Time well spent, NOT!

IF it seems you spend your life doing housework, take heart – it’s really only four years out of your life.

Washing and ironing take nine months, cleaning takes 16. Another two years and two months pass cooking the family meals.

The “life by numbers” breakdown is the work of German researchers who added up all the snatched moments of everyday activities to find how much time they take up over the average lifetime of 78 years.

The result is a fascinating picture of how we spend our lives.

Eating and drinking, whether a quick bite on the run or a leisurely lunch, takes five years.

But the average TV viewer spends six months longer than that watching their favourite programs.

Other more traditional pastimes such as reading and playing games formed no part of the study.

Instead, it revealed we spend four months of our lifetimes playing computer games.

And another five hammering and painting in DIY projects.

In contrast, the supposedly big responsibilities of an individual’s life take up surprisingly little time.

For instance, we spend seven years of our lifetimes actually at our jobs, according to the research.

Nine months, however, goes on travelling to and from the office. Education doesn’t seem to take up much time either. Only one year and ten months is spent in the classroom.

For drivers trapped in daily travels, the calculation that we spend six months stuck in traffic jams may seem to fall rather short.

In fact, the smallest chunk of time is allocated to the height of passion. It seems just 16 hours is spent having orgasms in the average lifetime. But at least we do spend two weeks kissing.

Sleeping takes up the most time, using 24 years and four months of the average lifetime.

The research, published in German science magazine Geo Wissen, was the result of a study of national statistics and personal questionnaires.

“It would probably surprise some people to think that they spend an average of six months of their lives sitting on the toilet or four whole months playing computer,” said a magazine spokesman.

“That, of course, is a relatively new calculation because computers weren’t around a decade or so ago.”