Lexington, KY - Robert Pagliarini's new book is based on a simple premise: Life is divided into eight-hour pieces. Such short division not only makes for neat metrics, but also can provide a formula beneficial to being productive and happy.
Certain pieces are givens - you sleep for 8 hours (maybe), and work for 8 hours (minimally). The Other 8 Hours provides the missing puzzle piece of how to put together the remaining part of your life.
The author backs his premise with statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. According to the CDC, the average life expectancy for someone in the United States is 77.8 years. Take out the 313,176 hours of life spent sleeping and working, and there are 368,352 hours left. In other words, real life expectancy averages a mere 42 years.
If this comes as a bit of a shock, then its time to "Get A Clue," as Pagliarini claims in the title of the book's first section. Your career, finances, health, relationships and happiness are either getting better or getting worse - they don't stay static. Unless you are wisely investing the "other" eight hours effectively, chances are you feel stagnant, unfulfilled and are barely surviving. Life starts after 5 p.m., the author warns.
Finding proof of this isn't difficult; just look at the frustration, anger and despair prevalent today, Pagliarini argues. His anecdote is as simplistic as it is optimistic: use your other eight hours wisely.
"If you have a plan for your day after
5 p.m. and actually do something with this time, there is very little in life you can't accomplish or achieve," he writes.
Too many Americans are "doing time" in order to get time, the author notes, referring to self-imposed sentences of hard labor that too often come with prison-like limitations. Faced with commutes, long hours at work and growing debt, many have become some version of "The Living Dead." The gap between who we are and who we want to be seems to be growing, as is our frustration, anger and apathy.
How did we get this way - "beaten up and pushed around so much?" The author offers a two-page list of how hard and demanding life has become for many.
It includes the fact that nearly half of Americans put in more than 50 hours of work a week. Americans vacation less than workers in most developed countries. Nearly 50 percent of all American workers experience "persistent and excessive stress or anxiety in their daily lives." Add to that the fact that, despite all the cell phones, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and texting, most of us have few close friendships. Finally, Americans have less sex than people in almost every other country in the world.
For every list of bad news, there's an equal one of good. Reclaiming your life is a matter of avoiding "time and life suckers," the author states. These life leeches include TV and the coma-like state of mind it produces; overuse of Internet and social media; addiction to news, disorganization and perfectionism. Office life leeches take the form of meetings, gossip, trying to change people and working for a workaholic.
Even technology can be a leech.
"Technology is a spy movie nun who blesses you and then throws a ninja star into your back as you walk away," Pagliarini writes. Technology may seem like salvation, but if not used correctly, it won't help you get more of the other eight hours.
Cleaning house of the activities and situations that are draining is only the initial step in the solution. The real opportunity begins by becoming a "Cre8tor," a trademarked title Pagliarini coined to describe "someone who uses the other eight hours to create."
Every individual who has been successful has done so by being creative. Despite this fact, many people are afraid to declare their unique creativity. But at a time when the old rules of working harder and longer no longer work, why not follow a different approach?
That approach may include keeping your day job, limiting risk and personalizing the real estate term HABU (highest and best use) of your talents and skills. It also includes effectively marketing and monetizing your efforts. If you're only having fun during the other eight hours, you're not really a Cre8tor.
Pagliarini's optimism is a fresh breeze in what for many Americans has been a hot summer of personal and economic meltdown. Optimism alone is not enough, he argues - nor is the anger and frustration that many people have. Ultimately, people have to change themselves. You can start, he says, by maximizing the other eight hours.