There are 168 hours in a week. Many kids have roughly 12 weeks off from school for June, July and August. This raises the question for families: what are you doing with these 2016 hours (168 x 12) of summer?
Sure, you’ll be sleeping some. Grown-ups will sleep about 672 of them. Kids a bit more. And many adults also have far less than 12 weeks off work. But even if you’re working 40 hours during each of those 12 weeks — 480 hours — that still leaves 864 waking, non-working summer hours. If you take a week or two off work (most people have a few days off around July 4th anyway) that puts you up over 900.
This is a lot of time, even if you already have commitments like camps or sports practices. Do you know how you’ll spend these 900 hours?
We have been trying to figure this out in my house. Sure, there are bigger things: a weekend trip to the beach, a few days visiting grandparents, a week’s beach vacation in August. But many of those 900 summer hours come in shorter spurts. They come as a lazy weekend day, or a gorgeous summer evening where it stays light up until bedtime.
In my book, 168 Hours, I reference an exercise created by career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine, called the “List of 100 Dreams.” This is an unedited list of anything you might like to do or have in life. It’s a good way to start thinking about how you’d like to fill your time, because time management isn’t just about saving 5 minutes here and there. It’s about filling your weeks with activities that bring you and your loved ones joy.
I’ve been thinking these last few days that it would be a good idea for families to create a List of 100 Summer Dreams. Sit down as a family and start thinking through anything you might like to include in your summer. Evening bike rides? Camp-outs in the backyard? S’mores in the backyard? A weekend canoeing trip? A hike in a nearby state park? A family swimming class? Volunteering together? Making a quilt together? Picnic breakfasts?
You can come back to this list multiple times. But as you look through your weeks, keep looking at this list, and looking for places in the 2016 hours of summer where they’d fit. You have time for anything you really want to do. A canoeing trip your kids may remember for years could only take 10 hours or so on a Saturday. I don’t believe in scheduling our lives (particularly our summers!) down to the minute. But we live in a distracted world. When we don’t plan to do things that take effort, we tend not to do them. And we lose our summer hours to television, web surfing, chores, errands and puttering. Better to start off with the question of what we’d like to be doing as families, and go from there.
Just bought your book on audible.com because I am experiencing severe overload in my life resulting in the misuse of much of my time. I am hoping that by reading your book I will find some inspiration on how to manage my time more efficiently and, more importantly, in ways that make me happy.
I am also hoping to create more great memories for my kids instead of memories of mom being frustrated that she doesn’t have enough time for – fill in the blank.
Also looking forward to poking around on your website some.
Thanks for sharing your insights with the rest of the world.
Take care,
Michelle McGee – http://www.moxiemomma.com
I LOVE making a summer to do list with my kids!
They are now 5, 7 and 9 and we have been doing this for quite awhile.
We just made the one for this summer. My 9 year-old asked if we could make tents.
“Like in the back yard?” I asked.
“No, like with sheets in the house,” he replied.
So often I want to do the grand, when the simple is much more grand to them.
This kind of tent I can do!
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “How about if we build tents and you can have a sleepover with a friend in the tent?”
The item before ‘make tents’ was ‘have sleepovers.’
I am now Mom of the Year (in his eyes.. and that’s what matters). 🙂