168 Hours

How often do you find yourself saying, “I don’t have enough time”? In 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, Laura Vanderkam turns that complaint upside down. Her core argument: we all have the same 168 hours each week, and most of us misuse them because we don’t recognize how much control we actually have. Vanderkam contends that time management isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing more of what matters. If you can learn to fill your 168 hours intentionally, you can design a life that reflects your deepest priorities.

The book’s premise relies on a deceptively simple question: if everyone—from overworked executives to stay-at-home parents—has the same weekly hours, why do some people thrive while others feel perpetually overwhelmed? Vanderkam’s answer is that successful people understand how to align their time with their values and to shed the false narratives of busyness that dominate our culture. By recording, examining, and reimagining your own time use, you uncover where those lost hours are hiding.

Rethinking the Myth of Busyness

The first idea Vanderkam dismantles is the “time crunch” myth. Despite constant complaints of being overworked, most people dramatically overestimate their work hours. Time-diary studies show that the average full-time worker performs 35–43 hours of real work per week and still sleeps around 8 hours a night. Yet we tell ourselves stories of 70-hour workweeks and 6-hour sleep nights to prove our dedication. The truth? We’re often confusing feeling busy with actually being productive.

This cognitive bias stems from what psychologists call “social desirability”—we feel valued when we claim to be busy. It’s a badge of importance. But as Vanderkam shows, this story costs us control. When you log every hour for one week, you start to see how much time vanishes into distractions: scrolling social media, inefficient meetings, television, errands, and “pseudowork.” These activities feel necessary, but they drain the hours that could be invested in personal growth, health, and joy.

Your Time as a Blank Slate

Vanderkam introduces the idea of thinking in weeks, not days. A week provides a more flexible framework to observe patterns and to fix imbalances. Each week contains 168 hours—ample time to sleep eight hours a night (56), work 40–50, and still have 60-plus hours for family, exercise, hobbies, and relationships. The problem is not scarcity—it’s awareness. Most of us don’t know where our time goes because, unlike money, we rarely track it.

The way to reclaim that awareness is through a simple but powerful exercise: keeping a time log. Vanderkam’s research participants often discover surprises. One woman who believed she worked 16-hour days learned she actually averaged just six productive hours and slept more than she thought. Awareness leads to choice, and choice leads to change. When you see every hour as a conscious decision, “I don’t have time” becomes “it’s not a priority.” This shift reveals what you value—and what you neglect.

Changing the Language of Time

Perhaps the most transformative idea in the book is linguistic: stop saying “I don’t have time.” Replace it with “It’s not a priority.” This exercise can be bracing. “I don’t read to my kids because it’s not a priority” sounds harsh—but it’s honest. It forces you to examine your real choices instead of blaming circumstance. As Vanderkam writes, “Time is a choice. You are in charge of you.”

Viewed this way, time becomes a powerful tool rather than a trap. If you treat each of your 168 hours as a finite resource—a blank calendar that you fill deliberately—life begins to expand. You can sleep enough, work productively, nurture your relationships, and still have blank space for rest or spontaneity. The secret lies in aligning your hours with your core competencies—the things you do best and value most.

What You’ll Learn

Across the chapters, Vanderkam offers a method for redesigning your life around purpose. You’ll learn to:

• Identify your personal core competencies and invest your best time in them.
• Reimagine your work life—finding or creating the right job that energizes rather than depletes you.
• Eliminate or outsource low-value tasks at home and work (like endless housework and pseudo-busyness).
• Design a meaningful personal life filled with family connection, relationships, volunteering, and fulfilling leisure—without guilt.

You’ll meet real people—executives like Theresa Daytner, scientists like Sylvia Earle, and parents balancing huge demands—who have all learned to channel their energy toward what matters. Their stories reveal that fulfillment isn’t a miracle of luck; it’s a function of focus. Vanderkam’s message is both practical and liberating: you already have enough time. What you need is the courage to use it wisely.

Themes ranging from workplace productivity and creative autonomy to housework decline, modern parenting, and leisure structure all flow from this central insight. Whether through time logs, outsourcing, or redefining “balance,” Vanderkam’s 168-hour lens invites you to take radical ownership of your week—and by extension, your life.

