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The Last Three Hours
What you do after everything else might be the most important part of your life.
How much time do you actually have in a day that belongs to you?
Not time for work. Not time for sleep. Not time for errands, chores, or obligations. Not time responding to someone else’s emergency or tending to things that will fall apart if you don’t. Time that is truly yours, freely chosen and self-directed.
Most of us would probably guess we have more than we actually do. But if you start running the math, reality paints a different picture.
Let’s start with work — your standard 8-hour workday, five days a week. Add in a lunch break, and you’re already at 45 hours. Even for remote workers like myself, there’s still some daily prep involved. And for those with commutes, toss in anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour a day depending on where you live and how wild traffic decides to be.
Then there’s sleep. If you’re one of the lucky (or disciplined) ones clocking in a full eight hours a night, there goes another 56 hours a week. And you should be getting that sleep, by the way. That’s not bonus time. That’s foundational maintenance for your body and brain. Let’s not pretend there’s much flextime in that area.
