The challenge, however, is that certain aspects or components of our lives can overshadow the rest. In some cases, they consume so much of our time, energy, and attention that there is not much time left for the other areas we say are important to us. Maybe our work takes almost all our time because we have convinced ourselves that we should be in constant motion. Maybe we focus so much on a leisure activity or sport that it eats away at the time we say we want to spend with other people—family, friends, and loved ones. Or maybe we don't make our health enough of a priority in terms of time commitment. In other words, there's cognitive dissonance: we say certain things are important to us, but our actions don't match those words. There is a disconnect, and not just for a few days or over the course of a busy week or two. I'm talking about chronic imbalance—that feeling of being constantly short of time and attention, always rushing to get things done, and ending each day exhausted and overwhelmed.
Without question, we're very active, but are we being productive? Or are we moving so fast, we don't even know? And if we don't know, do we just keep moving because we've confused activity and productivity? As the pace of the world accelerates, and technology blurs the lines between work and home, balance can become an elusive goal. Some people think it's impossible. We start out with good intentions but find ourselves sidetracked, distracted, and even out of control.
To be clear, when I talk about balance, I don't mean work-life balance. If we think about it, that's a confusing concept. The way it is expressed—work-life—seems to indicate a choice that either you're working or you're living. For those of us who work a lot, let's hope work is part of living (if not, we've got a real problem!). We are not just switching from professional to personal, like flipping a switch.
Our lives are multifaceted. We are involved in our careers, but there's more to our lives than just work. We want our lives to have meaning, to lead what I call a values-based life in which what we do reflects who we are and what matters most to us. For many of us, that includes spending meaningful time with family, friends, and others in our community. We have outside interests and leisure activities that are important to us and help us feel more balanced. Maybe faith or spirituality is important—even at the center of our lives. Most people want to be healthy and pursue some kind of exercise. Just about everyone I talk to would like to get a little more sleep. And if we think about it, we know we're here in this life for a short period of time and would like to make a difference in our community—and maybe in the world.
These components aren't just lofty goals that sound good or items on a wish list. They reflect our values. By devoting meaningful time to their pursuit, we can lead a values-based life that enables us to be true to ourselves and what we say is most important.
Given how busy everyone is, this doesn't happen by accident. The only way to lead a values-based life is by becoming more self-aware of how and where we spend our time. And that's where your 168 comes in.
MY FAVORITE NUMBER
Like most math majors, I have a favorite number. Mine is 168. Often, when I ask my students to guess its significance, about one in ten figures it out. It's the number of hours in a week. No matter who you are, what you do for a living, where you live, or how productive you are, you only get 168 hours a week. The only difference is how you spend that time.
It's not about working x hours a week and then having the remaining hours for “other things.” It's not working or living, remember? To have true balance among different components of your life—the areas you say are the most important—you need to allocate your time just as you would any precious resource. You accomplish this by being self-reflective and accountable for how you spend your time.
Some people ask me why I don't use 24 hours to divide up a “typical day.” For most people (myself included), there is no such thing as a typical day. In my case, on any given day, I may be teaching at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (my graduate school alma mater), traveling across the country to give a speech, working for Madison Dearborn Partners and our private equity portfolio companies, or attending not-for-profit board meetings. Or I could be involved in church activities, spending time with my family, or traveling for leisure. There's no “typical” day.
Over the course of a week, though, our days tend to fall into a pattern. And even if a week is an anomaly—for example, five straight days of business travel—over a few weeks we can see how our time allocation is shaping up. A tool that helps is the life grid, composed of components or what I call life buckets, those areas into which you pour your time, attention, and energy.
Table I.1 provides a representation of where and how I want to spend my time and enables me to record how I actually spend my 168 hours a week.
Your life grid may not look like someone else's. And it's not what you think your 168 should look like. This is your 168—allocated to reflect your priorities, choices, and life circumstances. Being honest and accountable to yourself is fundamental to living a values-based life—otherwise, you're just deceiving yourself, and where's the benefit in that?
Once you have a life grid of how you want to allocate your time, you can start tracking how closely your life follows that plan (see chapter 2). Not every week will be on target. But over time, the goal is to balance your life by keeping track of how you spend your time and holding yourself accountable for your 168.
When I discuss 168 with people, I tend to get two reactions. First, there are those who engage with the idea. They embrace the concept of life buckets to see where they're above or below their goals. They know that no two weeks will be the same. They're traveling on business one week, so they don't have as much time with family. However, while traveling, they catch up on reading or put in extra hours on a work project, so that when they're back home they can devote more time to family, friends, leisure, and exercise. It's not about beating themselves up; it's about striving to maintain an average over time.
Table I.1 One example of a life grid with targeted time allocations for each bucket.
| Life Bucket | Goal Hours | Actual Hours Spent | Difference |
| Career | 50 hours (30%) | ||
| Family | 28 hours (17%) | ||
| Faith/Spirituality | 11 hours (7%) | ||
| Health/Sleep | 55 hours (32%) | ||
| Fun/Recreation/Reading | 14 hours (8%) | ||
| Making a Difference | 10 hours (6%) | ||
| 168 hours (100%) | |||
The second reaction from people who hear me discuss 168 is to say, “Wow, that's amazing.” (I'm always amused by this reaction because there's nothing that amazing about multiplying 24 hours in a day by 7 days in a week.) What