There are maybe four writers who give me conflicting feelings. I read their stuff and simultaneously think “I love this so much” and “I’m so jealous I didn’t write this.”

Tim Urban’s the OG of the list.

He wrote a post a few years ago visualizing a life in weeks, and the framing + visual has stuck with me. We’ll use a similar framing below.

Our founders struggle with time. It’s hard to find time to work on your startup, and, once you do, it’s hard to figure out what to use that precious time for.

Last week during 1x1s I heard, four times, “I just don’t know where my time went.” So, with a little help from Tim’s visual framing, let’s look at your weeks.

Here’s a week. Each circle represents an hour. You’ve got 168 of them.

We’ll start by assuming 8 hours of sleep a night. So, you’re down 56 (great) hours. Sleeping circles are probably the highest value circles you can have (although remember that’s coming from a guy with a toddler).

Next, we’ve got your day job. Let’s call that 40 hours, although your mileage may vary. These are useful circles - they pay the bills.