168 hours in a week: how to do a time audit (with a filled-in example)
· 4 min read
A week has 168 hours (24 × 7). A time audit means logging what you do in every 30-minute slot for seven days, adding each category up, and checking that the total is 168. The useful part is the gap between what you guessed and what you logged, because those are the hours you can plan next week.
Step 1: guess first
Before you log anything, write down how many hours you think go to each category in a normal week. It takes five minutes, and it's the only way to see later how far off you were. Use the categories from the table below, or the ones on a university worksheet such as Boston University's time audit or the University of Manitoba's 168-hour week.
Step 2: log seven days in 30-minute slots
- Use 30-minute slots. 336 of them make a week. Smaller slots are tiring to keep up, and hour-long ones hide the 20 minutes on your phone between tasks.
- Write it down every few hours. Filling in a whole day from memory at night gives you the guess again.
- Log a normal week. A holiday, a move or a sick week tells you about that week only.
- Record the main activity. If you ate lunch while scrolling, pick the one that took your attention and stay consistent.
A notes app, a spreadsheet or a paper grid all work. Sleep gets logged as one block in the morning: when you fell asleep and when you got up.
Step 3: add it up and compare
Here is a filled-in example for an office worker with a 9:00–17:30 job and a 45-minute commute each way. The numbers are one person's week, used to show the method.
| Category | Guessed | Logged | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep | 52.5 | 49 | −3.5 |
| Work | 42.5 | 45 | +2.5 |
| Commute | 5 | 7.5 | +2.5 |
| Meals and cooking | 10 | 12 | +2 |
| Chores and errands | 5 | 7 | +2 |
| Getting ready | 5 | 5.5 | +0.5 |
| Exercise | 4 | 2 | −2 |
| Phone, TV, browsing | 8 | 21 | +13 |
| Family and friends | 15 | 12 | −3 |
| Everything else | 21 | 7 | −14 |
| Total | 168 | 168 | 0 |
Two things stand out. The 21 hours guessed as "everything else" were mostly unplanned time, and 13 more hours than expected went to screens. Sleep came in 3.5 hours short, which works out to 7 hours a night instead of the 7.5 this person planned for.
Step 4: decide what the found hours are for
An audit is only useful if it changes next week. Pick one goal for the hours you found and give it fixed slots. Leave some of the screen time alone: rest is a real category, and planning all 21 hours away is how next week's plan fails by Wednesday.
| Category | Logged | Next week | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep | 49 | 52.5 | In bed by 23:00, phone charging outside the bedroom |
| Exercise | 2 | 4.5 | Three 90-minute gym blocks after work |
| Goal (learning a language) | 0 | 5 | 30 min after dinner Mon–Fri, plus 2.5 h on Sunday morning |
| Phone, TV, browsing | 21 | 10 | Kept on purpose for evenings and weekends |
| Everything else | 7 | 7 | Unchanged |
The changes add 3.5 + 2.5 + 5 = 11 hours. All 11 come from the screen line, which goes from 21 to 10. Work, commute, meals, chores and family stay as logged, so the week still adds up to 168.
What a time audit usually shows
- Small gaps add up. Ten minutes between tasks, six times a day, is an hour a day, or seven a week.
- Sleep is the line that gives. It's the easiest category to borrow from without noticing.
- Weekends hold most of the free time. Weekdays are mostly fixed, so a goal that needs evenings competes with tiredness.
How often to repeat it
Once is enough to learn your pattern. Repeat it when something big changes: a new job, a new commute, a baby, a new semester. Between audits, a 15-minute review on Sunday of what actually happened that week does most of the same work.
Questions people ask
How many hours are in a week?
168: 24 hours a day times 7 days. Someone sleeping 8 hours a night spends 56 of them asleep, which leaves 112 waking hours.
How long should a time audit last?
One full, normal week, logged in 30-minute slots. A single day misses the weekend and the days that run differently, and two weeks gives a more reliable picture if you can keep the log going.
What categories should I use for a time audit?
Sleep, work or classes, commute, meals, chores, getting ready, exercise, screens, people and everything else. Keep it to about ten so logging stays quick, and make sure they add up to 168.