Copyright 2026 George M Fournier, MBA v8.1.26
A six part survey · about 20 minutes
Life 168 will help you to 1) increase happiness & well-being, 2) find meaning & purpose, 3) boost relationships, 4) manage stress & health, as well as 5) help you to plan & accomplish your strategic life goals. First, “What does a great life mean to you?” As we age, our goals and objectives change. Life 168 helps students of all ages to examine personal priorities, life goals, and time allocation across 16 strategic life factors. You will map your average week, chart the results, decide what to change, and leave with an action plan. Life 168 is based on Dr. Rainer Strack's Strategic Life Portfolio method. Create your one-page life strategy to live your best life with clarity, purpose, and joy.
Before you begin
The Butterfly Effect
A tiny change at the beginning can shift your entire direction later. Small actions, repeated, compound into a life of meaning. Small neglect compounds into regret. You may not control every outcome, but you always influence direction. Life 168 helps you find that one small change and start it this week.
Our goals and objectives change over time. Some of us plan to attend college, start a family, or launch a new business. Others focus on financial security and early retirement. Some simply seek a relaxed family life or greater peace and tranquility. A few of us dream of owning big, shiny toys.
Failing to plan is planning to fail in business and in life. When we prepare our minds and bodies for a task, even a small one, we usually finish it. Preparation gives us direction. Direction becomes experience. Some life events, we plan; sometimes life happens. Life can be stressful.
We can lose focus on our ideal self or our ideal life. We refocus; one day at a time. 24 hours over 7 days is 168 hours. Week by week, we balance. Start by mapping one week into 168 hours. Start today.
What does a great life mean to you? Start here.
Here's the journey: six parts, start to finish
Let's start with three basic questions. Take your time. Your answers here become the lens for everything that follows. There are no wrong answers and no scores.
Easier to say it out loud than to write it? Click into any box above, start your keyboard's dictation, and talk. Life 168 never handles the audio — your own phone or computer does the listening, under whatever settings you have chosen for it.
1) Time, 2) Importance & 3) Satisfaction. How much time in hours per 168 hour week (X / 168) do you spend on each area? Sleep 8 hours a day? 8x7=56 hours per week. The bar adds your hours until you reach 168 hours. Importance. How IMPORTANT is this area of your life on a scale from -5 to +5. Satisfaction. How SATISFIED are you with this area of your life on a scale from -5 to +5? Negative means dissatisfied, 0 is neutral, positive means satisfied.
Let's make sure the numbers hold together. These checks update as you go. When they're all green, your portfolio is ready to read.
You can change your ratings and the graph changes. The farther right a bubble appears on the X-axis, the greater your SATISFACTION. The higher it appears on the Y-axis, the greater its IMPORTANCE. The size of each bubble represents the number of hours you spend on that activity. The upper left quadrant is where factors matter the most, but aren't getting the attention they deserve. Two dashed lines slice the chart: a horizontal line for importance and a vertical line for satisfaction. Move each one on its own, with the sliders below the chart or by dragging the handles on the chart, until your bubbles separate cleanly.
Slice the chart: importance and satisfaction
Both lines start at 0. Move them with these sliders, or drag the dashed lines on the chart itself using the handles at the edges. Setting each line separately lets you pull a tight cluster apart and see which areas really sit in the priority gap. Your choices are saved with your results.
Three quick calculations to point you at what matters most. Pressure combines how important an area is with how far its satisfaction falls short. The higher the score, the more that area is asking for your attention. Target hours shows what your week would look like if time simply followed importance (a compass, not a schedule). Time gap is target minus current: positive means an area may be starved for time; negative means there may be hours to win back.
| Life area | Importance | Satisfaction | Hours / wk | Quadrant | Pressure | Target h | Time gap |
|---|
We cannot fix everything at once. Three small steps in the right direction. These three areas need your attention. For each one, commit to one concrete change. Ask yourself, can I actually influence this? How will change affect the other areas of my life/week? Here we begin to plan for change. Here we set direction.
One clear and concise summary, no longer than one page. It shows how your Part 1 goals connect to your Part 5 objectives, with a timeline of benchmarks and milestones for the next 30, 60 and 90 days. It updates as you refine your answers above.
Your plan says where to act. PERMA-V says how. It is a positive psychology framework of six building blocks for a flourishing life, and each one carries small practices you can do on your own or with your family. When a first action feels too vague to start, borrow one of these. The pillars marked Matches your priorities line up with the three areas you chose in Part 5.
Start with one. Pick a single practice, get comfortable and consistent with it, then add another as your capacity grows. Adding six at once is how good intentions collapse.
Copy your plan into Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI assistant to talk it through, save it as a file you can keep and compare next time, or restore a saved file to pick up where you left off.
Copying puts your plan on your clipboard so you can paste it somewhere else. If you paste it into an AI assistant, it goes to that company. Only paste what you are comfortable sharing.