There are 168 hours in a week. If you assume you sleep 8 hours a day and you work 8 hours a day then you have8 hours each day – 56 hours each week to fit in the rest of your life. Fifty-six hours to not only complete the maintenance of daily life – cooking, cleaning, laundry, and dishes but also to take care of your body, mind, and spirit as well as nurture import relationships and pursue your passions.

Are you spending this most valuable gift consciously? Wisely? Sustainably?

I think most people (myself included) are unaware of how much of the 56 hours slip away without a thought and without a significant payback. Like the $30/week you spend at the coffee shop – a couple of bucks at a time your 56 hours get whittled away in small imperceptible increments.

The only way to truly know how you spend your time is to do a study for a week – by logging how your time is spent. I already know that my time equivalent of the coffee shop budget breaker is my phone and my habit of surfing news and social media sites. Perhaps by being more conscious of the 56 hours available to me will help me shift my activities away from the time wasters that are not adding value to my world.