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 they really mean, I suspect, is that they have no clue as to how they spend their time. They probably haven't taken the time to identify their values and priorities, either. This isn't meant to judge anyone; it's just a fact that not everyone operates with the same level of self-awareness. I can tell you, based on the talks I've given on values-based leadership for the past 15 years, there is a great hunger among people to get their lives back in control with a sense of balance.
That's the goal of Your 168: Finding Purpose and Satisfaction in a Values-Based Life. For everyone who wants to live a life with more purpose, meaning, engagement, satisfaction, and fun, 168 should be your favorite number, too.
THE VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP JOURNEY
For the past 15 years, I have been teaching, writing, and speaking about values-based leadership. In my first book, From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership, I addressed how anyone at any level can become a values-based leader by following four foundational principles:
Self-reflection to identify and reflect on what you stand for, what your values are, and what matters most
Balance to see situations from multiple perspectives, including differing viewpoints, to gain a holistic understanding
True self-confidence to accept yourself and recognize your strengths and weaknesses, while focusing on continuous improvement
Genuine humility to never forget who you are, appreciating the unique value of each person and treating everyone with respect
From becoming a values-based leader, the next step was to develop a values-based organization, which was the subject of my second book, Becoming the Best: Build a World-Class Organization through Values-Based Leadership. This book explored the “five bests” starting with becoming your best self. From there, it's about forming the best team within the organization, being the best partner with customers and suppliers, being recognized as a best investment, and committing to social responsibility as a best citizen.
With the publication of these two books, I have traveled the world delivering more than 1,000 talks (and counting)
