This isn’t true for every job of course — it’s mostly an information work phenomenon. According to the American Time Use Survey, which was just recently released, in 2023, 35 percent of employed people did some or all of their work at home on the days they worked. But among workers over age 25 who have a bachelor’s degree or higher, 52 percent of employed people performed some or all of their work at home on the days they worked.

Now, the “some or all” phrasing is tricky, because anyone checking email from home after a workday at the office is, technically working from home.

But when I follow the data from the ATUS press release to its official Table 6, I see that only 57 percent of those with a bachelors degree or higher did some or all of their work at their workplace on the days they worked, which would at least seem to imply that 43 percent were working at home exclusively on the surveyed work day.

This is a lot! If you consider the various jobs-requiring-a-bachelors-degree that actually can’t be done remotely, it’s a high proportion of those that actually can. It is fascinating to me to see how things wind up changing in the real world. When I was writing I Know How She Does It in 2013-2014, negotiating to work from home one day a week (often Friday) was a big deal. People tried to figure out how to approach their managers about it, and often people were willing to give up something to get that perk. And it was definitely seen as a perk — something you had to be at a company for a while to get. Even then it was precarious. I am familiar with one workplace where the company moved into a gleaming new office building…and promptly tried to get rid of people’s work-from-home agreements.

Now, “you can work from home on Fridays” — 2014’s big concession — is less than table stakes.

While there have been some advances in technology, we had smart phones and video conferencing capabilities in 2014. There was no real reason a 3-2 hybrid schedule (that often isn’t even 3-2) couldn’t have been the norm then. It just wasn’t. A lot of organizations assumed there was no way their work could be done from home, until it had to be. If a lot of your work involves emailing and calling people in other places, there’s really no reason you have to drive 30 minutes (or take a train) to do that.

I imagine this is how change happens in a lot of scenarios. Little by little and then suddenly all at once. It seems unlikely I’ll ever wind up writing an article on how to negotiate to work from home one day a week again!

In other news: Speaking of content…This week over at Vanderhacks I suggested people “Upgrade your background music” and “Set a rain date” so you can keep moving forward even when life intervenes. The post behind a paywall was about “Big family logistics” — 13 little hacks for managing a crowd.

In the Before Breakfast podcast, I suggested people “Make silence meaningful,” (based on a tip from Anna Goldfarb) and I suggested some mindset shifts for figuring out “How busy people can travel more.”

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community site, we’re talking about Friday rituals, what we’re reading and, of course, the private ask-me-anything video.

I have never actually worked somewhere with summer hours, so this is theoretical to me. But even as a self-employed sort, I find that summer hours tend to look a little different. This is neither good nor bad, but it’s worth being mindful about, and adjusting work expectations, and life ambitions accordingly.

One reason summer hours look different is just practical. For many people, the normal childcare routines of the school year change in summer. My kids tend to go to day camps, and we often need more than one driver to do any day’s camp run. So rather than starting work at 8, some days it’s going to be more like 9:15 (albeit with some work prior to 8:45 or so). Kids also need to be picked up, which means stopping work around 3 p.m. some days and then doing another hour or so after — doable, but it’s not always the most focused hour.

There’s also the reality that many of us take more days off. I know I do. If I actually manage to pull off five Mommy Days this summer that will be five days of working less than I might. We have four weeks away from the house this summer, and with two other short trips for me, I’m looking at five weeks outside the normal routine. I’ll work for some of that (during the weeks at the beach I will definitely be working a few hours most days) but it won’t be the same as a full work week in my office.

All this means I need to do a few things.

First, I plan to get ahead on the have-to-do stuff while I still am at my desk (Before Breakfast episodes come to mind — I’m about 2-3 weeks ahead, but if I get 4 weeks ahead that’s just more buffer).

Second, I need to adjust any other expectations accordingly. I am very efficient, but there’s only so much that fits in 25 hours a week vs. 35-40.

And then I also need to think how I want to spend the non-working time. We’re doing a lot of family adventures, of course, and I’ve also been spending a lot of TOAD time with the little kids (Time Outside After Dinner, or possibly Together Outside After Dinner time). I taught them about honeysuckle and now they’ve been attacking the vines to get the nectar out of those blossoms. I’m hoping to do some evening runs with my 16-year-old. Regardless, it’s worth pondering, because even when it’s not easy to work, it’s still easy to waste that time on stuff that isn’t particularly enjoyable or memorable. If I’m working less it should be because I want to do more cool stuff, not just because it’s logistically challenging.

