Achieving More by Doing Less
Let’s say you’re an aspiring manager with a rigorous and rewarding job at a fast-paced company. What does your work day look like? Meetings in the mornings, writing reports in the afternoon, and some email exchanges throughout the day. Great! Time to clock out and relax.
Not so fast. Turns out, you’re also a mother. Once you leave the office, you have a whole other job to do. It’s time to pick up the kids from daycare, whip up a healthy dinner, and do a week’s worth of laundry. By bedtime, you’re exhausted.
Can you do it all again tomorrow? Maybe. But, maybe that lifestyle is actually unsustainable. Unfortunately, in the modern world, many women are pressured to perform perfectly at work and at home.
The key message here is: The modern idea of doing it all is an unrealistic goal.
Over the last few generations, women have successfully staked out a bigger role in public life. For many women, this has included pursuing professional careers. While this change is definitely positive, complete gender equality remains out of reach. Consider that women are half the workforce, but they only claim 18 percent of leadership positions.
One major reason for this disparity is that women, even working ones, are often still responsible for the majority of domestic labor. The tasks of raising a family, keeping a house, and other traditionally “feminine” responsibilities have not disappeared, and they're still mostly done by women. In fact, according to the American Time Use Survey, 50 percent of women handle daily housework compared to a paltry 20 percent of men.
Now, this doesn’t mean that all men are lazy or that every husband purposefully foists extra responsibilities on his wife. However, unconscious gender roles still structure how work is allocated which puts women at a unique disadvantage. Consider this: Only 19 percent of millennial men felt that having children was holding them back professionally. In contrast, 58 percent of women felt motherhood hurt their careers.
Even when a household has enough money to hire outside help to handle the chores, these pressures don’t always abate. While wealthier women welcome the extra help, many report feelings of failure for not handling the household.
It seems that in the contemporary world, many women are either stretched too thinly trying to handle a huge workload, or they’re left feeling guilty for abandoning traditional responsibilities. In the next blink, we’ll look at some ways this dynamic gets reinforced.
Drop the Ball (2017) is a guide to living that makes the simple argument that you don’t have to do it all to have it all. Part memoir and part manifesto, the title provides a new approach to life for modern women.
Leveraging our highest and best use means employing what were good at and focusing on the tasks only we ourselves can do in order to realize our greatest goals and priorities.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testen
Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
