Audit work hours against your stated priorities
Compare how you actually spend your time this week against what you say matters most.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Compare how you actually spend your time this week against what you say matters most.
- Why it works: Ware’s second most common regret was working too hard — specifically, missing children’s development and partner relationships for financial outcomes that in retrospect felt less important than the costs. The regret reveals a temporal discounting error: the immediate tangibility of work output versus the diffuse, long-term payoff of relationship and presence. Auditing actual hours against stated priorities makes the discounting error visible in real time rather than at the end.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Auditing and identifying the gap, then waiting for conditions to change before adjusting — the only effective response is a concrete, calendar-level change this week.
Why it works
Ware’s second most common regret was working too hard — specifically, missing children’s development and partner relationships for financial outcomes that in retrospect felt less important than the costs. The regret reveals a temporal discounting error: the immediate tangibility of work output versus the diffuse, long-term payoff of relationship and presence. Auditing actual hours against stated priorities makes the discounting error visible in real time rather than at the end.
How to do it
- 1Record your actual hour allocation for one full week — not estimated, but logged, including evenings and weekends.
- 2List your top five stated priorities in order of importance.
- 3Calculate hours per week going to each priority and compare the two lists.
- 4Identify the largest gap between stated priority and actual time. What would need to change in the next week?
What the evidence says
ObservationalTime-use research and well-being studies consistently show that time spent with family and friends predicts well-being more than time spent on income-generating activities above a baseline income. Ware’s qualitative data converges with this.
Honest caveat: Kahneman & Deaton (2010) reported a satiation point around $75,000 (2010 dollars); this finding has been debated by Killingsworth (2021). The broader point — that relationships matter more than additional income above a baseline — has stronger cross-study support.
- — Kahneman & Deaton (2010), income and emotional well-being, PNAS — beyond a threshold, income adds little to daily emotional experience
Common mistake
Auditing and identifying the gap, then waiting for conditions to change before adjusting — the only effective response is a concrete, calendar-level change this week.
IX Coach prompts a brief weekly hour-versus-priority check and tracks whether your calendar is moving toward or away from alignment across sessions.
Practice this with IX Coach →