From the 8-Hour Triangle to the Life Balance Diamond

Where did my eight hours of free time go?

I still remember how frustrated the woman who attended one of my talks on time sounded when she said it.

She didn’t work more than eight hours a day. She didn’t sleep more than eight hours.
And yet, she couldn’t find anything close to eight hours of free time, time just for herself.

She was referring to the famous slogan coined by social reformer Robert Owen in the 1800s:

“Eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest.”

That simple triangle of balance became the dream of the modern worker. However, it was built on an assumption that doesn’t fit how we live today.

Back then, the model focused on workers (mainly men) and assumed that someone else (mainly women) took care of everything related to home and family. The time spent caring for children, cooking, cleaning, or supporting loved ones wasn’t counted. It simply happened somewhere else, in someone else’s 24-hour day.

Two hundred years later, there is rarely “someone else”. Most of us fit work, rest, care, and everything in between into the same 24 hours.

That is why the Time Use Initiative (TUI) has introduced a more realistic symbol: the Life Balance Diamond.

Unlike the old triangle, the diamond has four sides, reflecting the different parts of life. For many of us, the side representing leisure has become small, or at times, nearly invisible. This leaves many feeling drained or uninspired, the dangerous lack of enthusiasm I talk about in my Courageous Time Management method.

So, if you ever wonder where your eight hours of leisure went, consider this: perhaps you never really had them, at least not since becoming an adult with a family.

When you see your day as a diamond rather than a triangle, you may find more clarity about what truly fills what I refer to as your "glass of time".

For help on how to handle all parts of life within the time you have, you can read or listen to my book Beyond Efficiency or check out the resources on www.annikarosendahl.com.

You can also read more about the Time Use Initiative on this link.