Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

Abrams decries the notion of a “work-life balance” as an untenable ideal. Instead, she proposes “Work-Life Jenga,” which is more strategy than a balancing act and that enables one’s priorities to change as life intervenes. Abrams talks about the shifting responsibilities of her 50-year-old parents, whose church and home were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2006, whose household grew with the adoption of their granddaughter Faith, and whose health began to fail. Abrams was awed by their resiliency. At the root of their determination, Abrams reasoned, was the unwavering primacy of the “trinity”: church, family, and community. In the face of vacillating, uncertain circumstances, she encourages readers to consider what is most important to them.

Abrams moves from family member to family member to demonstrate the differing priorities of her siblings. Her youngest sister, Jeanine, has built a career, a family, and a daily exercise regimen. Her brother Walter, currently an inmate, struggles to regain his sobriety. Her eldest sister, Andrea, is a writer, professor, and mentor to first-generation college students. She underscores the importance of readers listening to their minds and not yielding to expectations society may have for their life when planning their future.

On a micro level—the level of days and weeks—they can use a time management system proposed by President Eisenhower: dividing their tasks into four categories of relative urgency and importance. Abrams’s rendition of this system employs the following categories:

Gotta Do

Need to Do

Oughta Do

Might Get Around To (228).

“Gotta Do” is important and urgent. “Need to Do” is important but doesn’t need tending to at the moment. Abrams uses the examples of early-retirement investing and planning for time off from work as two items that might be placed in the “Need to Do” column. “Oughta Do” are tasks that might be delegated and that suggest someone else is waiting on a decision from them. “Might Get Around To” are tasks considered wants but not needs. Manipulating these pieces of the day is how the game of Work-Life Jenga is played.

Abrams suggests that delegation can be an act of self-care, a kindness to oneself. She writes of the ineffectualness of trying to “be everything to everyone” (234-35). A good leader is aware of their strengths and seizes opportunities for others to showcase their strengths.