Time to rethink how we live

Three years ago I wrote a blog asking how we spent our 168 hours in the week. With the world in lockdown, our usual lives have been stripped down. It has given us time to rethink how we live our lives and how we want to live in the future. Chances are we are not commuting, not socialising, and for some, not working. We have been in a bubble and most of us have had time to re-evaluate our lives.

Would you like to live your life differently than your pre lockdown life? Have you realised what feeds you and what has a negative effect on your life?

In my original post – I broke 168 hours in a week up into:

Sleep – 8 hours a night – total  56 hours – that leaves 112 hours.
Work 40 hours – that leaves 72 hours.
Commuting – up to 7 hours a week.
Housework, essential shopping and cooking – about 13 hours.
Eating at least an hour a day. Now we are down to 45 hours.
Showering, make-up, getting dressed – one hour a day? 38 hours left.
Family/relationship time – let’s make a conservative guess at 20 hours. Now just 18 hours left.
We should be exercising for 30 minutes a day, so lets put in 4 hours a week.
That left 14 hours to socialise, do nothing, relax, social media, listen to music, hobbies……

Let’s delve a bit deeper into these.

Chances are some of these have stopped. For me it has been commuting and socialising. And I have spent much less time getting ready each day. How many people have not even got dressed?

What have you done more of? I think I have slept about the same, but I have worked more, exercised more, spent more family time and explored more hobbies. Before lockdown I used to hear many women say they did not have time to exercise. Lockdown has given us the time to do this. It has been great to see people take up old and new hobbies. I finally did the mosaic on my garden table and did quite a few glass projects. My kids have asked ‘how many more dangly glass things do we need in the house’!

What have you missed? For me it is people, the arts and travelling. I am the only adult in my house so I have really missed my friends and community. I was one of those people who did almost nightly Zoom calls at the start of lockdown and am now taking advantage of socially distanced socialising. But I really miss the arts; festivals, theatre, dancing. And I really miss travelling. And I miss the vibes of London. I live in a small village and have been so lucky to be surrounded by countryside but I miss the city.

What have you not missed? I know many people have not missed commuting. And some have realised that being in an office all day is not the way they want to live. Several friends have told me they realise they do not like their job.

My view is that we need to turn lockdown into something positive. This has been a unique opportunity – our lives have been stripped down so we can reflect, re-evaluate, change. Take the good things and try to stop the things we realise we do not want to continue.

Are you feeling strong? Will you be in control of your life when we get back to some normality?

Read More: https://hbr.org/2014/08/relax-you-have-168-hours-this-week

Image credit – http://creately.com/blog/infographics-2/4-inspirational-infographics-to-start-a-business-in-2016/