Trying to do it all and expecting that it all can be done exactly right is a recipe for disappointment. Perfection is the enemy. Gloria Steinem said it best: “You can’t do it all. No one can have two full-time jobs, have perfect children and cook three meals and be multi-orgasmic ’til dawn … Superwoman is the adversary of the women’s movement.”5
Dr. Laurie Glimcher, dean of Weill Cornell Medical College, said the key for her in pursuing her career while raising children was learning where to focus her attention. “I had to decide what mattered and what didn’t and I learned to be a perfectionist in only the things that mattered.” In her case, she concluded that scientific data had to be perfect, but reviews and other mundane administrative tasks could be considered good enough at 95 percent. Dr. Glimcher also said she made it a priority to get home at a reasonable hour, adding that when she got there, she refused to worry about whether “the linens were folded or the closets were tidy. You can’t be obsessive about these things that don’t matter.”6
A few years before I became a mother, I spoke on a women’s panel for a local business group in Palo Alto. One of the other panelists, an executive with two children, was asked the (inevitable) question about how she balances her work and her children. She started her response by saying, “I probably shouldn’t admit this publicly …,” and then she confessed that she put her children to sleep in their school clothes to save fifteen precious minutes every morning. At the time, I thought to myself, Yup, she should not have admitted that publicly.
Now that I’m a parent, I think this woman was a genius. We all face limits of time and patience. I have not yet put my children to sleep in their school clothes, but there are mornings when I wish I had. I also know that all the planning in the world cannot prepare us for the constant challenges of parenting. In hindsight, I appreciate my fellow panelist’s candor. And in the spirit of that candor, I probably shouldn’t admit this publicly either …
Last year, I was traveling with my children to a business conference. Several other Silicon Valley folks were attending too, and John Donahoe, the CEO of eBay, kindly offered us a ride on the eBay plane. When the flight was delayed for several hours, my main concern was keeping my kids occupied so they would not disturb the other adult passengers. I made it through the delay by allowing them to watch endless TV and eat endless snacks. Then just as the flight finally took off, my daughter started scratching her head. “Mommy! My head itches!” she announced loudly, speaking over the headset she was wearing (as she watched even more TV). I didn’t think anything of it until her itching grew frantic and her complaints grew louder. I urged her to lower her voice, then examined her head and noticed small white things. I was pretty sure I knew what they were. I was the only person bringing young children on this corporate plane—and now my daughter most likely had lice! I spent the rest of the flight in a complete panic, trying to keep her isolated, her voice down, and her hands out of her hair, while I furiously scanned the web for pictures of lice. When we landed, everyone piled into rental cars to caravan to the conference hotel, but I told them to go ahead without me; I just needed to “pick something up.” I dashed to the nearest pharmacy, where they confirmed my diagnosis. Fortunately, we had avoided direct contact with anyone else on the plane, so there was no way for the lice to have spread, which saved me from the fatal embarrassment of having to tell the group to check their own heads. We grabbed the shampoo that I needed to treat her and, as it turned out, her brother—and spent the night in a marathon hair-washing session. I missed the opening night dinner, and when asked why, I said my kids were tired. Frankly, I was too. And even though I managed to escape the lice, I could not stop scratching my head for several days.
It is impossible to control all the variables when it comes to parenting. For women who have achieved previous success by planning ahead and pushing themselves hard, this chaos can be difficult to accept. Psychologist Jennifer Stuart studied a group of Yale graduates and concluded that for such women, “the effort to combine career and motherhood may be particularly fraught. The stakes are high, as they may expect nothing less than perfection, both at home and in the workplace. When they fall short of lofty ideals, they may retreat altogether—from workplace to home or vice versa.”7
Another one of my favorite posters at Facebook declares in big red letters, “Done is better than perfect.” I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst. I agree completely with the advice offered by Nora Ephron in her 1996 Wellesley commencement speech when she addressed the issue of women having both a career and family. Ephron insisted, “It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it will be like, but surprises are good for you. And don’t be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I’ve had four careers and three husbands.”8
I was extremely fortunate that early in my career I was warned about the perils of trying to do it all by someone I deeply admired. Larry Kanarek managed the Washington, D.C., office of McKinsey & Company where I interned in 1994. One day, Larry gathered everyone together for a talk. He explained that since he was running the office, employees came to him when they wanted to quit. Over time, he noticed that people quit for one reason only: they were burnt out, tired of working long hours and traveling. Larry said he could understand the complaint, but what he could not understand was that all the people who quit—every single one—had unused vacation time. Up until the day they left, they did everything McKinsey asked of them before deciding that it was too much.
Larry implored us to exert more control over our careers. He said McKinsey would never stop making demands on our time, so it was up to us to decide what we were willing to do. It was our responsibility to draw the line. We needed to determine how many hours we were willing to work in a day and how many nights we were willing to travel. If later on, the job did not work out, we would know that we had tried on our own terms. Counterintuitively, long-term success at work often depends on not trying to meet every demand placed on us. The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately—to set limits and stick to them.
