new things about finding time to do everything I want to do. I was particularly intrigued by Vanderkam’s proposition that it is the attitude we have towards time that determines how much or little of it we perceive ourselves as having. I am actively working to shift my own mindset about time, and it is already proving to be a game changer for me.

Now for the negatives. The flow of the book felt scattered. One minute the author was talking about one thing, then there was a large leap to another unrelated topic. I got a little lost sometimes on where her train of thought was going. I also felt that the book had an elitist attitude at times. A woman’s level of “success” and perceived “workload” was measured by higher paying, six figure jobs. There are lots of us out here making much less than that who are also putting in long hours and gaining great fulfillment and satisfaction from our work, yet struggling to find work-life balance. There are lots of us out here who are not parents but struggle to find the time we crave for our hobbies. I think someone could easily walk away from this book feeling inadequate, hearing about how others who seemingly have more responsibilities manage to “do it all.” I had to check myself so as not to fall into this mindset while reading the book.

Overall, I think you will find helpful information in this book if you are a someone who constantly feels too busy. If you are a full-time working mother, you will especially benefit.

Let me know if you read it and what you think!

xoxo Laura

2 comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.