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Laura Vanderkam

Productivity expert and author of 168 Hours, I Know How She Does It, and Tranquility by Tuesday

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  • About Laura Vanderkam

    Laura Vanderkam is an expert on time management who shares her techniques for getting the most out of each day with audiences of busy people everywhere. She’s written numerous books on the subject of productivity, including  168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think,  What the Most Successful People Do Before BreakfastOff the Clock, and Juliet’s School of Possibilities. She is also the author of I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time, which is a time diary study of 1000 days in the lives of professional women and their families.

    In her book, The New Corner Office, Laura Vanderkam draws on 18 years of working from home to share strategies for productivity, creativity, and health in the new corner office, post-pandemic and beyond. Vanderkam’s work has appeared in publications including The New York TimesThe Wall Street JournalUSA TodayCity Journal, Fortune, and Fast Company.

    Laura Vanderkam started the popular Before Breakfast, a podcast developed in partnership with How Stuff Works and PRH’s Author Platforms team. In bite-sized episodes that air daily, Monday through Friday, Vanderkam shares time management strategies and advice to help listeners “take their day from great to awesome.” Her mission is to offer practical tools that will make people feel less busy and accomplish more of what they want to do, thereby helping listeners “make the most of their time, both at work and at home.” Drawing on her deep expertise in the fields of productivity and time management, Vanderkam delivers a different tip or tactic in each episode. Her advice ranges from how to watch TV wisely, avoid the 2pm slump, and exercise during the workday, to why you should go to happy hour, how to plan your weeks on Fridays, and why you should quit the snooze button.

    She has appeared on numerous television programs, including The Today Show and Fox & Friends, hundreds of radio segments, and has spoken about time and productivity to audiences of all sizes. Her TED talk, “How to gain control of your free time,” has been viewed more than 15 million times. She is the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the podcast Best of Both Worlds. Laura Vanderkam also hosts the podcast, Before Breakfast, which offers bite-sized, daily episodes on time management strategy.

    Discover how you can find balance within your organization. Visit Laura Vanderkam’s Company Reads page to learn more.

    Contact us to learn more about booking Laura Vanderkam for your next event.

  • Speaking Topics

    168 Hours: Succeeding at Work and Life, 24/7

    Drawing on the themes from her time management books, Laura Vanderkam talks about how to manage the 168 hours we all have each week to get the most out of your professional and personal life. In addition to sharing her top time management tips, Vanderkam can work with a few audience members beforehand to tweak their schedules, and incorporate the results into her talk.

    Tranquility by Tuesday

    Amid economic uncertainty, and with pandemic worries still lingering, people are reporting high levels of anxiety and burnout. We can’t always change the larger world, but a few practical strategies can help us calm the chaos and make time for what matters. In this talk, Laura Vanderkam shares research-backed tactics from her new book, Tranquility by Tuesday, that have helped real people feel more energized, and more engaged with their professional and personal goals. Participants will leave with ideas to feel more tranquil by Tuesday, or any day of the week.

    Successfully Working From Home

    Has your organization gone virtual? Drawing on themes from her post-pandemic book The New Corner Office, Laura Vanderkam shares strategies for working productively and ambitiously from home. Audience members will learn how to manage their time, give work-from-home days a satisfying rhythm, nurture their virtual relationships, and optimize well-being.

  • Video

  • Praise for Laura Vanderkam

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    Laura Vanderkam was great! She shared some great advice and the audience posted positive comments.

    Tapestry, Inc.
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    She was FANTASTIC!! The audience loved her and the message of Tranquility by Tuesday really resonated. Laura was a pleasure to work with from the moment she stepped foot into our venue. She signed the books amazingly fast and she is clearly a polished and professional speaker. She knew her talking points and made the audience buy into the message while creating an uplifting atmosphere. Everyone walked away from the talk with more tools to use in creating tranquility in their lives and thus everyone seemed to be in a good mood – perfect way to start the week!

    92NY
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    We were very excited and energized by Laura’s presentation at our corporate retreat. The feedback we’ve received has been overwhelming and we send our collective regards to Laura!

    Vital Farms

    Praise for Tranquility by Tuesday

    This book is for anyone who just loves overscheduling their life…but doesn’t love what it does to them. Laura Vanderkam’s nine brilliant time rules are the opposite of finger-wagging: generous, practical, revelatory, and deeply flexible to adapt to whatever *your* version of a burstingly-full life looks like right now. After reading Tranquility by Tuesday, I have finally found satisfaction in the chaos.

