“There are not enough hours in the day!”. How many times do we lament that? I know that I have long struggled with jamming everything in, trying to live a balanced life, do all the things I need to do and lots of the things I want to do.
I was perusing one of my daily reads and there was mention of a book called 168 Hours, You Have More Time Than You Think and it got me to wondering, what if I added up just the things that I do every day, how much time do I actually have? The adding commenced and I have to tell you, it was kind of shocking! I regularly chastise myself up for not tidying around the house more often, dusting or pushing the vacuum, for not having the garden weeded (or at this time of year, cleaned out), for not tackling “weekend projects”, for not riding my motorcycle more, for not cleaning the bathrooms more often, for not folding the laundry on the same day week it was washed and dried. There I am chastising myself and in reality, I truly do not have the time.
Where do your 168 Hours go?
Of my 168 hours, I spend 112.75 hours of it sleeping, showering, commuting or working. That’s 67% of my week, knocked right out of the running. Of those hours that remain, I spend 18% of them doing some form of exercise (gym or dog walking) and 14% of them doing something related to food (grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, packing lunches, doing dishes). So, to keep up with the numbers, that’s 77.8% of my weekly hours that are spoken for already. Work, sleep, exercise & food take up over ¾ of my week. Add in the hour every weekday evening that I devote to sitting down (this was required for sanity and resentment-reducing properties), an hour a week of laundry (conservatively) and now 81.3% of my week is toast. Not on this list is ANYTHING that is a hobby or done purely for enjoyment (unless you include fitness…which I sort of do….sort of) nor is there housework (bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting).
Starting from the large blue piece on the left, the pie works counter clockwise and the legend along the side starts from the bottom. Don’t ask me why!
So on any given week, I have all of Saturday and 7¾ hours on Sunday to live the rest of my life. Put that way, why on earth would I spend my 18.7% of “spare” time each week vacuuming my house or washing the windows or mopping the floor? So the sheets get changed every other week and I look past the hair on the bathroom counter for longer than I should. And it’s not like the things that I fill my time up with during the week are sedentary, not at all, they all take time and energy (mental, physical or both), save for one hour each day that I try to spend sitting down and recharging.
Put this was as well, when I’m doing the things that I want to be doing, the things that make me feel good and strong and healthy, I know I’m using my 168 hours in the best way I possibly can.
How do you use your 168 hours? Would you be surprised how much or how little time you have left?
Fitty vs Fatty 
This is really interesting. I know that I could probably spend an hour a day doing something more productive, but taking time out to wind down and relax after a long day is essential. Maybe some day, I’ll be able to do it while working out like other health-minded folks, but for now, it’s me, on the couch (or in bed) with a blog or a book.