Do you set summer hours? I’m thinking it might be helpful for me to more formally map out my intended work time so I have a better sense of what can happen over the summer and what can’t…

In other news: We’re getting formal portraits taken of the 3-year-old this weekend. He got a big bug bite on his face last week that I hoped would clear up but unfortunately he keeps rubbing it so it has not gone away. Maybe some retouching will be happening…

We’re likely going to an air show in Reading this weekend. It tends to line up with my husband’s birthday, and he enjoys going, so that will be our family outing. I’m also giving him tickets to a concert in a few weeks — this is really the summer of live music for me!

Ken Honda, also known as the “Zen Millionaire,” frequently tells the story of how he came to his second career. He was at a park with his daughter when he witnessed a mother and child fighting. Mom wanted to leave the park. Mom said she had to go to work, and the daughter wanted to play longer. Ken spoke and has written of feeling so terrible that mom “had” to work. If only she had handled her money better! He needed to teach people how to have a better relationship with money!

And so even though he had “retired” at the age of 29…he needed to go back to work teaching mothers that if they don’t want to spend all day pushing their kids on the swings it must be because they are terrible with money. OK, that last bit is my editorial comment. He sounds like a lovely person in general, and I know his advice has been helpful for a lot of people — men and women. 

But… I have been pondering why that story bothered me so much. As I think about it, my annoyance goes beyond the particular men-judging-mothers-who-are-not-100%-available-for-their-children’s-every-desire angle, to a problem I have with parts of the “FIRE” movement.

FIRE stands for “financial independence, retire early.” I am a big fan of financial independence. I’ve talked before about how my husband and I are both naturally frugal people. We’ve also both been working for decades. This has happy results in terms of resources — something I am profoundly grateful for. When we have more resources, we have more choices in our lives. This includes a lot of choices about work — for both of us!

So why aren’t either of us at the park all day? Retiring early is a different matter. Some of the loudest voices talking about FIRE can come across as stridently anti-work. Work is that evil thing keeping you from pushing your child on the swings for three hours in the park. Work consumes your life force, and thus all expenditures must be measured in terms of the amount of life they suck away from you as you make the acquisition. But for this to make sense, we have to define work as “something you don’t want to do.” Or “something someone else makes you do from at least 9 to 5 in a specific location every work day with only two weeks off per year.” So you’ll hear people talking about having “retired” at some ridiculously young age…and then gone on to do other income-generating, time-filling, productive activities such as writing books, hosting podcasts, giving speeches, running websites, etc. This sounds suspiciously like what I do for a living now.

It’s not exactly retirement, it’s trading one career for another. At least Honda calls it a second career. Some people don’t even acknowledge that. If you don’t have to do it, it must not be work! 

But this isn’t exactly a workable definition for “work.” Following that train of thought, people would go in and out of work all day long as they do things they want to do or don’t want to do.

I think that there can be a more nuanced approach to this than singing the praises of retiring early. Yes, work toward financial independence! Better yet, achieve it. But also try to figure out what kind of work you wouldn’t want to retire from. For those just starting out, I’d note that there’s no law against having your second career first. Work can be a source of great joy in your life. I am rarely happier than when I am working toward a big professional goal such as writing a book, and really throwing myself into it, to the point of achieving flow. When you spend your hours doing work you find meaningful, time can seem to fly by and stand still. It really is magical.

I hope my kids find work like that too. I’m not working because I mishandled my money (I’d also note that according to this Pew poll, only 2 percent of mothers who work full-time say that at this point in their life it would be best for them to stay home full-time with their kids, with 14 percent saying it would be best to work part-time, whereas a full 25 percent of mothers who are not employed say it would be best for them to work full-time, with another 35 percent wanting to work part-time). I’m working because I enjoy it and think I have something to offer the world in addition to my ability to push children on swings. I get to do both! As did the mother in the original anecdote. I’d point out that she was there at the park before heading out — one wonders where the dad was. Working? Watching TV? Who knows — not there to get judged, I guess.

Have you made changes in your career to get more freedom and flexibility?

Many people do not know how many hours are in a week (168). When you don’t know the denominator of a fraction, estimating the numerator, in order to give you the proportion that you feel is right, is an inexact science at best.

