Audit work hours against your stated priorities

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.

How to do it

1. Record your actual hour allocation for one full week — not estimated, but logged, including evenings and weekends.
2. List your top five stated priorities in order of importance.
3. Calculate hours per week going to each priority and compare the two lists.
4. Identify the largest gap between stated priority and actual time. What would need to change in the next week?

Evidence

Time-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. (observational)

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.

Sources

• 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.