168 HOURS

Every math major I know has a favorite number, and I am no exception. My favorite number is 168, which is the number of hours in a week. No matter who we are, what we do for a living, where we live, or how productive we are, we all get the same amount of time: 168 hours per week. The difference among us is in how we spend that time.

As you think about your life balance, consider the elements that are most important to you. I call each part a “life bucket,” into which you pour a certain amount of your time, energy, and attention. As you have only 168 hours a week, no more and no less, you want to be conscious of where and how you spend that precious resource. You may determine that in addition to your career, family, spirituality, health, and recreation are really important to you. If so, then something else has to come off the list. For me, there are six buckets: career, family, spirituality, health, fun, and social responsibility (or making a difference). You may have more than six; you may have fewer.

If you are living a truly balanced life, you will spend at least part of your time and energy in each area over a period of a week or two or even a month. One exercise that may be helpful is to construct a grid reflecting each area in your life that you identify as important. Here's an example of what my grid might look like:

Keep in mind that no two weeks will be the same. For example, if I'm in Brazil on business all week, I will not be able to spend time with my family. However, while I'm traveling, I will try to exercise more and get some extra reading accomplished so that I have more time to spend with Julie and our children when I return from the trip. Regardless of whether you balance your time week-to-week or over a month, make sure that you hold yourself accountable by using a grid such as this one that allows you to track your commitments over time. Unless you measure how you spend your time, you cannot make meaningful changes that will positively impact the quality of your life and, by extension, your leadership.

You may find that where you spend your time matches your goals and priorities. Or, if you're like the rest of us, you may find some startling results, such as career representing more than 50 percent of your time, with much smaller percentages for the other buckets. An empty life bucket is not a reason to despair. It just means you are out of balance, and if you are completely honest with yourself, this probably will not come as much of a surprise.

Face it: left to our own devices, most of us will have the biggest amount of hours—far more than forty a week—in the work bucket. Although career is very important, it doesn't have to obliterate everything else. The principle of balance helps you remain committed to working both hard and smart, conscious of how you are spending your time in all facets of your life. Otherwise, you will fall into the weekend trap: spending most of Saturday and Sunday at the office instead of devoting time to other buckets, such as family and fun.

Maybe you tell yourself that there just isn't enough time during the week to get all your work done. The real question to consider is what happened during the week that kept you from completing what you expected to accomplish. For example, on Thursday afternoon, did you tell yourself, “I had better bear down so I don't have to come in on the weekend”? At lunch on Friday, did you remind yourself to stay focused so you wouldn't have to be at the office on Saturday and Sunday? Or did you end up chatting with people and taking a long lunch because you knew you could catch up on the weekend? This used to happen to me. Then I'd come in on a Saturday, convinced that it was only for an hour or two, and end up spending all day working, and sometimes Sunday, too.

You also need to be realistic and honest with yourself about the trade-offs you are willing to make in order to lead a balanced life. When I started working thirty years ago, I was in a little cubicle with an inbox and an outbox. If I was really churning away, in the late afternoon I would actually get to the bottom of my inbox, which gave me a wonderful sense of accomplishment. After I was promoted to my first managerial position, I realized that I would never see the bottom of my inbox again, because there was no bottom; work always kept piling up. The lesson is that none of us will ever get everything done; therefore, the key is to consider the trade-offs among what needs to be accomplished immediately and what can wait another day so that you can invest time and energy in your other life buckets.

For some people, this realization happens early in their career, and they achieve better life balance. For others, the light bulb never goes on. That is why some people are in the office seven days a week, working late into the night, and they are proud of the fact that they put in a hundred hours a week. For you to live a balanced life, something has to give, which can lead to some difficult choices. However, the reward of having a truly balanced life and perspective makes it all worthwhile.

Much of life balance comes down to a few key concepts: discipline, focus, consistency, and credibility. People who do a good job are those who tend to be more self-reflective and self-aware. They are conscious of where they spend their time, yet they know that temptations will arise that can get them off track. By being disciplined, focused, and consistent, they develop credibility.

All this planning and measuring doesn't mean that life has to be preprogrammed, with no spontaneity. As I have found in my own life—between teaching classes at Kellogg; being an executive partner at Madison Dearborn; serving on ten boards, including two as chairman; and being married with five children—the more disciplined I am, the more spontaneous and flexible I can be. That may appear to be a contradiction, but I have found that discipline leads to flexibility, and explicit decisions open up more time for fun.

As a new week begins, I know that if I prioritize and plan how to achieve my desired balance, I will have much more flexibility in my schedule for activities that may come along. I can immediately reprioritize so that I can take advantage of an unexpected opportunity and still complete the tasks and projects that are most important to me. If there is no plan and something comes up, it is hard to react and decide what I should do. Having a plan and understanding the trade-offs help immensely.