Time at the Indiana Academy

For many people, time feels like the enemy, something they never seem to have enough of. But for time management expert Laura Vanderkam, that idea is fundamentally wrong.

Her work is built on a different belief: it’s not that there isn’t enough time. It’s that people haven’t learned how to use it.

That perspective didn’t appear overnight. It began years earlier at the Indiana Academy, a residential high school for gifted students on the campus of Ball State University, housed within Teachers College.

After watching her older brother transfer schools in pursuit of more rigorous coursework, Laura saw the opportunity to do the same. From her very first visit, she knew she had found the right place.

“I came to visit a few classes at the Indiana Academy and immediately got sucked into a discussion of dystopian literature and epistolary novel formats,” Laura said. “Clearly, these were my people!”

She enrolled in 1995, stepping into an environment that would fundamentally reshape how she approached both learning and time. Her first semester was difficult and far more challenging than anything she had experienced before, but that challenge became the foundation of her growth.

At the Academy, she learned how to break large, overwhelming workloads into manageable pieces and how to persist even when success didn’t come immediately. What once felt like pressure became something she could navigate and eventually something she could control.

That shift stayed with her.

A Passion for Writing

By the time she arrived at Princeton, surrounded by students from elite preparatory schools, Laura didn’t feel behind. She felt prepared.

“I was happy to see I could keep up with them just fine,” she said.

That same approach carried into her early career. As an intern for USA Today’s opinion section, she wasn’t initially hired to write. Instead of seeing that as a limitation, she approached it the way she had learned at the Academy: start small, improve consistently, and take initiative.

After taking time to observe the process and with encouragement from editors, she began experimenting with her own writing. Over time, those small efforts led to larger opportunities, eventually earning her a decade-long role on USA Today’s Board of Contributors.

“I did some ghost writing for a while and learned the craft of writing books, and then started writing books under my own name,” Laura said.

Rather than following a single, linear career path, Laura continued to build her work piece by piece. She explored multiple forms of writing, from books to articles, newsletters, and podcasts, choosing projects intentionally and allowing her career to evolve.

Her first book, 168 Hours, introduced a concept that reflects this philosophy: everyone has the same number of hours in a week. The difference lies in how that time is used.

In a world where attention is constantly divided, that message is more relevant and more difficult than ever.

That challenge of finding new ways to keep people engaged led to the creation of her podcast, Before Breakfast, which delivers short, practical tips designed to help listeners rethink how they use their time each day.

“While your coffee is brewing, you can listen to Before Breakfast and get an idea to make your day better,” Laura said. “People are making it part of their routine, and there are still millions of downloads annually.”

The Art of Time

She also co-hosts Best of Both Worlds, a podcast focused on balancing career, family, and personal fulfillment. At its core, the show reflects a lesson she first encountered at the Academy: a full life is not about having more time, but about using time with intention.

Not only has this podcast created a strong female community from all spheres of life, but it also offers new perspectives. The content is aimed toward moms in various circumstances, from stay-at-home to working full-time.

Her ideas reached an even broader audience through her TED talk, which has been viewed by millions.

“It’s been so rewarding to have people tell me they found the talk useful for taking more control of their busy lives,” she said. “My goal is always to make people feel like daily life can be a little bit better.”

Now, with the release of her newest book, Big Time, Laura takes that message one step further by challenging the idea that time is something we are constantly running out of. This book focuses on seeing time as an abundant tool to improve your quality of life.

Through stories of people from vastly different walks of life, she encourages readers to rethink how they structure their days. It’s a perspective that traces directly back to her time at the Indiana Academy, where she first learned to take control of both her time and her trajectory.

“Writing books requires the exact same mindset of breaking something big into something doable and developing the discipline to just keep going,” Laura said. “I learned that at the Academy and use it every day now.”

For Laura, the lesson is simple: time isn’t something to fight.

It’s something to understand, shape, and use with intention, a skill she began developing years ago at Indiana Academy and now shares with millions.

If you are interested in supporting our Indiana Academy students and their journeys into furthering their education, make a gift today to the Indiana Academy at BSU.give!