Overwhelmed

Brigid Schulte

"[Schulte's] a detective in a murder mystery: Who killed America's leisure time, and how do we get it back?"-Lev Grossman, TimeWhen award-winning journalist Brigid Schulte, a harried mother of two, realized she was living a life of all work and no play, she decided to find out why she felt so overwhelmed. This book is the story of what she discovered-and of how her search for answers became a journey toward a life of less stress and more leisure. Schulte's findings are illuminating, puzzling, and, at times, maddening: Being overwhelmed is even affecting the size of our brains. But she also encounters signs of real progress-evidence that what the ancient Greeks called "the good life" is attainable after all. Schulte talks to companies who are inventing a new kind of workplace; travels to countries where policies support office cultures that don't equate shorter hours with laziness (and where people actually get more done); meets couples who have figured out how to share responsibilities. Enlivened by personal anecdotes, humor, and hope, Overwhelmed is a book about modern life-a revelation of the misguided beliefs and real stresses that have made leisure feel like a thing of the past, and of how we can find time for it in the present.

CONTENTSPreface to the 2015 Edition xiPart One: Time Confetti1. The Test of Time 32. Leisure Is for Nuns 213. Too Busy to Live 414. The Incredible Shrinking Brain 56Part Two: Work5. The Ideal Worker Is Not Your Mother 716. A Tale of Two Pats 97Bright Spot: Starting Small 1177. When Work Works 123Bright Spot: If the Pentagon Can Do It, Why Cant You? 145Part Three: Love8. The Stalled Gender Revolution 1539. The Cult of Intensive Motherhood 172Bright Spot: Mother Nature 19010. Dads Want to Have It All, Too 197Bright Spot: Gritty, Happy Kids 205Part Four: Play11. Hygge in Denmark 21312. Let Us Play 232Bright Spot: Really Plan a Vacation 249Part Five: Toward Time Serenity13. Finding Time 255Bright Spot: Time Horizons 27214. Toward Time Serenity 274Appendix: Do One Thing 279Notes 287Acknowledgments 335Index 341