Surveys tend to ask about a “typical” week, but deciding what is “typical” is a judgement call based on the narratives we have about our lives. Throw in that we live in a competitive world — especially in certain industries — and you have a recipe for high numbers. Lest you think I am immune to this, I used to talk about working 50 hours a week, until I started tracking my time continuously back in 2015. I then realized that the weeks I’d chosen to track for public consumption had been chosen precisely because they were longer. In my mind, long hours meant I was hard-working. I wanted people to know what a hard worker I was. And I am a hard worker! But my long-term work hour average that first year of tracking was closer to 40. (These days, it is lower.)

I was thinking of this over the past week when I saw headlines claiming that people at a certain financial firm were working 98 hours a week. This turned out to be a leaked internal report about 13 first-year analysts. The far more interesting part of the study was people’s poor rating of life satisfaction and mental health, and that they had been subject to workplace abuse — but that isn’t what led the stories.

There are always horrific supervisors or projects; I know nothing about which particular 13 people responded, and what led to this report being commissioned (maybe a complaint about a hazing-style reliance on all-nighters — an idiotic form of management for sure. I know many people have job horror stories they can recount.).

In general, though, when you are trying to draw conclusions about work hours, the only way to get accurate answers is to have people keep track of their time for at least a week, hour by hour, as they go along. When you do this, what you tend to find is that even extreme jobs involve fewer hours than headline numbers.

I’ve seen thousands of time logs over the years. Some of those have been for my book projects, like I Know How She Does It, when I recruited women earning over $100,000 a year, who also had kids, to track their time for a week. This survey included people at various consulting firms, financial firms, law firms, tech companies, etc. The longest logged work week was 69 hours — which came from an accountant in busy season. She had records from the rest of the year and those numbers were generally lower. There were a few other semi-atypical long weeks. One person went to a conference on the Saturday and Sunday of the week she tracked — which wasn’t something she did every weekend, but which definitely drove up the tallies.

Some of the folks in the 60s and high 50s, though, were in “extreme” jobs, and those hours seemed fairly typical for their lives. Over the years I’ve given speeches various places and people (men and women) have tracked their time in advance of that. I’ve found that numbers in the 60s are often where these extreme jobs land.

Let’s be clear: anywhere in the 60s is an incredibly long workweek. You can see this by working through an example. Let’s say someone thinks of their typical hours as 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the week, and they work full-time hours almost all weekend days. It’s almost impossible to work with no breaks for 12 hours straight. If someone manages to log 11 hours during those 12-hour shifts, that gets you to 55 hours by Friday night…except in many places people turn off earlier on Friday. Let’s say 7 p.m. Now we’re down to 53 hours.

Of course, that leaves the whole weekend to work with. But these weekend shifts might not exactly match the weekdays. Let’s say someone works from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. both weekend days, managing to log 8 hours in each shift. That’s 16 total hours, which gets us to 69 hours. If the person manages to log an extra 2.5 hours two evenings during the week (working until midnight, with 30 minutes more “off” in there) we are at 74 hours. If a day starts later, or has more interruptions, or a weekend shift is shorter, we are back in the 60s. Yet someone who works until midnight multiple nights per week and works seven days a week probably won’t say he/she works 65-75 hours per week. It feels like more.

I suspect that sometimes high estimates stem from a lack of control over hours (which is often the case for first years at these extreme job places). If you never know for sure when you will be done, then it feels like work occupies all non-sleeping time, even if this doesn’t wind up being the case.

If you do control the hours, then long hours can feel more manageable. In the example of hours above, a person might have breakfast with their family any mornings they were home before starting work at 9 a.m. most days. Friday evening might feature a late dinner with a spouse. Saturday morning could feature a bike ride, with a lunch time walk happening a few days per week as well.

In any case, I believe there is much to be gained by tracking hours — for everyone. If I know I’m more likely to be working 40 hours (or 35!) than 50, I can be more careful about what I take on. Someone who logs hours and finds the number is very high can decide what to do with that information. I’ve also found, in industries known for extreme hours, that over time as people become more senior and gain more control of their time, it can be possible to aim for 55-60 hours a week. These jobs will never be 40 hours — but they don’t pay like 40 hours either. If you work 56 hours a week, and sleep (+ shower) for 56 hours a week, that leaves 56 hours for other things. It might not be the normal definition of balance, but it’s a version of balance nonetheless.