Vanderkam begins with a cultural critique: the modern obsession with being busy is less about reality and more about identity. When people claim they’re swamped, what they often mean is that they feel overwhelmed or important. Studies from the American Time Use Survey and the University of Maryland’s sociologist John Robinson show that Americans consistently exaggerate their work hours and underreport their leisure. Our calendars may look packed, but our time is leaky.

Why We Overestimate

Part of the distortion comes from memory. Humans are poor at estimating time; we recall intense or stressful events more vividly. We also confuse busyness with value, so we inflate our hours to signal worth. In one study, those who claimed to work over 75 hours per week logged only 55 when tracked. Meanwhile, time logs reveal surprising constants: most adults—working parents included—sleep eight hours and still have over 60 waking hours beyond work and chores.

That disconnect between perception and data breeds chronic dissatisfaction. People complain they can’t find 15 minutes for themselves, yet watch TV for 20 hours a week. The true issue isn’t lack of time—it’s lack of consciousness about how we spend it.

Choices, Not Shortages

The phrase “I don’t have time” masks reality—it’s about priorities, not hours. Vanderkam urges readers to replace it with “It’s not a priority,” instantly exposing how values guide behavior. “I don’t work out because it’s not a priority” feels different—and less defensible—than “I’m too busy to exercise.” This reframing gives you power to reassess. If something truly matters, schedule it first and build the rest around it.

In this mindset, time scarcity becomes an illusion. A week holds room for a 50-hour workweek, 8 hours of nightly sleep, and more than 60 additional hours. That’s time to run marathons, write books, volunteer, or deepen family life. Many of Vanderkam’s subjects demonstrate this abundance once they see clearly.

From Awareness to Action

Theresa Daytner, a mother of six who runs a multimillion-dollar construction company, embodies this principle. Contrary to expectations, she hikes and reads novels between meetings. Her secret isn’t superhuman energy; it’s intentionality. By logging her hours, she saw where time drained away—email, scattered errands—and redesigned her weeks. “Every minute I spend is my choice,” she tells Vanderkam. That mantra underpins the book.

If Daytner can organize six kids, a thriving company, and a personal life, what stops you? Often, it’s unexamined habits and the false prestige of busyness. The first step toward reclaiming your life is not doing more, but seeing more clearly where you already have room to breathe.

To fill your time wisely, Vanderkam introduces the concept of core competencies—borrowed from business strategy. Just as thriving companies invest in what they do best and outsource the rest, successful people identify their essential strengths and orient their lives around them. She encourages you to ask: “What do I do best, that others can’t easily do?”

Finding Your Strengths

Your core competencies often reveal themselves in activities that draw you into deep concentration and joy. Vanderkam tells the story of Nobel Prize–winning chemist and poet Roald Hoffmann, who calls himself “a watcher.” His patience in observing patterns led him to groundbreaking chemistry theories—and later to poetry. His skill defines him across disciplines: careful observation and reflection. For Hoffmann, time becomes fulfillment because it aligns with his essence.

To uncover your strengths, Vanderkam suggests the “List of 100 Dreams,” an exercise borrowed from career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine. Write 100 things you’d like to do or experience, trivial or grand—publish a novel, run a marathon, learn guitar, visit Paris. As you review your list, patterns appear. The recurring themes often point toward your intrinsic motivations—the foundation of core competencies.

The Passion Muscle

Dream lists reveal both truths and delusions. Ceniza-Levine once fantasized about sewing, but a single class proved she hated it. Vanderkam calls this “exercising your passion muscle”—trying widely, sticking with what energizes you, and discarding the rest. For fitness instructor Jackie Camborde, a simple weight-loss goal morphed into teaching group aerobics and eventually opening her own studio. Her enthusiasm guided her through hard work toward a new vocation.

When you invest most of your 168 hours in activities that suit your talents and passions, you tap hidden energy reserves. Life feels fuller not because you’ve found more time, but because you’ve stopped dividing yourself among the wrong things.

