168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

by Laura Vanderkam

And why not? As we talked about in Chapter 3, people are happiest when they are in a state of “flow,” throwing themselves into something that challenges them to the extent of their abilities.

But there is one exception to this problem of multitasking, which is what I call “alignment.” If you combine activities that utilize different parts of your brain, particularly if one doesn’t require much active mental engagement, you can deepen relationships while filling your time with meaningful things, or fit more time for leisure pursuits into your day, generally.

For more meaningful options, though, go back through your “List of 100 Dreams” and choose elements of a few to incorporate into your days. Make two lists: one of activities that take half an hour or less, and another of activities that take less than 10 minutes. Then, figure out ways you can make these two sets of activities as easy as lighting up a cigarette or turning on the TV any time a bit of leisure shows up on your schedule.

When I used to ride the express bus from Bethesda, Maryland, to Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, in the mornings, I worked my way through a list of the top novels of the twentieth century as the bus worked its way through traffic. I almost—almost—missed that excuse to read when I started working from home in New York. If you’re driving, you can listen to audiobooks with a purpose: all the works of Shakespeare, perhaps, or a course on the history of the Bible. You can listen to the great symphonies or operas you’ve always meant to become familiar with. People waste incredible amounts of time commuting.

Noncommuting time opens up more options. In less than half an hour, you can handwrite notes to three elderly relatives,

What one to three leisure pursuits would I like to build, regularly, into my 168 hours? (One of these should be exercise.) How much of a weekly time commitment would each of these activities take? Where can I stick these blocks of time into my schedule? What weekend activities could my family do together? When can we plan our weekends? Where can I find time for nurturing relationships with friends? Create two lists of things that make you happy—one for 30-minute activities, and one for activities that take 10 minutes or less:

Here is the process for doing your own “time makeover”: Log your time. Use the spreadsheet at the end of Chapter 1 (downloadable at My168Hours.com if you borrowed this book from the library), or a word-processing document or a little notebook if you want, and keep as complete a record as possible of 168 consecutive hours. Tally up the time spent on the major categories (sleep, work, interacting with children, and so on). If you think your totals are unusual, go ahead and record another week. But keep in mind that when things are important to us, we tend to find ways to fit them in. People who really value exercise take their running shoes along on business trips and stay in hotels with treadmills. People who really value interacting with their children set up times to call them, and write individual e-mails to each of them about their days. Keep a time log until you are satisfied that you have a complete picture of how you spend your time. Create your “List of 100 Dreams.” This was the exercise from Chapter 2 that the career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine does with her clients. Come up with as many answers as possible to the question of “What do I want to do (or do more of) with my time?” Sometimes the answers are profound—for example, win a Nobel Prize—and sometimes they’re more basic, such as “cook dinner for my family two nights per week.” For the longer projects, create a list of actionable steps, and how long each might take, in terms of hours if you can. A lifetime is ...

Ignore, minimize, or outsource everything else.

Fill bits of time with bits of joy. This was an exercise from Chapter 8. Make lists of things that make you happy or that you find meaningful, and that take 30 minutes or less, or even less than 10 minutes. Murphy decided to count her blessings during her commute. Lowe wanted to learn French, so I suggested redirecting one of her 15-minute Facebook breaks to a French-language Web site. Sure, 15 minutes isn’t much, but human psychology is funny.

Tune up as necessary. Life changes. Schedules change. Your “List of 100 Dreams” will change, too. Check in with yourself regularly—maybe once every 168 hours—to see if your weeks look like they should. If they don’t, spending 1 of those 168 hours figuring out how to change what you can is much more effective than stewing during the other 167. This last step is important because using your 168 hours to build the life you want will require some serious discipline. There will always be temptations to revert to the usual way of doing things. Consciously lowering your housekeeping standards is hard if you think people will judge you for having a less-than-perfect house. Getting up early to run is hard on cold mornings, and thinking through activities you’d like to do with your kids requires more effort than turning on the television. People will try to interrupt you during the times you’ve set aside to brainstorm new ideas.