168 Hours: How do I spend them VS How do I want to spend them?

“You can choose how to spend your 168 hours, and you have more time than you think.”
― Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think

Let’s break this down…

There are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week. Therefore, when looking at the clean-slate week ahead I have 168 hours to (in theory) fill however I desire. Just like everyone else.

But before I start dreaming about what I will do with all that time… first, let’s tackle the absolute non-negotiables on the week: sleep & work.

If there are 168 hours in a week and you prioritize sleeping 8 hours a night, which I must do if other humans are going to enjoy interacting with me the next day, then I am sleeping 56 hours/week leaving me still 112 hours in my week.

I work roughly 8 hours/day at school teaching, planning, grading, meeting with students and colleagues, etc. for 5 days/week and then probably (at least) another 3-4 hours somewhere in the week grading papers and planning lessons. So, in a given week I work roughly 45 hours leaving me still 67 “free” hours in my week.

67 hours! That’s a lot of time!

Vanderkam’s next big argument asks us to honestly dig into the questions:  What am I doing with all that time? How do I spend the hours of my day?

Other (banal but some are perhaps required, life-sustaining) activities that fill my time:

• grocery shopping
• meal prepping/cooking
• doing dishes
• doing laundry
• cleaning the house
• commuting
• watching TV
• scrolling social media
• bathing, myself and kids
• emailing
• exercising

When looking at this remaining 60+ hours in our week, Laura Vanderkam urges us to consider our top priorities and core competencies–what can be done only by you every week?– when deciding how to intentionally fill the remaining “free” time in our week.

My Top Priorities:

• playing with my kids
• spending quality, non-screen, non-kid time with my spouse
• exercising
• reading
• getting outside, sauntering, exploring our parks and greenways
• spending time with friends and family: time in person with moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, great grandmas who live locally and time on the phone/social media/chats with sisters, brothers, dad, grandpas, cousins, friends who live spread out around the country and the globe.
• blogging (perhaps better stated, taking time to process what I read)
• traveling/adventuring (be it near or be it far, be it small or be it great)

My (household) Core Competencies (i.e. things I wouldn’t be willing to pay someone else to do):

• Laundry (I don’t go full Marie Kondo here but her lessons and my one-in-one-out minimalist mantra help make this necessary chore more manageable and enjoyable.)
• Dishes (This has always been my “role” at family functions and I have grown to enjoy the mindlessness of it and how my mind can wander to interesting, creative places while washing.)
• Cooking (This is a budding hobby of mine and my almost 3-year-old son enjoys helping to cook with us in the kitchen, too. Currently, I’m working on creating an “Our Family Recipes” cookbook to help make cooking a family priority now and in coming years. Cooking for themselves is a life-skill I want my boys to have and something I want us to enjoy as a family.)
• Grocery shopping (another one of my son’s favorite hobbies)

NOT My (household) Core Competencies (i.e. things I WOULD be willing to pay someone else to do, but because my dad indoctrinated me to the Dave Ramsey mindset, I’m still unlikely to pay someone else):

• doing lawn maintenance (luckily my husband is always willing to pitch in here– and sometimes I do, too)
• cleaning the house (there is a part of me that does enjoy the fruits of my labors of this activity but I would happily have a cleaning service deep clean my house on a semi-regular basis)

What I’d like to intentionally do less of with my time:

• watching TV
• commuting
• scrolling social media without a purpose
• checking my phone
• grading papers

This book also opened up for me some key insights regarding how we, as humans, perceive time. Essentially Vanderkam proposes that when we do “nothing” with our time, thoughtlessly scroll the internet or mindlessly watch TV or hang around the house without prioritizing time together,  time condenses. That’s how when on Monday a coworker may ask you “how was your weeked?” and if you did “nothing” you have a hard time recalling how you spent all those precious weekend hours. On the other hand, if you and your family schedule and plan special quality time or outings, say hiking at the local state park on Saturday or a board game session at home, the weekends stand out over time and you have active memories of your time together as a family.

How we perceive time should then inform how we plan for it and spend it. Therefore, while I do want to reserve time for us to do “nothing” at home together, I also want to be proactive and purposeful for how we spend our time together as a family throughout my kids’ childhood. I consistently hear how childhood goes by in the blink of an eye and according to Vanderkam, that childhood time will only speed up if we let it condense onto itself. Instead, I want to punctuate my sons’ childhood and our family time with meaningful and memorable times that we create and execute together. I do not want to be “busy” or a slave to a schedule, but I want to look back and be able to reflect together sweetly, warmly, and specifically on where all the time went.

Bottom line, what rung truest for me in this book reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Annie Dillard

 

Only I can control how I spend my hours, days, and life. I will not be mindlessly “busy.” I will use my 168 hours doing what I love with whom I love and then suffer for 15+ minutes a day doing what needs to be done to get back to living my chosen life in a way that I will remember it.