What if your job energized you instead of depleting you? Drawing on research from Harvard’s Teresa Amabile, Vanderkam defines the right job as one that matches your expertise, gives you autonomy, challenges you, and supports your creativity. These conditions, she argues, lead to flow—the state of complete absorption where hours pass unnoticed.

Doing What You Love

The happiest and most productive professionals exhibit intrinsic motivation. Marine biologist Sylvia Earle, profiled early in the book, exemplifies this: after 40 years studying oceans, she still calls her underwater excursions her “playground.” That joy powers her astonishing productivity, proving that what you love fuels both success and stamina. In contrast, those chasing only external rewards—titles, paychecks—burn out faster and create less.

Autonomy and Challenge

Autonomy—the freedom to decide how and when you work—is another pillar. Studies show telecommuters and self-employed workers report higher satisfaction because they control their hours. But challenge matters as well: the best jobs stretch you just enough to stay engaged. Vanderkam references psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi’s idea of “flow”: difficulty balanced with skill creates happiness.

If your work rarely absorbs you or feels like drudgery, the solution isn’t necessarily quitting—it’s redesign. Earle, for instance, founded her own company to pursue ocean research outside bureaucracy. Others find autonomy through side ventures or flexible scheduling. Ultimately, Vanderkam insists, the “dream job” rarely appears—it’s something you build.

Time management begins not with apps but mindset. Every hour you spend should advance your goals—or consciously refresh you. Vanderkam divides this into four steps: seize control of your schedule, separate real work from fake work, eliminate low-value tasks, and deliberately practice what you do best.

Seizing the Schedule

Start by deciding what you want from your next year and breaking it into actionable weekly tasks. People often underestimate how much time they have—2,000 working hours per year, on average—so the key is prioritization. Bankruptcy lawyer Stephanie Wickouski, for example, wrote a 300-page book by calculating exactly how many hours it would take (1,000–1,200) and blocking that time weekly. Small, consistent investments compound into big achievements.

Distinguishing Real Work

Not all activity equals productivity. Vanderkam cites biologist Carol Fassbinder-Orth, who redefined her time by focusing solely on the experiments that yielded results for publication rather than academic politics or excessive meetings. This distinction—between genuine contribution and performative busyness—releases hours you never knew you had.

Ignore, Minimize, Outsource

Her triad for work efficiency is direct: ignore what doesn’t matter, minimize necessary but secondary tasks, and outsource the rest. Nonprofit leader Trista Harris exemplifies this, scheduling short, focused check-ins instead of long meetings, blocking thinking time for strategy, and hiring virtual assistants for research. These boundaries reclaim creative focus—what Vanderkam terms your “core competency time.”

By mastering your calendar, you avoid the trap of reacting to demands and start directing your professional life with purpose.

Can you advance your career without sacrificing the rest of your life? Vanderkam’s resounding answer is yes—but it requires clarity, not sacrifice. She maps out the anatomy of a breakthrough: know what the next level looks like, understand your industry’s gatekeepers, work to the point of diminishing returns, tell your story, and be open to opportunity.

Defining the Next Level

Leah Ingram, a freelance writer, set her sights on becoming a frugality expert after years of wedding writing burnout. Through blogging daily for two years, she built visibility until she landed a book deal. Her success illustrates Vanderkam’s key idea: breakthroughs come not from luck but perseverance and preparation meeting timing.

Working Smart, Not Constantly

Contrary to the “workaholic myth,” Vanderkam argues that 30–60 focused hours outperform 80 chaotic ones. Diminishing returns set in beyond that. For many, adding one or two high-quality hours per day—by eliminating fake work—sparks faster progress than overtime burnout. The goal is intensity, not exhaustion.

Story and Serendipity

Career breakthroughs, however, are also narrative breakthroughs. Documentary filmmaker Mary Mazzio succeeded because she aligned her projects—stories of women overcoming obstacles—with her own life story as an Olympic rower. People respond to coherent, authentic narratives. Vanderkam urges readers to craft their stories and stay ready for luck: pitch ideas boldly, plant many seeds, and be prepared when the right connection arises—like the bartenders who met their future literary agent by speaking up.