During my first four years at Google, I was in the office from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. every day at a minimum. I ran the global operating teams and thought it was critical that I stay on top of as many details as possible. No one ever demanded that I work this schedule; typical of Silicon Valley, Google was not the type of place to set hours for anyone. Still, the culture in those early days promoted working around the clock. When my son arrived, I wanted to take the three months of maternity leave Google offered, but I worried that my job would not be there when I returned. Events leading up to his birth did not put my mind at ease. Google was growing quickly and reorganizing frequently. My team was one of the largest in the company, and coworkers often suggested ways to restructure, which usually meant that they would do more and I would do less. In the months before my leave, several colleagues, all men, ramped up these efforts, volunteering to “help run things” while I was gone. Some of them even mentioned to my boss that I might not return, so it made sense to start sharing my responsibilities immediately.
I tried to take Larry Kanarek’s advice and draw my own line. I decided that I wanted to focus entirely on my new role as a mother. I was determined to truly unplug. I even made this decision public—a trick that can help a commitment stick by creating greater accountability. I announced that I was going to take the full three months off.
No one believed me. A group of my colleagues bet on how long I would be off e-mail after giving birth, with not a single person taking “more than one week” as his or her wager. I would have been offended, except they knew me better than I knew myself. I was back on e-mail from my hospital room the day after giving birth.
Over the next three months, I was unable to unplug much at all. I checked e-mail constantl
y. I organized meetings in my living room, during which I sometimes breast-fed and probably freaked several people out. (I tried to set these gatherings for times when my son would be sleeping, but babies make their own schedules.) I went into the office for key meetings, baby in tow. And while I had some nice moments with my son, I look back on that maternity leave as a pretty unhappy time. Being a new mother was exhausting, and when my son slept, I worked instead of rested. And the only thing worse than everyone knowing that I was not sticking to my original commitment was that I knew it too. I was letting myself down.
Three months later, my non-leave maternity leave ended. I was returning to a job I loved, but as I pulled the car out of the driveway to head to the office for my first full day back, I felt a tightness in my chest and tears started to flow down my cheeks. Even though I had worked throughout my “time off,” I had done so almost entirely from home with my son right next to me. Going back to the office meant a dramatic change in the amount of time I would see him. If I returned to my typical twelve-hour days, I would leave the house before he woke up and return after he was asleep. In order to spend any time with him at all, I was going to have to make changes … and stick to them.
I started arriving at work around 9:00 a.m. and leaving at 5:30 p.m. This schedule allowed me to nurse my son before I left and get home in time to nurse again before putting him to sleep. I was scared that I would lose credibility, or even my entire job, if anyone knew that these were my new in-the-office hours. To compensate, I started checking e-mails around 5:00 a.m. Yup, I was awake before my newborn. Then once he was down at night, I would jump back on my computer and continue my workday. I went to great lengths to hide my new schedule from most people. Camille, my ingenious executive assistant, came up with the idea of holding my first and last meetings of the day in other buildings to make it less transparent when I was actually arriving or departing. When I did leave directly from my office, I would pause in the lobby and survey the parking lot to find a colleague-free moment to bolt to my car. (Given my awkwardness, we should all be relieved that I once worked for the Treasury Department and not the CIA.)
Looking back, I realize that my concern over my new hours stemmed from my own insecurity. Google was hard charging and hypercompetitive, but it also supported combining work and parenthood—an attitude that clearly started at the top. Larry and Sergey came to my baby shower and each gave me a certificate that entitled me to one hour of babysitting. (I never used the certificates, and if I could find them, I bet I could auction them off for charity, like lunch with Warren Buffett.) Susan Wojcicki, who blazed a trail by having four children while being one of Google’s earliest and most valuable employees, brought her children to the office when her babysitter was sick. Both my boss, Omid, and David Fischer, the most senior leader on my team, were steadfast supporters and did not allow others to take over parts of my job.
Slowly, it began to dawn on me that my job did not really require that I spend twelve full hours a day in the office. I became much more efficient—more vigilant about only attending or setting up meetings that were truly necessary, more determined to maximize my output during every minute I spent away from home. I also started paying more attention to the working hours of those around me; cutting unnecessary meetings saved time for them as well. I tried to focus on what really mattered. Long before I saw the poster, I began to adopt the mantra “Done is better than perfect.” Done, while still a challenge, turns out to be far more achievable and often a relief. By the time I took my second maternity leave, I not only unplugged (mostly), but really enjoyed the time with both my children.
