Tick Tock

Whats in a day? Lets see here, let me make a list. I love lists, in particular list of statistics. I spend between 4 and 6 hours a night sleeping so lets call that 5 hours. Going to and coming from and being at work adds up to about 70 hours a week so lets call that 10 hours a day. On average I spend about 1 hour a day sitting and eating, sometimes more on weekends sometimes less when I skip breakfast and lunch, but lets just average it to an hour. I spend a daily average of 2-1/2 hours on the phone and 1-1/2 hours in front of the television each day. I spend about 1-1/2 each day playing with my daughter Gracie, more on weekends less during the week but lets just say as an average its 1-1/2 hours. I put in about ½ each day grocery store shopping and about ¼ hour shopping in general plus another ½ hour standing in lines here in there. I have to have my bathroom time of course so we will say ½ hour showering, ½ hour taking care of business, and ¼ hour getting ready each day. I put in about 2 hours each day doing household chores like laundry, dishes, fix it up, clean it out, mow it, water it, etc. I enjoy my 1 hour each evening on the internet and I get enough email stuff to occupy another ½ hour easy. We spend several hours a week on church stuff or in church so I will conservatively estimate that at ¼ hour each day. I spend ¼ hour each day on hold and another ¼ hour each day banking or paying bills and sifting though mail. I visit my parents on average weekly so I will put that in at ¼ hour a day as well, and we must spend time getting to know the neighbors, so lets add another ¼ hour here. The smallest time unit I have use thus far is ¼ hour, so lets write a short list of things we must do that don’t quit register by themselves. We all must pump gas, get our registration and drivers licenses renewed, go to the doctor, walk the dog, change the oil in our cars, wrap a birthday present, etc, etc, etc, I will add all of those it just take a minute once in a while things in to a day as a ¼ hour more.

Now, lets do some math. If you add all this up it comes to 28.5 hours. We all know that there are only 24 hours in a day, so how do we do this? We must multi-task. We can be on the phone and on the toilet at the same time to save 3 minutes a day. Remember this the next time I call you. We can also sleep while at work, this is risky but could be a big time saver and its safer than sleeping while driving to or from work. We can combine chores like washing the dog or doing dishes while in the shower. I suggest not washing the dog AND doing dishes in the shower unless there is a lot of food stuck to the plates then the dog might be helpful. By the way, Palmolive makes a great body wash if your really really dirty. You can shave while in line at the BMV or bank if you have an electric razor, you might even be presentable for the license picture this way. Krogers was nice enough to put banks in the grocery store to help us with this multitasking endeavor. Eating while driving is always a time saver if you pick your meals carefully. You might even be able to put your cell phone on speaker, or if your lucky enough to have a blue tooth device, you can eat, drive, and talk on the phone and pull off the time saver hat trick. Another favorite of mine is to change clothes in the living room so I wont miss the end of CSI or the latest new tech toy on FutureWeapon on the Military Channel. The number of creative ways we can come up with to multitask is unlimited. We just need to be creative. If you toss some teenagers in the mix who need rides to everyplace and are busy themselves doing everything in the world because they have no restraints, the need to multitask gets even greater.

So, what exactly is the point of all this? We need to slow down and breath a little. At least I know I do. Secondly, do not tell me you’re too busy to talk to me, to return my call, or reply to my email. You not too busy, you just are not being creative enough. You can call me from the can if need be, I wont mind a bit, you can call me while driving to school or while waiting in line, I wont keep you long, you can email me back 24/7 and I will get it the next time I am on my computer reading email jokes while shaving and doing laundry all at the same time.