How many hours do you really have in the day for "me time"?

There really isn’t much time in the day to do what we want to do. Once we’ve taken into account the typical 8 hour working day, we can add at least 1 hour on either end for commuting to and from the office.  

This means that the number of hours in ‘work mode’ is made up of 8 hours (at the office) and a minimum of 2 hours (in transit), equating to a minimum of 10 hours. With 24 hours in the day we’re left with a maximum of 14 hours outside of work mode, which is where the life slice of the work life pie kicks in. 

Sleep is an essential piece of the life slice. As healthy adults we should be sleeping for between 7 and 9 hours a night. Let’s assume we aim for the minimum of 7 hours of sleep per night. If we take the 14 hours (when we’re not in work mode) and deduct 7 hours (for sleep), we’re left with a maximum of 7 hours of awake time in non-work mode.  

Those 7 hours of awake time need to cover a few normal activities, such as: 

• exercise (e.g. a gym workout or a run) with showering and getting changed (at least 1 hour) 
• preparing and eating breakfast and dinner (40 minutes) 
• getting cleaned and dressed in the morning (30 minutes) 
• hair and makeup (20 minutes) 

These essentials are important for our physiological wellbeing and the positive attitude that keeps us motivated throughout a tough working day. In all, the above activities make up 2.5 hours. If we deduct this from our no-work-mode awake time we’re left with 4.5 hours of ‘me time’. 

That sounds like a lot of time to ourselves but if you, like me, have young kids you can spend another 2 hours getting them to bed – a routine that involves dinner, bathing, reading stories and getting heads on pillows. If you get home from work early enough, you’ll want to play with them before the bedtime routine starts which will use up another 30 to 90 minutes. That’s a total of 3.5 hours of family time, leaving you with only 1 hour of actual me time each day (that’s 4.5 – 3.5 = 1 hour). 

As a parent, I’ve noticed that this 1 hour of proper me time is the bit I tend to look most forward to. Of course it’s great spending time with the kids and exercising, but sometimes having that moment to relax on your own is all you need to rejuvenate. That’s when you really enjoy that cup of tea, the glass of wine, the catch-ups on WhatsApp, reading a chapter of your current book, watching the latest MasterChef episode or soaking in a warm bath.  

If you have that hour for yourself that’s great but remember that for some people the commute to work takes longer than an hour each way. For others, a normal night’s sleep may be 8 or 9 hours, instead of the minimum of 7 that we used above. If either of these is relevant to you, then you already have zero me time left in the day. 

Another challenge is that your 1 hour of me time could easily get used by chatting with your partner. In our household, it could be me wasting my wife's time by pitching my ‘start-up of the day’ idea, or trying to convince her that I need some new expensive accessory for my bicycle, or that I want to start a new hobby that I actually have no time for. In her case it’s reminding me of some unfinished DIY jobs around the house, like fitting that new set of blinds in the bedroom (which, to her credit, had been sitting unopened in the box it got delivered in, under the bed for about 6 months).  

Something’s got to give. Either we need to find employment, hobbies and routines that give us the flexibility to accommodate more family time and more me time, or we need to adjust our expectations and come to terms with which days of the week different bits of the work life balance pie chart will take priority.