Of course, the expression “I was busy getting drunk” can muddy the issue.

I first became acutely aware of how much time I have with my first business venture, a 24/7 telecom company that eventually managed and dispatched calls for over 400 companies. Pretty reliably, the employee that would no-show without warning would be the midnight to 4am operator, who usually worked solo. With more or less monthly regularity, I’d be out at the club, unwinding from a long day, and get a call at 12:15 am, which meant that I’d have to go cover this shift for the monster I had created for myself, i.e.: a 24 hour service business. It was during the time warp of these seemingly endless midnight shifts that I’d have the opportunity to ponder otherwise useless things, like how there are 168 hours in a week.

This experience years ago left me a little less compassionate than maybe I should be when someone complains about how busy they are, or how they “don’t have any time”. I’ve written about dealing with this elsewhere, but the fact remains that I don’t think a day goes by without someone I interact with saying how busy they are. I’ve always figured that unless someone considers watching True Blood or Game of Thrones to be “being busy”, that this is probably a bunch of poppycock.

Finally, research validates my assumption. As it turns out, most of you have over 40 hours free every week! That link is to a FastCompany article; for a more in-depth look at the author’s assertions, download  The Overestimated Workweek Revisited (PDF, 2.8MB) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ website.

I’d love to share more, but I’m really busy 😉