6 Profound Graphs You Need to See For Intentional Living
Do you ever reflect on how time seems to accelerate with age? Modern life is incredibly fast-paced, and your responsibilities only grow with time. Days turn into weeks and months, and before you know it, years have passed since you last connected with that good friend or took a trip with your parents.
The first step to breaking out of this auto-pilot mode is to evaluate if you are living intentionally. Intentional living means making deliberate choices on how you spend your time, consistent with your core values and passions.
American Time Use Survey measured how much time people spend with others, and the resulting graphs show just how precious and fleeting time really is. These graphs can feel depressing, but I share this for two reasons:
- You can't live intentionally without awareness.
- It's a reminder to prioritize your meaningful relationships.
As you reflect on each of the graphs below, consider this central question:
If you could design your life from scratch, how would you choose to spend each day?
Time Spent With Family
By age 18, you have already spent 90% of the time you'll spend with your parents. Ninety percent! A similar trend occurs with your siblings and extended families.
After graduating, I devoted myself to my career, working long hours six days a week for years. This dedication served my goals well at that life stage, but now, family time is much more valuable to me. This shift in priorities is one of the main reasons why I quit my full-time job.
If you have a trip with family you've been putting off, plan it NOW. "Later" may never come. If big plans are not feasible right now, think small:
Explore different cafés with your mom each week.
Sign up for a running race with your sibling.
Time Spent With Friends
- In your 20s, life gets busy with a partner, career, family, finances, and so on. Inevitably, time with friends declines.
When you scroll through social media, it seems like everyone has plenty of time with friends. Look at all the fun things people are doing! Maybe you feel lonely and wish you had more friends. Perhaps you're sad about losing touch with old friends.
Well, you are certainly not alone – most of us have had these thoughts at some point.
When it comes to friendships, quality is more important than sheer quantity. The answer is not more time with more friends, but rather, reallocating the finite time to nurture your most meaningful friendships.
Take 3 minutes for this quick exercise:
Note that these are not necessarily your "closest" connections.
Now, make a plan to devote more time and energy to these 5 people.
Time Spent With Partner
- Time spent with your partner increases with age.
Your partner is the person you'll likely spend the most time with. Naturally, your relationship with your partner will have one of the most profound effects on your life's happiness and fulfillment.
Reflect on your relationship with your partner — identify what is good and what needs improvement. The current state of your relationship is a strong predictor of how it will be in the future.
Every Sunday morning, my wife and I sit down with coffee and spend 10 minutes sharing any feelings from the week prior, good or bad. It has helped us better understand each other's thoughts and tendencies. It also ensures that we don't bottle up suppressed feelings over time.
An unexpected gift is much more powerful than one given on Valentine's Day or a birthday. 😉
Time Spent With Children
- Much of your time with children is during their first few years, and less as they grow up.
You pour all your time and energy into work, but at what cost?
Harman, a proud father and dear friend, reduced his work to part-time to spend more time with his daughter. He shared that his daughter was growing up so fast, and being there for those precious moments made him happy.
As you saw on the first graph, children quickly become busy with their own lives. Sacrificing family time together for other life commitments is an unfortunate regret among many parents.
Practice active listening & be present.
Time Spent With Coworkers
- You spend a significant amount of time with coworkers, often more than with family or friends.
Your relationship with coworkers is a major component of your workplace. It can be the difference between a workplace that energizes or drains you.
Sean, a staff member at my clinic, recently graduated from Drama school and landed his first acting interview. We all got together during lunch break with pizza and celebrated his first step forward.
Time Spent Alone
- Time spent alone increases as you age
In the age of smartphones and the Internet, boredom has become a "lost art". Try sitting still without your phone for just 15 minutes and see how difficult it is! Yet, throughout most of human history, people spent many hours being bored and daydreaming.
In fact, boredom has been shown to replenish and enhance our brain's store of attention, motivation, and creativity.
Design Your Life
How you spend your time is a critical element of your life design. Do your daily activities align with your core values? Are you living with intention or simply drifting through life?
Take these reflections as an opportunity to reassess your priorities. Consider how you would design your life from scratch, making space for what truly matters. Whether it’s planning a family trip, nurturing meaningful friendships, or simply spending quality time alone, every moment counts.
Let your core values be the guiding compass, and focus on small but meaningful steps.
You might say, "This sounds great in theory, but I don't have enough time for all this." What if I told you that an average person spends 6 hours and 40 minutes on digital screens every single day? Reducing screen time is an easy way to get back those precious hours, and reallocate them to more important things in life.
So, let me ask you again. How will you choose to spend each day?
All graphs are credited to Sahil Bloom
Join me on a journey to redesign life, one step at a time! 👊
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