Win at Work and Succeed at Life summary

In the twentieth century, experts were predicting that by the year 2000, humanity would be working less, not more. With the advent of computing power and faster communication, it was assumed that we’d be working only two or three days a week. The big question, experts thought, was what we’d do with our vast amounts of free time when we didn’t have to work so much. But you probably need only look at your own life today to see how wrong these predictions were.

As it turns out, modern technology has given us more work to do, not less. Smartphones have added an average of eleven hours to a typical professional’s working week, meaning that many professionals now spend around 80 hours a week working.

When you’re a high-powered professional, it's easy to throw your work-life balance off-kilter. There are only 168 hours in every week, and before you know it, you’re dipping into your personal time to achieve more of your professional goals. Luckily, there’s a way to ensure that you don’t neglect your personal life completely. It all comes down to being clear on your nonnegotiable priorities.

No matter who you are, or how packed your work schedule is, there are a few nonnegotiables that you need to focus on.

Work and water have a lot in common. Just like we need water to live, most of us need to work to live, too. Both water and work are most useful to us when we put limits on them. Water that flows down a river is helpful. But when the river bursts its banks and floods, it becomes a problem. Work is exactly the same; it needs limits and constraints to be useful.

Many career gurus give us the message that our working week should be unlimited. They tell us that more work means more productivity. But this is wrong.

How can you achieve a work-life balance? Perhaps you think it’s a mythical concept that can never truly be reached, as imaginary as the fountain of youth. But the authors believe that work-life balance is real. And what’s more, anyone can have it. You just have to be really clear about what balance actually means. 

Let’s start by looking at what work-life balance doesn’t mean.

Inspiration can strike when you least expect it. In 1990, a young writer was on a train between Manchester and London, England. To her annoyance, the train was delayed for four long hours. She was left staring out of the window with nothing to do, and without even a pen. But during those hours, something remarkable happened.

An idea for a story arrived in her mind and she spent the time figuring out the plot points and characters. By the time she reached her destination, she had the whole concept ready to go. That writer was J.K. Rowling and the story was Harry Potter. This just goes to show how important it is to take a pause.

If you listen to the advice dished out by modern celebrities, you might get the impression that sleep doesn’t matter all that much. Public figures like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and entrepreneur Elon Musk boast of getting by on just a few hours of sleep a night, so that they can maximize time spent on their career goals. But just like the myth of the 80-hour superweek, the legend of the permanently awake CEO also needs a reality check.

There’s probably no better strategy for winning in both your personal and professional life than getting more sleep. Unfortunately, many Americans aren’t getting enough. Research suggests that people in the United States are the most sleep-deprived in the Western world. But why is sleep so important, anyway?