8,760...59...58...57....

Welcome to 2010. No personal jetpacks yet, but I'll continue waiting expectantly.

8,760 is the number of hours you get each year. Depending on how old you are, you may see that number differently from me. When I see that number, a mild panic sets in. It seems to be a very small number. It doesn't look like the result of 24x365. Yes I know it's 365.25, but we'll round off here, shall we?

I'm not sure if I should be impressed that so much gets accomplished during the course of each year's 8,760 hours, or if I should despair at what could have been accomplished if that number weren't so limiting, if I could shave off more hours from the upkeep and put them in the personal use category. Already, it's been reduced significantly since the ball dropped. What is left to me (and you, probably), when we estimate the most basic upkeep?

Total hours available: 8,760
Sleep (~7hrs x 365) -2555

Chores -125

Daily hygeine (shower, teeth, shave, etc.) -100

Eating (nevermind preparing food) -300

Transportation (feet, subway, car, plane, etc.) -100

Sub-total: 5,580

Perhaps what's left there is still comforting to you. Many of you have many more hours under "Transportation" because you commute to work. You could probably easily knock a couple hundred more hours off there. Some of you take longer to get ready in the morning and could triple my numbers easily, or spend a lot more time on household chores. Basically, most of you by now are left with under 5,000 hours to use for the entire year, and we haven't begun to work or spend a minute of free time, neither have we exhausted a number of boring requirements and the time they take--other chores, time spent using the restroom, grocery shopping, standing in line, waiting on hold, dentist and doctor's appointments, preparing meals, laying in bed before falling asleep or laying in bed groggily waking up, I'd be surprised if those things don't knock most people down to 4,000-4,500 hours available.

Now you get to finally work (hopefully), which will take up the bulk of that time--which is why you really should either do something you enjoy, or find a way to enjoy what you do. Then you can spend some free time with kids, spouses, friends, read and do leisure things.

So, you've got maybe 4,000 hours this year. I point this out to light a fire under my own rear here at the beginning of the year, when it might seem like I've got all the time in the world. Maybe it'll be useful to light a fire under yours, too. And we aren't even guaranteed to live another spin around the sun, so perhaps your real hours left are 4,000 or less, period.

So, let's make them count!