168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

I recently read Laura Vanderkam's insightful 168 Hours. She builds the case that we have more time than we think we do. A week has 168 hours. If you sleep a full 8 hours a night (56 hours) and work a full 40 hours, there are 72 more hours for you to enjoy each week.

So why feel harried?

She suggests tracking your time for a week. (I made and Excel spreadsheet and tracked by hour.) It was an interesting exercise.

I get a lot done in a normal week. I usually work 20 hours for pay; I homeschool the boys; I prepare food for seven from scratch. I think at times I fall into a bit of a pity party that I find time to read for fun only on Sundays. (Of course, part of my job is to read and review books, so it's not like I'm devoid of reading the other six days.)

What fascinated me, in the week I recorded my time, is that I managed 13 hours cleaning up our storage and sorting stuff. That's not a recurring task; where did those 13 hours come from? And if I have those hours buried somewhere, why not use them better?

Vanderkam suggests that focus on our leisure time. Some fraction, possibly a large percentage, of those 168 hours is leisure time. She has a list of 100 Dreams, perhaps a bit different from a bucket list. What do you want to do with your life?

I think it would be fun to write a book someday. I still have no narrative arch, but for now, I blog to practice writing. Now that the piano is back, I long to be able to sit and play, well, hymns to begin with, but Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach one of these days. So I can take some of those 168 hours, maybe just three a week, and gradually work towards greater musical proficiency.

At some point, I think it would be fun to try the violin. (I do realize that introductory violin is probably not actually fun, but I'm curious.) I want to be a certified homeopath. At some point after that, I want to study a multi-year herbalist course. Flowers from my (not yet started) garden during all the growing months, or maybe, with (not yet covered) greenhouses, year round. Maybe learn to sing. Have people over regularly.

Those don't seem like pipe dreams any more. They seem like possibilities.