    Lauren Smith Brody, author and founder of The Fifth Trimester

    Tranquility is a gift: a research-backed, step-by-step guide to making time for what—and who—matters most. Vanderkam offers essential strategies for making the most of our days, no matter how busy we are, and finding meaning in our daily routines and relationships. This book will make you more thoughtful and intentional about how you spend your most precious resource—time.

    Ximena Vengoechea, author of Listen Like You Mean It

    This book is truly great! Vanderkam offers well-researched ways to break away from the guilt and shame associated with doing something for yourself, as well as strategies for creating boundaries for this time. Vanderkam helps us prioritize our time for the ultimate goal— to be interested in our own lives.

    Eve RodskyNew York Times bestselling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space

    Praise for Juliet’s School of Possibilities

    Thousands of books explain how we should set priorities, stay focused, and make time for what truly matters—but that advice, however sound, is all too easy to ignore. Laura Vanderkam takes a different approach. By harnessing the irresistible power of story-telling, she makes those aims vivid and compelling in an entirely new way, to show us how and why we can make room for possibilities.

    Gretchen Rubin, author of The Four Tendencies and Better Than Before

    Volumes have been written about abundance versus lack mentality, typically as they relate to money. But who among hasn’t lamented, “I don’t have enough time!”? Ah, but you do—and Laura Vanderkam’s sweet-and-sage parable will show you exactly how to find it, use it wisely, and revel in it richly. Read Juliet’s School and you too will find yourself saying, “Oh, the possibilities!"

    John David Mann, coauthor of The Go-Giver

    Laura is my go-to expert for time management and Juliet’s School of Possibilities is a delightful book. You can read it in a couple of short sittings, then go away with a lifetime of application.

    Chris Guillebeau, Author of Side Hustle and The $100 Startup

    Praise for Off the Clock

    Short of discovering an additional 25th hour what makes time so different for those rare productive, unstressed people? Laura Vanderkam knows–and can teach you. If you want to do more without losing your sense of peace along the way, make time for Off the Clock.

    Jon Acuff, author of Finish and Do Over

    Laura Vanderkam delivers a compelling and evidence-based argument that busyness is overrated in our current culture. Living a full life, at work and at home, is about doing the right things well, and confidently missing out on everything else.

    Cal Newport, author of Deep Work

    Laura Vanderkam is one of the world’s leading experts in time management and productivity. If you’re feeling too busy, stressed out, or overworked, reading her insights in Off the Clock can change your life.”

    Dorie Clark, author of Stand Out and adjunct professor, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business

    Praise for I Know How She Does It

    She’s a stone-cold time-maximizing genius, and she’s sick of the defeatist narrative about working mothers: that they have no time to breathe. They actually have plenty of time, Ms. Vanderkam argues in I Know How She Does It, and she’s got the stats to prove it.

    The Wall Street Journal

    As a busy CEO, I was inspired by the hundreds of people Vanderkam studied who found ample time for career, family, and self in the same 168 hours available to everyone, each week. If my entire team read this book, we would all benefit.

    Richard Sheridan, CEO and chief storyteller, Menlo Innovations, and author of Joy, Inc.

    An empowering guide for professionals who want to figure out how to become superstars in their fields while building satisfying lives.

    Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You and Stand Out

    For many years I’ve wanted to see reflected in our collective conversation what I know to be true in women’s lives: that many of us are happily combining work and motherhood, and loving both. Laura Vanderkam has written the book that’s been sorely missing, and she does so with an impassioned, eloquent voice, important new research, and the warmth of a dear friend.

    Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big

    As an entrepreneur and mother, I’m invested in honing time management strategies that enrich my life instead of taking any enjoyment or flexibility out of it—and Laura Vanderkam understands that. In her new book, she shares how busy people build full, productive careers and happy homes as well. You’ll find lot of tools that can help you make time for everything that’s important and cut out what’s not.

    Angela Jia Kim, founder of Om Aroma & Co. and Savor
  • Books by Laura Vanderkam

  • Media About Laura Vanderkam

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  • 212 572-2013
  • Laura Vanderkam travels from Philadelphia, PA

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Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau