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Productivity expert Laura Vanderkam spent years interviewing successful people who seemed to do everything — demanding careers, exercise routines, active family lives, meaningful hobbies. She expected them to have some secret time-bending superpower. Instead, she discovered something simpler: they think about time differently. Most people plan their days. These people plan their 168 hours — the full week.
The shift from daily to weekly thinking matters because a day can go wrong, but a week has flex. Bad morning? You've got six more days. Meeting runs long Thursday? Friday still exists. When you zoom out to 168 hours, panic about individual days dissolves. You see time as the abundant resource it actually is.
In 2026, as productivity culture collides with burnout and "I'm so busy" has become a status symbol, Vanderkam's research offers an uncomfortable truth: most people who claim they don't have time are lying to themselves. They have time. They're just spending it on things they don't care about.
Headway, a daily growth app trusted by 55 million users worldwide, breaks down Laura Vanderkam's '168 Hours' into quick insights you can apply immediately. Whether you're commuting or waiting in line, you can start understanding where your time actually goes and how to reclaim it.
➡️ What is the Headway and how does it work?
Track one week and your excuses evaporate
Vanderkam's first instruction: log every half-hour for one week. Write down what you actually do, not what you think you do or wish you did. Be honest. Include the time spent scrolling social media, the hour watching shows you don't even like, the meetings that accomplish nothing.
Most people resist this exercise because they know what it'll reveal. They say "I worked 60 hours last week" but can't account for where those hours went. They say "I never have time to exercise" while spending 20 hours watching television. The log forces honesty. It shows the gap between what you claim matters and where time actually goes.
Research shows the average American watches four hours of TV daily. That's 28 hours weekly — more than a part-time job. Vanderkam isn't saying don't watch TV. She's saying be honest about the trade-off. If you watch four hours daily, you're choosing that over exercise, reading, career advancement, or whatever else you claim you don't have time for.
The insight that changes everything: "I don't have time" almost always means "It's not a priority." When you track your time, this becomes obvious. You have 168 hours. After 50 hours working and 56 hours sleeping, you still have 62 hours left. That's enough. What's not enough is your willingness to spend those hours on what you say matters.
📘 Download Headway to explore Vanderkam's full framework for where time actually goes and how to redirect it. The app's gamified streaks help you build awareness of your own time choices, not just read about someone else's.
Focus on core competencies and outsource the rest
Vanderkam introduces the concept of core competencies — things only you can do, or things you do exceptionally well that create value. For most people, core competencies include your specific job skills, your presence with your children, creative work you're uniquely positioned to do. Non-core competencies include laundry, house cleaning, basic meal prep — tasks anyone can do.
The productive people Vanderkam studied ruthlessly protect time for core competencies and outsource everything else they can afford to outsource. They hire house cleaners. They order groceries online. They pay someone to mow the lawn. Critics call this privilege. Vanderkam calls it opportunity cost. If you make $50 an hour and cleaning your house takes four hours, that's $200 worth of your time. Paying someone $80 to clean it saves you $120 and four hours you can spend on high-value work or family time.
Not everyone can outsource everything. Fine. The principle still applies. Stop doing things that don't matter. Vanderkam's research showed successful people simply let some things go. Their homes weren't Instagram-perfect. Dinner was often simple. Laundry piled up sometimes. They consciously sacrificed lower priorities when higher priorities competed.
The practical shift: List everything you do regularly. Mark each task as core competency or not. For non-core tasks, ask three questions: Can I eliminate this? Can I minimize time on it? Can I outsource it? Then actually act on the answers. Most people complete this exercise and change nothing because they're addicted to being busy, not to being productive.
Headway's 2,500+ book summaries let you explore productivity, time management, and work-life integration from multiple angles. The more frameworks you understand, the better you get at separating what matters from what just fills time.
📘 Check it yourself. Users report that seeing time management principles across multiple books dramatically improved their ability to identify where they were wasting hours on things they didn't care about.
Schedule what matters first, let everything else fit around it
Most people schedule obligations first — work meetings, appointments, commitments. Then they try to squeeze priorities into whatever's left. Vanderkam flips this. Schedule your priorities first. Want to exercise five times weekly? Put those five sessions on your calendar before anything else. Want to write a novel? Block the morning hours before work makes demands.
This sounds simple but feels radical because it requires declaring priorities publicly through your calendar. When your boss asks for a meeting during your blocked workout time, you have to say no or negotiate. When friends want to hang out during your writing time, you have to choose. Most people avoid this discomfort by keeping priorities fuzzy and unscheduled, which means they never happen.
Vanderkam studied parents who worked full-time and still had active family lives. They didn't wait for free time to appear. They scheduled family dinners, weekend adventures, bedtime reading. These activities had the same calendar weight as work meetings. When conflicts arose, sometimes work won and sometimes family won, but at least the choice was conscious.