But as I look at more and more time logs from people who work, but also take on the bulk of the logistical and caregiving responsibilities for their families, I find that this narrative is not always the best fit.

Here’s what happens. Many of us (and I include myself in this category) work flexibly. This is partly because big chunks of modern work can be done at any time and any place, and also because we’ve sought it out. No one is breathing down our necks about being in a seat in an office at 10 a.m. As I do time makeovers for my “Tranquility by Tuesday” project, I’ve had people tell me that they can work from home at times, and shift hours around work obligations too.

This is an absolute blessing. But it can also lead to other issues. Because we can do things, we do them: taking a mid-morning doctor appointment, for instance, instead of pushing for an evening or weekend one, or taking responsibility for a relatively early school pick-up, and assuming we’ll make it work. Certain logistical family tasks are also often easiest to do during work hours — no kid distractions, we’ve got a phone, a laptop, and the calendar right there! The hazard is that many of these are straightforward and easily accomplished, leading to a feeling of getting stuff done. It’s tempting to do these when we’re stuck on something bigger or nebulous that’s work-related, or to try to “clear the decks” before moving on to complicated matters.

But what winds up happening is that the hours available to work get squeezed. This can lead to people feeling pulled in all directions, or chronically behind. Even if the day-to-day stuff gets done, people can suspect that they’re under-investing in the soft side of work.

So what to do? The answer generally isn’t to work less. It’s to protect longer stretches of time to do work.

That doesn’t mean giving up the benefits of flexibility, and sitting in an office from 9 to 5, Monday-Friday even when that’s not necessary. It does mean being realistic about how many focused hours the workload of a full-time job might entail. Maybe a sitter or partner can handle an early school pick up twice a week. Maybe a partner who is not doing the primary during-the-week duties can commit to covering an evening work shift or a few hours on the weekend. I’ve also been suggesting that people set a time for personal tasks during the work day, so they aren’t always an option. Maybe the online grocery order, birthday party invites, and call to the orthodontist’s office happen between 2-2:45 p.m. If a life administration task occurs to you at 10 a.m., put it on the list, and go back to what you were doing. You can address it during the designated window, rather than succumbing to the lure of knocking if off immediately.

This is definitely a work in progress for me. My kids have dutifully written their thank you notes for birthday presents; I’ve got the envelopes right here, ready to be addressed. But I’m better off using my designated work hours to work on a book proposal than to get those notes out to the mailbox. I probably won’t work on my book proposal on Saturday night while they’re watching a movie. So that’s the time to tackle this other sort of work.

Have you had to be careful about protecting hours for work?

Of course, I work for myself and (most days) I work at home. This makes mid-afternoon exercising easier.

But I don’t think during-the-day exercise is impossible for people with ‘normal’ jobs.

I’ve been thinking of this recently thanks to a note from blog reader Annette, who lives in Australia. After listening to the audiobook of 168 Hours, she decided that she wanted to use her 30-minute lunch break to exercise (she noted that she normally worked through lunch or surfed the web).

The problem, of course, was that it was only 30 minutes. And then there was the question of what condition she’d be in afterwards. “How are other listeners accounting for time to redo makeup, redo hair, etc.?” she asked. “It seems the personal care after working out is harder to manage.”

This is true, and is an issue that is generally more problematic for women than men, both because of more complicated hair and make-up, and because women may be judged more on appearances.

My first suggestion is to rethink the definition of exercise. Any physical movement is good. You do not have to do high-impact aerobic activities that leave you a sweaty mess. You do not have to exercise for an hour.

A 30-minute lunch break can, on a nice day, allow for a 20-25 minute stroll outside. Just bring comfortable shoes and any necessary coats, gloves, hats, etc. You might even be able to squeeze a few other walk breaks into the day. If people go outside to smoke for a few minutes, go outside as well. Just don’t smoke!

Another option for standard office workers is the walking meeting. One-on-one meetings can be turned into walking meetings if the weather is decent and the other person has been warned in advance (so they don’t only have stilettos). This might be a particularly good option if you need to give feedback or advice to someone more junior to you. These conversations often feel more authentic if you’re not staring across the table in a beige conference room.

