While the cumulative impact of being hooked on electronic media is considerable, the cumulative impact of doing what you don't like to do, such as household tasks, is equally insidious.

Consider the scenario where your career lasts 48 years. 48 years? Yes, graduating college at age 22 and working until age 70. Here's a quick way to see that you need to delegate or cast off those things you don't like to do. Any activity in which you engage for only 30 minutes a day in the course of your 48-year productive work life will take one solid year of your life! Any activity in which you engage for only 60 minutes a day will take two solid years of your 48 years. How can this be so?

Think of it as a mini math lesson most of us never had in school: Numbers That Really Mean Something. One half-hour is to 24 hours as one hour is to 48 hours. That's true by the good old commutative principle of arithmetic. Likewise, one hour is to 48 hours as one year is to 48 years.

When you consume one-forty-eighth of your day (only 30 minutes out of 24 hours) the cumulative effect over 48 years is to consume one year of your 48 years. There's no way around it. If you clean your house, on average, for 30 minutes a day, then in the course of 48 years you've spent the equivalent of one solid year, nonstop, cleaning your house.

If you can't stand cleaning your house (or something else you don't like) for an average of 30 minutes a day, stop doing it. Don't let your house get filthy; hire somebody to clean your house, clean it yourself less often, or find some other alternative. Why? Because the time in your life is being drained; the cumulative impact of doing what you don't like to do, as illustrated above, is that your precious years are being consumed. This is time you simply cannot reclaim under any scenario.

“Well,” you say, “that's fine to pay somebody to clean the house, but ultimately I'll be paying people for all kinds of things I don't like to do, just so I can have more time.” Exactly.

What things do you know you need to stop doing because they are taking up valuable time in your life? Here are some suggestions:

• Cleaning the house.

• Cutting the grass, or any other yard work.

• Reading the newspaper every day. If it makes you late for work or prevents you from handling higher-priority activities, only do it now and then.

• Fixing your car.

• Cooking.

• Reading junk mail because it's addressed to you.

• Reading every godforsaken e-mail message zapped over to you.

• Answering the phone.

If you enjoy some of these activities, by all means keep doing them. Perhaps you can do them a little less; perhaps there's another way to proceed. Your goal is to delegate or eliminate those tasks or activities which you can't stand doing. One author advises, “Don't manage something if you can eliminate it altogether.” Not bad advice.