You and your 168 Hours

By | October 9, 2013
Pocket watches in a bunch

How much time is there?

Ever get the feeling that there just isn’t enough time in your 24-hour day to accomplish everything that needs to get done? While most of us think in terms of the 24-hour day, author Laura Vanderkam suggests that it might be more effective to multiply that day by seven and think instead about the 168 hours available in each week. Over at the Happy Monday blog, Danilo Vargas breaks down the numbers:

Think about it this way:

168 hours minus 56 hours (for sleep) minus 50 hours for work (including a 2-hour commute each day) leaves you with 62 hours to spend however you wish.

And in those 62 hours you can:

  • Spend real quality time with the kids: 7 hours
  • Exercise: 7 hours
  • Household chores: 17.5 hours

And after all that, you’d still have 30.5 hours each week to spend however you see fit.

We don’t know that we’ve ever devoted a full 17.5 hours/week to household chores, but the idea of thinking about time in this way is interesting. In her book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Vanderkam suggests that the first step is to log your time so that you can see how you really do use your 168 hours.

What about you? We know that many practice management software programs have time tracking features that provide information about clinical productivity — do you find that information useful? Have you tried similar time-tracking outside of clinic? Share your experiences in the comments.

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