Vanderkam devotes a major section to how changing gender roles, technology, and values reshape how we use time at home. She calls it the “new home economics,” a system where families behave like modern businesses—focusing on their most valuable assets (quality relationships) and outsourcing or lowering standards for lower-value tasks (like cleaning).

From Mrs. Meyer to the Modern Family

In the 1950s, homemakers like Thelma Meyer spent over 30 hours a week scrubbing, baking, and sewing—acts of labor-intensive care that left little time for play. Today, working parents spend fewer hours on chores but more on active parenting. Both mothers and fathers have doubled interactive time with children since 1965. This shift shows how parents prioritize what’s truly scarce: attention.

The decline of housekeeping standards isn’t laziness; it’s rational reallocation. As women’s paid labor gained value, time spent cleaning became costlier. The sensible trade-off? Messier homes, stronger family time, and a more equitable division of labor. “We decided children were more important than polished floors,” Vanderkam quips.

Core Competencies at Home

Modern parents now focus on what they alone can do: nurturing, teaching, loving. Vanderbilt calls this treating your children as “privileged clients.” High-quality time doesn’t mean constant presence; it means planning enriching interactions—reading, cooking, exploring. Quality beats quantity, especially when combined with flexible scheduling like the evening-family “split shift.”

Ultimately, the new home economics rejects guilt. Your value isn’t measured in dust-free shelves but in connection and purpose. As housework becomes industrialized or recreational (through pricey scented soaps or organic cooking), empowerment lies in choice, not perfectionism.

In Chapter 7, “Don’t Do Your Own Laundry,” Vanderkam tackles domestic efficiency head-on. Her argument: treating housework as sacred is outdated economics. Just as businesses hire specialists to boost efficiency, individuals should outsource or minimize repetitive chores, freeing time for more meaningful work and rest.

Rethinking Chores

She tells of Sid Savara, a software developer who discovered he spent 15 hours weekly cooking. He hired a personal chef via Craigslist for $60 plus groceries and saved ten hours a week—time he reinvested in music and exercise. Similarly, stay-at-home mom Sarah Wagner outsourced laundry for $30 weekly, gaining family time and peace of mind. Vanderkam calls this a rational trade, not indulgence. “They weren’t buying cleanliness—they were buying their weekends back.”

Home Teams and Opportunity Costs

Vanderkam urges readers to build a “home team”—partners, child care, cleaners, virtual assistants—to match their professional “work team.” The calculation is simple: if you can earn more per hour than a cleaner costs, do what you do best and outsource the rest. Beyond finances lies sanity: the joy of living in your strengths rather than your drudgery.

This philosophy challenges guilt-based traditions. Doing your own chores isn’t morally noble; it’s a lifestyle choice. True stewardship of your 168 hours means allocating each to its highest-value use, whether that’s pitching a client or reading to your child.

The book’s final chapters confront the paradox of modern leisure: we have more free time than ever but feel less fulfilled. Vanderkam argues that unplanned leisure degenerates into passive consumption—mostly television. Instead, a full life requires intentional recreation: meaningful choices, structured joy, and alignment with relationships and growth.

Structured Leisure

She proposes choosing two or three high-value leisure pursuits—one must involve exercise—and scheduling them like meetings. Examples abound: volunteer, join a choir, run, paint, or learn languages. These create “flow” and renewal that passive rest cannot. Vanderkam herself finds meaning singing with the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, blending art, community, and leadership through her presidency of the group.

Planning leisure combats default fatigue. Without a plan, weekends vanish to chores or TV. With intention, they become restorative adventures: picnics, projects, or creative work.

Alignment and Relationships

To maintain deep relationships, Vanderkam recommends “alignment”—combining activities that nurture multiple parts of life. Exercise while catching up with a friend, volunteer with family, or garden with colleagues. Time thus compounds value—the same hour strengthens both body and bond.

Her final message: time is too precious for mindless busyness. You can’t create more hours, but you can reclaim them by aligning action with purpose. When you treat all your hours—work, home, and play—as investments in a well-designed mosaic, each week becomes a masterpiece.