Or hey, if your workplace is large enough, you might take a fair number of steps just in the course of daily life. Last summer, I spoke at an organization in California that had multiple buildings spread across their campus. One woman whose office moved to the opposite side of the campus from many of her team mates reported that she was now getting so much activity that some stiffness/pain issues were clearing up (it was also hard to avoid being late to meetings, but that was a different matter).

Even a brisk walk seldom requires redoing hair and make-up. You could stop by the bathroom for 2 minutes after to look in the mirror and make sure nothing has gone terribly wrong. Quickly touch up lipstick and you’re good to go.

If you have a little more time, and somewhere you can clean up a bit afterwards, then more options for sweatier activities open up. You might not actually need more break time overall. If your boss is generally flexible, or your schedule is, and you have been taking 30 minutes for lunch, maybe you could take 50 minutes on three days and work through lunch the other two days (you and a colleague could agree to cover for each other if that’s required in your job). Or you could take a 45-60 minute break during the day a few days per week but agree to come to work a little earlier or stay later on those days.

A 45-minute lunch break would be enough time to change (5-10 minutes), run for 25 minutes, and then spend 10-15 minutes making yourself presentable. This could involve a 3-minute shower (with shower cap) if you felt it necessary, 3 minutes getting dressed, with the remainder of the time spent re-powdering and possibly running a hair dryer quickly to fluff everything up, or putting hair in a ponytail or bun. This might not be a great idea if you’re presenting to the CEO that afternoon, but could work for a normal afternoon twice a week.

(No place to shower? Bring wipes and a little towel and maybe a touch-up on deodorant…though personally I think people can be excessively concerned about this. As long as you get out of your sweaty clothes, you’ll probably be fine.)

If you can take an hour, then you could exercise for 40 minutes (with a 10-minute buffer on either side).

Or you might aim to do an hour-long class at a nearby gym one day a week. If you take 90 minutes one day, and 15 the other 4 days, that’s 150 minutes, or exactly the same as taking 30 minutes a day 5 days a week. This would also be only one day, then, that you’d be worrying about post-exercise hair and make-up. But add one lunch-time class to one early morning sweat session and two weekend sweat sessions per week, and you’re exercising more days than you’re not. Which is pretty good as these things go.

So that’s the logistics. Of course, the psychological aspect is more complicated. I have definitely heard from people about office grumbling: how come she has time to exercise? Short walk breaks usually don’t inspire the same grumbling, so if you’re in that kind of office, that might be the way to go. But you could also choose to be a pioneer. When you come back from an office workout and actually have the energy to focus all afternoon, you can get a lot done. Hopefully, results speak for themselves.

If you have an office job and exercise during the day once or more per week, how do you make it work?

I recently heard from a reader who had a more specific problem with conference calls. Her colleagues were all over the place, and often traveling, and conference calls had a tendency to start late, or get canceled at the last minute (e.g. because someone’s plane was delayed). She estimated she spent 45 minutes of her days waiting for conference calls to start.

I suspect that’s actually underestimating the real time cost, because if you have a call starting at 2 p.m., you often stop doing any deep work by a few minutes before. Or, if your 12:30 p.m. call starts at 12:45 p.m. and runs until 1:15 p.m., you might think there’s not enough time to start deep work before your 2 p.m. call. This is then doubly frustrating when the 2 p.m. call is canceled (after you’ve been waiting on the line for 10 minutes…) You could have done 100-plus minutes of deep work, but instead you didn’t. Meaning you’ll have to do that project at some other point.

So, the question: what can you do with this time? How can you minimize it, or use it well?

I think the first step is to be pro-active about minimizing the time cost by gauging the potential for canceled calls. Either you, or your assistant, can reach out the day before to confirm all calls. Yes, this takes time, and yes it means more email (which is why it is a good task to outsource if you do have administrative help). But buying yourself an extra hour in the day is a big win. It’s also a good chance to ask about the agenda of any calls. If there is no well-thought-through agenda…then maybe it’s best to cancel or postpone.

As part of that confirmation process, you can get intel on how likely the call is to happen. So, if one of the other parties notes that she is taking the call during a layover in O’Hare, or right after a call with someone else who you know is notorious for running long, you can draw your own conclusions on the probability of a timely start.

For all two-person calls, just call the other person directly. And be the one doing the dialing. That way, it will generally start on time (or at least the person will note that you’re calling during another call he/she is on and will be nudged to end the other one).

