A few months ago, my husband and I signed up for a three-day seminar on how to enter the real estate business and flip homes. I heard it advertised on Pandora and we both thought it would be a worthy investment of our time. The seminar was three full days starting on a Friday, which meant that my parents had to watch the kids all week (which they normally do), plus the weekend too. It was a serious time commitment, so we went with an open mind hoping to learn something new.
We barely made it through the first half of the first day. We realized there were better things we could be doing with our time on a beautiful summer day than sitting in a climate-controlled room listening to someone casually brag about how much money they have. Needless to say, we left during the lunch break and never returned. It wasn’t a complete waste of a half day, though. I walked away with one token of wisdom in the form of a very important number: 168. That’s the number of hours in one week.
This may not sound like a very illuminating or life changing fact. But whether or not I knew there were 168 hours in a week, I certainly never thought about it. It doesn’t matter if you are filthy rich or dirt poor, the one thing we all have in common is this number. And while we cannot change it, we CAN control what we do with it or how we choose to spend our precious 168 hours.
On the days that I feel sluggish, I think about this number. Because I only have 168 hours, I want to make the most of it by spending each hour wisely and with intentionality. After all, how I spend my time should be reflective of my priorities and what is important to me. That means that rather than running around stressing about time and checking things off an unrealistically full agenda, I organize my schedule one week at a time. I adjust each day based on how much I accomplished the previous day.
Are you feeling stuck and need a productivity boost? Then remember this number. Think about how you are spending your time. Which activities do you devote more time to? Are you spending most of your time at work? Or are you constantly on the run, so you spend any free hour catching up on sleep? Is the time you spend each week reflective of what is important to you?
If you want to know how you are spending your time and want to be more intentional with it so that you are doing the things you love and matter to you the most, check out these two printables. The first is a simple worksheet to help you identify how you are spending your time each day. The second is a weekly schedule with instructions on how to help you make each hour count.
