TAKE YOUR TIME BACK

This week we’re going on a field trip. Remember those? Sometimes you learned a lot, sometimes, not so much. The destination was unimportant - the real treat was just riding a bus with your friends, and getting out of school.

I’m sending you on a trip to “Take Your Time Back.” This is the promising title of an e-newsletter I received from FineLiving.com. So, I followed the link, took the quiz, read the articles, and found three more hours in my day! (Okay, not really.) Nevertheless, I did find some value in the exercise, and I hope you will too.

Before you go, let me share a few caveats:

• You’ll take a short quiz of one to three questions in these six categories: sleep, work, getting around, food, housework, and physical fitness. However, I can think of quite a few things I do each day that don’t fit neatly into those categories – like spending time with family and friends. So be sure to consider that when you see your “pie.” (Also, pay attention to the wording of each question – some ask you to estimate the time you spend daily, while others ask for a weekly estimate.)


• Their so-called solutions don’t come cheap. FineLiving proposes solutions in each category that may save you time, but almost always cost you money. Sure, we could all save time with professional landscaping, cleaning, and laundry services. And who wouldn’t appreciate home delivery of fresh gourmet meals? Unfortunately, most of these are luxuries that don’t fit into my budget. (Unless of course, I trade more of my free time for work time – and isn’t that missing the point?)

In the end, I found this exercise to be entertaining and somewhat useful. The time calculator is simple to do, the pie chart was eye opening for me, and the articles do offer some helpful tips. I hope you’ll visit and enjoy the site. Be sure to come back and share your thoughts!