Starting to rethink my days. (That Kenneth Koch phrase? Make your own days ... - something like that.)

According to my calculations I seem to spend some two and a half hours before starting work (waking up, the three Ss, breakfast, travel); seven hours are contractually required for work; then there is a 'grey area' of return travel, picking up daughters, tea, homework supervision, shopping; a further two and a half hours preparing, eating, clearing dinner and getting kids into bed; before - finally - unallocated time (one and a half ... two hours? ....) before hitting the hay.

The challenge being within these hours to find the time to read (news, magazines, current texts), write (type up current notebook material, daily pages, work on texts), make books (new & old projects), watch (useful documentaries, BBC archive material, films), listen (stored sound files, CDs, podcasts), walk (what happened to the daily constitutional?), swim (currently weekends and a hurried Weds 7 a.m.) not taking into consideration the mass of work related matter (grading, reference writing, admin. stuff) or time to simply stare at the clouds going by.

On the one hand I'm with Tom Hodgkinson - why count? Break the clock watching inner Malvolio. On the other hand I'm appalled at the frittering away of hours. Like Faust I want to prise the hours, the minutes, the seconds apart - find time within the time.

Impossible. Then again ...

Any suggestions?