Plan your 168 hours
A week has 168 hours (24 × 7). Write down where they go before the week starts, then compare the plan with where they went. This page has a calculator, a five-step method, and a plan you can copy or print.
Updated 5 October 2026
Why 168
A day has 24 hours, and 24 × 7 is 168. A week is the smallest span that holds work shifts, school days, weekend plans, and the chores that come around every few days, so a weekly budget shows tradeoffs that a single day hides. 168 hours is 10,080 minutes. Every hour you give to one category comes out of another.
Fixed hours, with example numbers
The numbers below are an example for one possible week. They are not averages and not a recommendation. Replace them with your own.
| Category | Hours a day | Days | Hours a week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep | 8 | 7 | 56 |
| Work | 8 | 5 | 40 |
| Commute | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Meals and cooking | 2 | 7 | 14 |
| Chores and errands | 1 | 7 | 7 |
| Fixed total | 122 | ||
| Left of 168 | 46 | ||
Fixed hours are the ones set by something outside your plans: sleep, a job's schedule, the commute, meals, care of other people. Multiply the hours in a typical day by the number of days it happens. The 46 hours left in this example come to about 6 hours 34 minutes a day.
Your week
46 hours left
About 6 h 34 min a day over 7 days
122 of 168 hours planned
The numbers last only while this page is open. Copy or print the plan to keep it.
Plan one week in five steps
- Decide your categories. List the places your hours go, usually five to ten. Use names that mean something to you, such as Sleep, Work, Family, Exercise, Study, and Social. Keep one category called Other so every hour has a home.
- Subtract the fixed hours. Add up the hours that stay put. In the example those are sleep, work, commute, meals, and chores. Add care of other people if it belongs in your week. Enter each one as hours a week and take the total away from 168.
- Assign the remaining hours. Give each flexible category a number of hours until the hours left reach zero. If the total passes 168, lower one or more categories until the hours left reach zero.
- Track one week. Record where each hour goes, using the same categories. A paper log, a spreadsheet, and a timer app all work. Write entries during the day instead of from memory at night.
- Compare and adjust. Put planned hours beside tracked hours for each category. Large gaps are where tracked hours and the plan differ. Set next week's numbers from what you found.
Do it in 24 Hours
24 Hours is a phone app that budgets one day at a time, which is the daily half of this plan. You split a day's hours across goals, and the app shows how many hours are left today.
- Each goal gets hours. Turn a weekly number into a daily one. Forty hours of work over five weekdays is a Work goal of 8 hours.
- Goals follow a weekday schedule. Set Work to run Monday to Friday and a weekend goal to run on Saturday and Sunday, so each day's budget matches that day.
- One timer runs at a time. Start the timer for the goal you are working on, and its hours count down while the time is spent.
- The app shows the hours left on today's goals, which is time still unused on goals you already set.
The app is free on iPhone and Android. An optional one-time Supporter purchase adds unlimited goals.
The daily time budget on this site splits a single 24-hour day into blocks. Help for the app is on the 24 Hours support page.