I’m also a big fan of just starting the call when a few other people are on. Don’t wait for everyone. Yes, you might have to repeat things, but this can take less time than waiting. If the late party is a really senior person whose input or blessing you need, these first few minutes can be spent getting everyone else on the same page. Sometimes a united front makes the interaction with the senior person a lot quicker and easier.

Alternately, you can protect your time by…choosing to be late. As an “upholder” I truly hate this idea, but if your workplace culture is such that all calls start 10 minutes late, then don’t dial in to internal calls on time. (External calls are a different matter, so you’ll need to be careful on this). You can also sort your calls into the categories of “people who are late” and “people who are on time” (and yes, you know who these people are). Call into the late calls late, and call into the on-time calls on time.

Since one of the most frustrating aspects of late calls and canceled calls is that these chop up time, you might do your best to protect deep work time at other points on your calendar. Refuse to take calls before 9:30 a.m. on Monday, for instance. You could get 2 hours between 7:30 a.m. — 9:30 a.m. for deep work. Or maybe you can study your calendar for the next day or two and see an open spot. Note that it is there, and then commit to doing your deep work during this time (rather than cleaning out your inbox).

So that’s the pro-active stuff. But once you’re already on a call waiting for people, I do think there are a few things you can do. One is to view this as “found” time. Put ebooks on your phone and read during these 5-10 minute chunks. (Though it might not be a great idea to mention this to your colleague, as in “hey, I read War and Peace while waiting for you on conference calls this year.”) You can save longer articles in a file and read them while waiting.

You can also keep a list of 2-minute tasks — personal or work-related — to do during these uncertain, small quantities of time. You could text a babysitter and make a dinner reservation and get a date night set up. You could check the weather forecast and text a friend about running together over the weekend. Add to your list of 100 dreams! Planning fun things during this found time also has the benefit of improving your mood, which might be soured by your tardy colleagues.

If you are not the only on-time person on the call, you can use these minutes to really get to know your other punctual colleagues. Don’t just chat about the weather while you’re waiting for others to join (must all conference calls featuring people in different locations start with a discussion of the weather?) Ask about your colleagues’ other projects, their lives, what they’re excited about… It’s like found networking time, without having to get a coffee date on the calendar.

What do you do while waiting for calls to start?

At home? At a co-working space? A coffee shop?

I think for many people, the best answer is some version of all of the above. Different places work best for different sorts of work and different situations. Here are the benefits and drawbacks I’ve found for each.

The home office. This is definitely my preferred option. I don’t have to do my hair (unless I have video calls). The commute can’t be beat. My stuff (like my snacks!) is all here. During certain phases of life, such as when I was nursing babies, being able to have them cared for in my house while I was working at the house meant I didn’t have to bother with all-day pumping much of the time.

That said, there are draw-backs. Kids make noise. If you have a small house or apartment, it might be hard to separate yourself from the family’s goings-on. While working from home means you are there to let workmen in, you are still there while they’re pounding and drilling and what not. You are at the same place as your TV, or your various half-done chores, which some people find distracting. That’s why sometimes it might help to have available…

A rented office/co-working space. During my home renovation, there were a handful of days when I had many calls and podcast recordings. Attempting to do those with a demolition going on was just going to be an exercise in frustration. So I used the Regus office located 8 minutes from my house. There are Regus locations all over the place, and most allow you to rent an office, or a conference room (for meetings) by the hour or day.

This worked fine in the sense of being a good office space, with cheerful reception people, and good internet. Of course, it still wasn’t silent. One day a gentleman in the office next to me was talking loudly on the phone, so I had to mute my line (for the podcast) when I wasn’t talking to avoid his voice being picked up on my microphone. This is why things that require absolute silence need to happen in recording studios. Also, renting an office by the day isn’t cheap (I paid $75-100/day depending on the length of time – the per hour rate went down pretty quickly after the first few hours).

Co-working spaces are sometimes cheaper in that many people aren’t renting a private office, they’re renting space in a common area. I think the appeal here is that some people like to work around other people. I am not sure I see the appeal. I seek out the Amtrak quiet car as I cannot stand listening to other people’s cell phone conversations. This probably explains why I wound up in a home office many years ago.

