In 2013, McPheely cofounded Base, an executive assistant company she ran as CEO for more than a decade. The business succeeded well beyond her initial dreams, but she also struggled to balance increased work demands with helping her husband raise their three kids. And while she kept telling herself the overburdened work hours were “only a season,” the season never seemed to end. The sweet spot of work-life balance “was always in sight but never truly within reach.” In this handbook for the professionally exhausted, McPheely draws on her own mistakes, as well as solutions she discovered through experience, in maintaining a high-performance leadership position without burning out. Divided into three parts, the book begins by emphasizing that the way Americans work is an inherited system that “has been running, largely unquestioned, for over two hundred years.” While the Protestant work ethic certainly fosters an innovate, gritty approach to work, it also has instilled into Americans the idea that work is more than just a mere economic tradeoff. Reflecting on this culturally ingrained work ethic, the author notes her previously held belief that hard work was also a signal of virtue and of the strength of her character. She therefore took on unmanageable workloads not only for the good of her company, but because of an internalized notion that avoiding work would reflect negatively on who she was as both a CEO and a person. Part two offers a theoretical framework for work, comparing it to the respiratory cycle. Like breathing, per the analogy, work should follow a rhythmic flow where we take in tasks, but also experience the relief of completing them or letting them go. Unfortunately, too many workers are stuck on the inhale phase, as they continue to take in more without letting anything go. According to the author, we need to stop and either hold our breath (focusing all our undivided attention on the most important tasks at hand) or exhale, recognizing the time to move one when something is finished or is no longer best served by our involvement. The final section offers a new systematic framework for approaching what work to take on that is built around five principles that include identifying trusted support, maintaining clear rhythms, and fostering intentional systems and thoughtful use of technology.

A personal work that blends personal anecdotes from McPheely’s own experiences as a high-stakes business leader with pragmatic advice, the volume ends with an impressive array of what it calls “Practical Tools for the Exhale.” These include self-assessments to gauge if an unforeseen work problem is “catastrophic” that needs immediate time and attention or if it’s something that can wait, advice on how to audit one’s personal calendar, and prompts for personal reflection. Its engaging, informative writing style is accompanied by ample illustrations, diagrams, and charts. At less than 200 pages, the book offers a concise, informational narrative that makes for a relaxed read—ideal for its audience of overstrained workaholics­—and makes a compelling argument against embracing a form of workplace endurance that takes on more work than any single person should have.