We only have 168 hours/week
Photo by samer daboul
Have you ever thought about the fact that we have only 168 hours to use each week?
We have no more than 24 * 7 hours/week, no matter how much we wish we did.
We have no fewer than 24 * 7 hours/week, and somehow spend the full number of hours every week on a variety of activities, even if we don’t consciously realize what.
Have you ever stopped to consider how you actually spend your 168 hours each week, or how you wish you spent your weekly allotment of hours?
Taking a moment to write down the activities that take up your 168 hours is a one of the easiest and most powerful self reflection exercises you can do. The trouble is, before now you probably never actually bothered to think of it.
Planning your weekly schedule from 9 am to 5 pm is probably something you have done many times throughout the years for school/work. Yet, the act of taking a magnifying glass to the full range of activities you do each week (not only those you must schedule such as work/school/planned events) is a task that likely feels unneeded and stressful just to think about.
Why does the 168 hours exercise create mental resistance?
Despite how simple and useful the exercise is, it’s highly unlikely that the thought of doing it has never even crossed your conscious mind. As Daniel Kahneman’s research reinforces throughout his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” our minds are highly sophisticated intuition and processing machines, yet are inherently quite lazy. Our minds come installed with a bias to confirm rather than to question, seek comfort and resist being jostled out of the familiar grooves we develop over time. Hence, we are far more prone to unconsciously accept the rhythm in which we spend our hours each week as “good,” and unconsciously consider the act of re-evaluating what we do each week as not only unnecessary, but outright obnoxious.
Only through a conscious act of will to turn off unconscious programming can we the create space to actually do this exercise.
Is your pen and paper at the ready yet, or has your unconscious bias against questioning what is still too deeply rooted for you to be bothered?
Becoming conscious of where our hours go is a small investment that can pay massive dividends in the grand scheme of our lives.
We have only 168 hours (and we use all 168 hours every week), so in order to do more of something we want or start something new that we want requires a conscious re-allocation of time we are already spending on various activities. Saying “yes” to one thing means saying “no” to something else, and saying “no” to other things means allowing a “yes” to still other things.
Using the 168 hours exercise to pause our unconscious programming and consciously choose how we live our lives gives us more control over our life satisfaction and more power to reduce the regrets that may otherwise set in over time in a life lived unconsciously.
Like how steering a plane just one degree into a different direction can lead a flight to a completely different continent throughout the journey, being unconscious and habitual over the long-term adds up in ways that in the end we would not have consciously chosen. Months and years can disappear in what can seem like the blink of an eye before we take the time to reflect on what we did with our lives, whether it was worth it, and what we wish we would have done instead. Doing exercises like discerning your 168 weekly hours (or identifying your core values) are key to course-correcting the direction of our lives before the journey is over.
What will you find in doing the 168 hours exercise?
Most (around 75%) of our 168 hours fall into the primary categories of working, eating, sleeping, and spending time in our relationships – friends/family/significant other.
The most influential findings will likely come from an honest assessment about how we actually allocate time vs how we wish we allocated time into these primary areas, particularly with regard to time spent in work vs relationships. Taking a truthful look at how much time we spend at work vs our relationships (including counting the time we spend working on emails/Slack/thinking outside of “work hours”), or how much time we spend with our significant other vs our friends can be a sobering activity that may even make us feel ashamed/weary/frustrated; but this is the golden reward in the mine of the 168 hours exercise.
The good news is that once we identify the gaps between our ideal and real states, we have taken a big first step to changing the course of our lives for the better. The next steps may involve:
Understanding why we unconsciously invest hours in ways we don’t consciously choose (which is important so as not to fall back into the same patterns)
Affirming our wish to change our habits (this is also an important step that builds up sustainable motivation to power the change)
Figuring out what changes we will make, and what we will say “no” or “yes” to
Redesigning our environment/habits in order to hold ourselves accountable to keeping the changes we make (a personal development coach is a great way to make sure we actually implement the changes we want to make)
Beyond the primary categories for time, some interesting learnings lie in the ~42 hours (one quarter of our week) that are divvied up amongst everything else we do. These are the activities that we either fill our downtime with or must do in the course of life, which can include things like:
Health-oriented activities, such as exercising, cooking, therapy, or meditation
Personal development/exploration activities, such as hobbies, learning, or trying totally new things
Time with other relationships, such as meeting new people, rekindling old friendships, or time with pets
Internal time, such as time in nature, “me” time, or time for reflection (e.g. journaling or the 168 hours exercise)
Filler time, such as engaging in social media/TV
Needful activities, such as commuting/transit time, errands, fixings things around the house, or cleaning
In these secondary areas are our chances for self-expression and development, but which we may not dedicate enough time to. Also, in these secondary areas may lie time sucks, which prevent us from spending more time in important primary categories.
Take 15 minutes this afternoon/evening and see for yourself what you uncover.
That’s all for today – thanks for reading! Learn more about how working with a personal development coach can help you to live a more fulfilling life, sign up for my newsletter, and stay tuned for more self-discovery essays!