What this means for you: Open your calendar right now. Block time for your top three priorities this week before scheduling anything else. It'll feel uncomfortable. You'll worry about seeming inflexible or difficult. Do it anyway. The alternative is reaching the end of the week having accomplished nothing that actually matters to you while completing everything everyone else asked of you.
📘 Start building your time awareness with Headway's bite-sized wisdom delivered every morning that you can practice throughout your day. Users consistently report that small daily doses of time management concepts compound into major shifts in how they structure their weeks over months.
Master your 168 hours to master your life
Vanderkam's book proves that time scarcity is mostly a myth. In 2026's always-on world, the ability to think strategically about your full week rather than frantically about each day has become essential for both achievement and wellbeing.
Headway makes building this skill simple and fun. Beyond '168 Hours,' you'll find 2,500+ book summaries in text and audio covering productivity, work-life balance, time management, and personal effectiveness. The app's gamified challenges turn abstract concepts into daily practices — whether you're standing in line, floating in a pool, or commuting to work.
The app adapts to how you learn best, making self-growth more convenient, enjoyable, and intuitive. Start with 15 minutes today and discover how seeing time weekly rather than daily changes what you accomplish.
📘 Download Headway and join 55 million people who've made daily growth a habit.
Frequently asked questions about '168 Hours' and Vanderkam's time management approach
Is tracking every half-hour for a week really necessary?
Yes, because your perception of how you spend time is wildly inaccurate. You think you worked 60 hours but actually worked 45. You think you never watch TV but logged 15 hours. You think you have no free time but spent six hours scrolling social media. Without data, you can't fix the problem because you don't actually know what the problem is. Tracking forces honesty. After one week, patterns become obvious. You see where time leaks happen and can plug them.
What if I legitimately can't outsource anything because I can't afford it?
Vanderkam addresses this directly. If you truly can't outsource anything, the principle shifts to elimination and minimization. Stop doing tasks that don't matter. Let the lawn get shaggy. Serve simpler meals. Lower your housekeeping standards. Skip activities you don't enjoy just because you think you "should" do them. Even without outsourcing money, you can reclaim hours by refusing to spend time on non-core activities. The question is whether you're willing to let go of perfectionism and external expectations.
How do you schedule priorities first when your job demands constant availability?
Vanderkam argues that even demanding jobs rarely require true 24/7 availability. They require responsiveness during work hours and occasional evening/weekend flexibility. If you schedule exercise at 6 AM, most jobs won't conflict. If you block Saturday mornings for family time, most jobs won't object. The problem isn't job requirements — it's that you haven't tested boundaries. Try scheduling a priority and protecting it. You'll discover most bosses respect boundaries if you're productive during work time.
What about people with inflexible schedules like shift workers?
The 168-hour framework still applies but requires different tactics. Shift workers can't always choose when they work, but they control the other 100+ hours after work and sleep. The principle remains: track where those hours go, identify priorities, schedule them intentionally. A nurse working 12-hour shifts still has multiple days off. How she spends those days is entirely under her control. Even with constraints, thinking weekly rather than daily reveals flexibility that daily thinking hides.
Does this mean I should never waste time or relax?
No. Vanderkam explicitly argues for leisure time and what she calls "bits of joy" — activities that serve no productive purpose but bring happiness. The difference is intentional leisure versus default leisure. Intentionally watching your favorite show with your family is different from defaulting to scrolling social media because you're too tired to choose anything else. Schedule leisure you actually enjoy. Protect it the same way you protect work priorities. But don't confuse mindless time-wasting with genuine rest.
How does this apply to parents with young kids who derail every schedule?
Vanderkam is a parent of four and addressed this throughout the book. Parents of young children need different scheduling strategies: split shifts where parents trade off solo kid duty, planning flexibility for inevitable disruptions, and redefining quality time. A half-hour of focused attention with your kid matters more than four hours of distracted supervision while trying to work. The 168-hour framework helps parents see they don't need to be "on" with kids constantly. They need pockets of undivided attention and pockets of time when someone else handles childcare so they can work or rest.
What if I do everything Vanderkam suggests and still feel overwhelmed?
First, examine whether you're actually implementing her suggestions or just reading about them. Most people agree intellectually but change nothing behaviorally. If you've genuinely tracked your time, eliminated non-priorities, outsourced what you can, and scheduled what matters and still feel overwhelmed, Vanderkam would ask: Are your goals realistic? Are you trying to do too much? Sometimes the answer is scaling back ambitions, not finding more time. You might not be able to run a company, train for a marathon, volunteer weekly, and write a novel simultaneously. Pick two or three major priorities per season of life, not ten.
