I heard you speaking recently and you said "we do have time but we chose to use it for something else". What does that mean?

This is such a good question that I will use the whole column answering it.

The statement you refer to is one I use regularly when people tell me that they would do something or other but they just don't have as much time as other people. The truth is that we all have the same time as everyone else. However, we use our time for different things.

Let's just investigate exactly how much time we really do have. If we sleep eight hours a night, and the average person does, and we work up to 60 hours a week that still leaves us 52 hours when we are neither sleeping nor working.

Question: What are you doing with your 52 hours?

Two years ago I decided to track where my 52 hours went. I was shocked to find that most were spent in front of a TV. I now spend less than 90 minutes a day, on average, in front of the box. And, because I always have a list of things that need doing, I get an enormous amount done in the time I used to waste.

How about this for a thought provoker:

- If you exercise for 40 minutes four times a week, that's two hours and 40 minutes;

- If you spend two hours a night and four hours per day on a weekend watching TV that's 18 hours a week;

- If you put aside half a hour a day for reading that adds up to three and a half hours a week;

- And if you spend say eight hours a week socialising at the pub or the cinema or at the game, that all comes to 32 hours and 10 minutes a week;

That still leaves you with almost 20 hours a week to do something else. And that is if you work 60 hour a week. If you work less than that it leaves you more time.

Assuming we work five days a week and 48 weeks a year, here is another startling statistic about time that might appeal to those of us who are self-employed or those who employ others and wish we had another week a year to catch up on things.

Here is how you can find it...

If we waste ten minutes a day (and who doesn't?) that adds up to 33 hours and 20 minutes a year. Twenty minutes a day adds up to 66 hours and 40 minutes and half an hour a day equals 100 hours a year wasted.

Let's be kind on ourselves and find just 15 minutes a day of 'dead' time and commit to using that time wisely. If you are in business that could be spent on the telephone. Fifteen minutes a day equates to 50 hours a year.

There is your extra week a year. Use it wisely.

Updated: 11:05 Monday, November 11, 2002