My sister-in-law, Amy, a doctor, experienced almost the exact same evolution in attitude. “When I had my first child, I worked twelve-hour days while trying to pump at work,” she told me. “I wanted to feel connected to my baby in the limited hours that I was home, so I made myself her sole caregiver many nights. I believed that others were demanding this of me—my bosses at work and my daughter at home. But in truth, I was torturing myself.” With the birth of her second child, Amy adjusted her behavior. “I took three months off and handled my return to work in my own way, on my own terms. And despite what I had previously feared, my reputation and productivity weren’t hurt a bit.”
I deeply understand the fear of appearing to be putting our families above our careers. Mothers don’t want to be perceived as less dedicated to their jobs than men or women without family responsibilities. We overwork to overcompensate. Even in workplaces that offer reduced or flextime arrangements, people fear that reducing their hours will jeopardize their career prospects.9 And this is not just a perception problem. Employees who make use of flexible work policies are often penalized and seen as less committed than their peers.10 And those penalties can be greater for mothers in professional jobs.11 This all needs to change, especially since new evidence suggests working from home might actually be more productive in certain cases.12
It is difficult to distinguish between the aspects of a job that are truly necessary and those that are not. Sometimes the situation is hard to read and the lines are hard to draw. Amy told me about a conference dinner she attended with a group of fellow physicians, including one who had given birth to her first child several weeks earlier. About two hours into the meal, the new mom was looking uncomfortable, glancing repeatedly at her cell phone. As a mother herself, Amy was sensitive to the situation. “Do you need to leave and pump?” she whispered to her colleague. The new mom sheepishly admitted that she had brought her baby and her mother to the conference. She was looking at her cell phone because her mother was texting her that the baby needed to be fed. Amy encouraged the new mom to leave immediately. Once she left, the young mother’s mentor, an older male physician, admitted that he had no idea that she had brought her baby. If he had known, he would have encouraged her to leave earlier. She was torturing herself unnecessarily. This is one instance where I would have recommended not to sit at the table.
Technology is also changing the emphasis on strict office hours since so much work can be conducted online. While few companies can provide as much flexibility as Google and Facebook, other industries are starting to move in a similar direction. Still, the traditional practice of judging employees by face time rather than results unfortunately persists. Because of this, many employees focus on hours clocked in the office rather than on achieving their goals as efficiently as possible. A shift to focusing more on results would benefit individuals and make companies more efficient and competitive.13
In his latest book, General Colin Powell explains that his vision of leadership rejects “busy bastards” who put in long hours at the office without realizing the impact they have on their staff. He explains that “in every senior job I’ve had I’ve tried to create an environment of professionalism and the very highest standards. When it was necessary to get a job done, I expected my subordinates to work around the clock. When that was not necessary, I wanted them to work normal hours, go home at a decent time, play with the kids, enjoy family and friends, read a novel, clear their heads, daydream, and refresh themselves. I wanted them to have a life outside the office. I am paying them for the quality of their work, not for the hours they work. That kind of environment has always produced the best results for me.”14 It is still far too rare to work for someone as wise as General Powell.
A related issue that affects many Americans is the extension of working hours.15 In 2009, married middle-income parents worked about eight and a half hours more per week than in 1979.16 This trend has been particularly pronounced among professionals and managers, especially men.17 A survey of high-earning professionals in the corporate world found that 62 percent work more than fifty hours a week and 10 percent work more than eighty hours per week.18 Technology, while liberating us at times from the physical office, has also extended the workday. A 2012 survey of employed adults showed that 80 percent of the respondents continued to work after leaving the office, 38 percent checked e-mail at the dinner table
, and 69 percent can’t go to bed without checking their in-box.19
My mother believes that my generation is suffering greatly from this endless work schedule. During her childhood and mine, a full-time job meant forty hours a week—Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. She tells me over and over, “There’s too much pressure on you and your peers. It’s not compatible with a normal life.” But this is the new normal for many of us.
The new normal means that there are just not enough hours in the day. For years, I attempted to solve this problem by skimping on sleep, a common but often counterproductive approach. I realized my mistake partially from observing my children and seeing how a happy child can melt into a puddle of tears when he’s shy a couple hours of sleep. It turns out that adults aren’t much different. Sleeping four or five hours a night induces mental impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level above the legal driving limit.20 Sleep deprivation makes people anxious, irritable, and confused. (Just ask Dave.) If I could go back and change one thing about how I lived in those early years, I would force myself to get more sleep.
It’s not only working parents who are looking for more hours in the day; people without children are also overworked, maybe to an even greater extent. When I was in business school, I attended a Women in Consulting panel with three speakers: two married women with children and one single woman without children. After the married women spoke about how hard it was to balance their lives, the single woman interjected that she was tired of people not taking her need to have a life seriously. She felt that her colleagues were always rushing off to be with their families, leaving her to pick up the slack. She argued, “My coworkers should understand that I need to go to a party tonight—and this is just as legitimate as their kids’ soccer game—because going to a party is the only way I might actually meet someone and start a family so I can have a soccer game to go to one day!” I often quote this story to make sure single employees know that they, too, have every right to a full life.
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