Coffee shops. Coffee shops are likely the cheapest option for a work spot from this perspective, in that you only really need to buy enough to justify the time you’re at your table. The atmosphere can be stimulating with people coming and going. Tasty coffee is always nice. However, you have no control over noise or privacy, and it’s kind of rude to linger if there are lots of people hoping to get a seat (much like with a restaurant). Talking on the phone for hours could likewise drive any other coffee shop patrons insane.

Libraries. Libraries have, to me, many of the upsides of coffee shops without some of the downsides. You don’t have to buy anything! (Though some might find it a downside to not be able to take their latte into the stacks. Some libraries do have cafes somewhere for patrons who want to grab a bite). Quiet is generally expected and sometimes enforced. Hanging out for a while is generally OK. However, you can’t take phone calls or record podcasts and such without arranging a special room or some such (if your library even has such work options).

I haven’t worked in a library in a while. But back when my kids were younger (and more likely to be around) I would sometimes hire a sitter when my husband was traveling and go work in a library at night. Being in a different location, and at a not-normal work time, often nudged me to work on different projects beyond the day-to-day grind. This is where I wrote much of The Cortlandt Boys. These days, I’ve sometimes taken my printed manuscripts to libraries to read them through. Somehow being in a different place from where I wrote the manuscript makes me think differently. And the library is quiet enough to allow for thinking!

If your work can be done anywhere, where do you work? What are the upsides and drawbacks?

People would like to contribute to their communities. They know they’d probably enjoy doing different activities, and maybe tapping different skills than they do during the work day. They’d like to meet friends and neighbors who are also committed to their communities, or to important causes.

But in the middle of work and family obligations, it can be difficult to make another commitment. And even if people know they might be able to volunteer occasionally, taking on the sort of leadership roles where they might truly make a difference seems like a big leap.

So Sarah and I were excited to welcome Rachel Unger to the podcast this week. No, that last name is not a coincidence; Rachel is Sarah’s sister-in-law, and they recorded this episode while sitting together in the Miami area, where Rachel is an elementary school teacher, mom of two, and a leader in her temple’s social justice efforts.

You’ll need to listen to the episode to learn about all of her work, but let’s just say it’s extensive. She might have meetings or events three nights per week (in addition to the normal weekend religious activities). How does a working mother make this all fit? A few tips, and things to keep in mind.

Seasons change. Rachel stepped up her involvement in recent years as her children have gotten older and more independent. I know from my time diary studies that women with children under age 2 have significantly less leisure time than women with older children. I haven’t studied fathers specifically, but I imagine many of the same time pressures come into play. While people with babies can volunteer, it might help to remember that life and time will look different when the children are a little older.

Parents are people too. Many modern parents would not bat an eyelash about a child having three nights of activities per week. While you’re scheduling the children’s karate classes and piano lessons, you can think about building your interests into the mix as well.

Kids should have lots of adults in their lives. Rachel served as her children’s primary parent when they were younger. Her community involvement simply means they now spend more evenings with her husband. Or her extended family. The whole clan lives relatively close by. Another consideration: the upside of being involved in a religious community is that such groups are often welcoming of the whole family. Rachel’s children sometimes come with her to meetings, and their own house of worship is certainly a familiar place to hang out.

Time is time. You want to go into any commitment knowing what it will require. But even extensive commitments might be fewer hours than you think, and certainly the number will be reasonable compared with other things people spend time on. Let’s say Rachel’s community work takes 10 hours per week. Plenty of people in the Miami area have 1-hour commutes. She does not; she works, lives, and volunteers in the same neighborhood. You could find the time for involvement right there. Or consider how many people watch 10 hours of TV per week. Or spend 10 hours on social media! Screen time is effortless fun; volunteering is effort-ful. However, effort-ful activities tend to be more meaningful in the long run, and seem to expand time both as it is happening and in the rear view mirror.

Meaningful work is energizing. There are a lot of causes out there. The best approach is to only commit time to ones that you are truly passionate about. If you say yes to activities that don’t energize you, you won’t be able to give your best. So change your mindset. Saying no doesn’t mean something isn’t a worthy cause. It means that it’s so worthy, you don’t want to be disrespectful by making a commitment you won’t be able to keep.

How do you make time for volunteering or community involvement?

