During the pandemic, I have been re-examining how I balance and sort my time, analyzing not just my work-life balance, but also my LIFE-life balance: chores, errands, gaming, reading, etc, are all hyper-scheduled, down to the minute. This book gave some insight into why I do that.

The premise of the book is not a surprise to anyone. There were no mind-blowing revelations here. Many of us feel overworked because, spoiler alert, we are. The problem is that, because the weary and exhausted feeling is so common, we've come to think of it as completely normal, when it shouldn't be.

I appreciated that the book is academic and educational but without too much specialized language. The author makes plenty of references to studies without getting into the nitty-gritty, and provides endnotes for those readers who want to follow up and dig into the details.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the premise definitely comes from a place of privilege. There is very little that blue-collar and minority peoples can do about the expectations of productivity thrust upon them. While the book does address that privilege, it doesn't have much to offer in the way of combatting it. Perhaps there are no good solutions, other than constantly educating and hoping to reach the minds of those with influence and authority.

I would definitely recommend this book to just about anyone. (Especially my bosses!) It's a light read about an important topic. We could all use a more empathic mindset. We could all be a little kinder, both to ourselves and to others.