Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done
Laura Vanderkam analyzes time logs from hundreds of professionals to figure out what separates people who feel like they have time from those who feel constantly behind. She identifies seven strategies used by people at the top of her survey, including tending to their pleasures, making memorable moments, and letting go of expectations of perfection. Vanderkam pushes back on the story that everyone is drowning, showing that most working parents actually have more discretionary time than they think, and that the feeling of scarcity is often more about attention than hours. She draws on interviews, research, and her own life as a working mother of four. The book offers a calmer, more curious approach to time than most productivity guides.
What you might want to know about Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A time-diary based look at why some people feel spacious while equally busy people feel frantic.
Yes. Newport has cited Vanderkam repeatedly on his blog and podcast, and he recommended Off the Clock as a thoughtful complement to his own writing on slow productivity and time perception.
It helps, and Vanderkam includes prompts, but the core insights about attention, memory, and rest work even if you never track a single hour.
Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done was written by Laura Vanderkam, published in 2018 by Portfolio.
Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done is 240 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done takes most readers 4 to 5 hours to finish.
Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