I am not sure lazy is the right word either, but I realized she was onto something. Organization is about having systems that make life work. I have plenty of these. All the museum membership cards go in a certain place. The pile teems, but they are all there. The children’s shoes and backpacks are all in the same place in the mudroom. The shoes are seldom lined up in Instagram-worthy fashion, but they are allowed no where else in the house. And so three children get on the bus on time every morning.

On the other hand, being “tidy” — that is, having no visible clutter — is an aesthetic preference. I enjoy it when it happens, much as I enjoy seeing a good painting, and at various points in my life I’ve paid other people to maintain a level of neatness in my homes, but I have realized it’s not a big enough priority in my life that I will sacrifice big chunks of my time to making it happen. I pick up my desk once a week, but the picked-up version still looks messy. So it goes. I wrote two full books in a year at that desk, mess or not.

This brings me to this week’s podcast topics: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo, decluttering and tidying in general.

My co-host, Sarah, is a Kondo devotee. She has now KonMari’d her house twice (though we noted, according to Kondo, this should be an impossibility! She claims once and done, but … nope). She has even rolled her socks. She embraces minimalism, and likes a clean aesthetic. Anyone who has seen pictures of her planner notes can appreciate this. In defiance of all physician stereotypes, she has even, neat handwriting, with lots of open space. My planner pages, on the other hand, have writing crammed at odd angles into every available spot.

So we had a great conversation about our different approaches. I definitely think Kondo has introduced a few useful points to the conversation about stuff. Interestingly, these are borrowed from economics:

Sunk costs don’t matter. Humans are loss averse, which means we hate to admit that something is a loss and move on. You know the mindset: “We can’t kill this project now, we’ve already spent three weeks on it!” It is the same thing with stuff. If people have spent a lot of money on something, they are loathe to admit they don’t use it or don’t like it.

Kondo suggests realizing that the purpose of the object was different from what you originally thought. Its purpose was to give you joy when you bought it, or to teach you what you don’t like. Now that the object has served its purpose, you can thank it (there are heavy Shinto influences in here, that objects have spirits) and send it on its way. Brilliant.

Zero-based budgeting. Humans also pay an inordinate amount of attention to anchors. Real estate agents asked to price a home, and shown a price someone else has put on it, will give an answer far closer to that other price than if asked the same question without an anchor. Likewise in companies, when the powers that be are setting a budget, it’s very likely that each department will get something related to what it had the year before. Everything goes up around 5%, or everything gets cut by around 10%… but why? The anchor, as a previous choice, does not need to determine subsequent choices. Better to start from zero. Each department gets what it gets because that is what it needs to achieve company goals, not because it’s 5% greater than last year.

This, too, figures in the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. In the de-cluttering world, many books have talked about discarding things you don’t like. Kondo completely flips this thought. Don’t just chuck stuff you don’t like, keep only that which sparks joy. Deciding what to keep, rather than deciding what to get rid of, pares things down in a way trimming around the edges cannot.

So good so far. My beef is more that time spent on one thing is time not spent on something else. And while I do believe that we have more time than we think, I do know that women still spend more time on housework than men do. While men can KonMari — and Sarah reassures listeners that Josh was an active participant in all Unger household decluttering — the book is very much directed at a female audience.

Kondo says again and again that life begins when you put your house in order. But too many women already believe that they can’t go after that promotion or that job that requires travel, because then things will fall apart on the home front. The narrative is already that women need to tend the house before they can achieve outside said homes. I was giving a talk at a conference once when a woman said, in the question and answer time, that she was considering going back into the workforce, but she had no idea when the bathrooms would get cleaned. While I found that thought mind-boggling, she was serious. This dilemma, for her, was real. I know many of my readers have also read Brigid Schulte’s Overwhelmed. Those who have read it will recall that part of her original “overwhelm” stemmed from the story in her head that she couldn’t relax until she’d… insert one: cleaned the oven, folded the laundry, whatever.

Men, in general, do not believe this. Her husband was fine with relaxing, even if the oven wasn’t clean. But if the oven wasn’t actually catching fire, did it need to be cleaned then?

For women, there is often life-changing magic in not tidying up. It frees up time for leisure, hanging out with friends and family, paid work.

Then again, perhaps I’m just saying this to justify the mess on my desk. Sarah manages to work (in a more demanding job than mine), blog, exercise, hang out with friends and family, and maintain a clean desk and play room.

Are you in the tidy camp? Or are you more on the let-it-roll side of things?