Latest Brigid Schulte Quotes from Interviews

• The big message is that we need to reimagine and re-engineer how we work - what does work mean and how do we measure what's good? The second thing we need to reimagine is our relationships - who does what and why? One of the biggest things that has helped me and my husband is coming up with a common set of standards about what it takes to run our house, what is a fair way to divide tasks, and how are we going to keep each other accountable?

  Brigid Schulte

  Running, Husband, Mean

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• On a personal level, I do a "brain dump" where everything that's in my head that needs doing gets written down. It gives your brain a rest. And then I give myself permission not to do everything on that list. I'm much more clear about my priorities: What are those moments of connection that are most important to me? Today is a busy workday but it's also a snow day, so I'm going cross-country skiing with my husband. And then I'll come back and finish my work.

  Brigid Schulte

  Husband, Snow, Giving

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• Busyness has become such a social value that we will even create it, we will create that sense of breathlessness because we think that's how we show status and importance. That is a really interesting and troubling finding. We've taken this notion of hard work to a crazy degree.

  Brigid Schulte

  Crazy, Taken, Hard Work

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• It's become such a cultural norm that people brag about it: "Oh yeah, you did that? I did this." Keeping up with the Joneses used to be about "I have the bigger house and car," and now it's much more about how much stuff you can cram into your calendar.

  Brigid Schulte

  People, Car, House

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• If you had the perception that you are very stressed out then your grey matter was fully 20 per cent smaller in volume than people who did not have that same feeling. This is the grey matter in your prefrontal cortex: It controls thinking, learning, planning, decision-making. That matters because when we are feeling more stressed, that is when we are at our most vulnerable in our inability to think our way out of it.

  Brigid Schulte

  Thinking, People, Feelings

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• What's happening now with technology is we live with very porous boundaries. All those little interruptions fragment our time and attention and make us feel like work never ends. It makes us feel like we don't ever have that sacred time for family or to breathe or meditate or for leisure. Time is contaminated for everyone. I'm hoping that as we get used to these technologies we'll get smarter about how we use them and also how to shut them off.

  Brigid Schulte

  Technology, Attention, Breathe

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• The more armed we are with information about the seduction of technology, the more we can build systems to better deal with it. I had no idea that I got a hit of dopamine, which is the pleasure hormone that also governs addiction, every time that little email bing goes off.

  Brigid Schulte

  Technology, Addiction, Seduction

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• There are new studies showing that young men and men with more progressive views of what a father should be - which is not just a helper and fun parent, but actually a partner - are beginning to feel more work-life conflict than mothers are. They're trying to do what women have been doing for 30 years, and they're having a very stressful time of it - a harder time at work because we still expect men to be on 24-7, working 40 years straight.

  Brigid Schulte

  Mother, Fun, Father

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• I was afraid that I would find out that I didn't work hard, that I wasn't a very good mother. I was feeling so inadequate in everything I did. I was afraid that I was going to come out being this crazy, disorganized, neurotic person. So it was revelatory that I worked more than 50 hours a week and I still spent a tonne of time with my kids. It was like, "Why do I feel one way when the reality is so different?"

  Brigid Schulte

  Mother, Crazy, Hard Work

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• Even when men do more housework and child care, a lot of times it's still women in charge, delegating, so you have all that noise in your brain. You're on a bike ride or picnic with your family, and it looks like leisure, but on the inside you are keeping track of everybody's emotional temperature, and did I pack this, what are the directions, how much time are we going to be here, do we have anything for dinner? It's like a toilet running all the time.

  Brigid Schulte

  Running, Children, Men

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• We live in a really crazy time when there is information coming at you, and there are so many demands on your time. It really comes down to choosing your own priorities and forgiving yourself a lot and checking your own expectations.

  Brigid Schulte

  Crazy, Expectations, Priorities

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• I take solace in knowing that some of the steps I took can help other people.

  Brigid Schulte

  Helping Others, Knowing, People

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• It's incredibly painful to think back to the time I had to come back to work. I was so, so needed at home. Like the vast majority of people in America, I couldn't take unpaid leave.

  Brigid Schulte

  Home, Thinking, America

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• I'm optimistic. I really believe people in power want to do the right thing.

  Brigid Schulte

  Believe, Optimistic, People

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• The prejudice is against men and women - assuming men stay at work. That's the reason why we don't have enough women in the halls of power - the prejudice is pushing women to go home.

  Brigid Schulte

  Home, Men, Prejudice

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• But the majority of mothers work - and are responsible for taking care of the kids and home. And more fathers are spending more time doing child care and housework, and still working long hours. That work-life conflict is weighing on everybody.

  Brigid Schulte

  Mother, Children, Father

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• I'm a big believer in education. If people learn the truth, they'll see the benefit if they have gender neutral policies.

  Brigid Schulte

  People, Benefits, Gender

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• The best thing a society can do is ensure its children are taken care of.

  Brigid Schulte

  Children, Taken, Care

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• The United States is the only advanced economy with no paid parental leave for either mothers or fathers.

  Brigid Schulte

  Mother, Father, United States

  "CNN journalist Josh Levs forced his employer to give new dads more time off. Now he wants others to speak up, too". www.washingtonpost.com. June 15, 2015.

• As long as you're pushing men to stay at work, you're pushing women to stay home.

  Brigid Schulte

  Home, Men, Long

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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