Ever feel the despair of not having enough time in the day? Remember when you had so much time, you had to dostuff with it to keep from going bored? Do you feel like you’re on the hamster wheel of time?

You don’t have to micro-manage your life to squeeze all the joys in: just cut your commute. Maybe you’ll get 12 weeks of vacation a year out of it.

How long does it take you to get to and from work every day, from the time out of your front door to when you reach the front doors of your office? 15 minutes? Half-hour? 2 hours?

I used to live about one hour from work, so I wasn’t really working 8 hours, but 10. If all I wanted to do was work and then go home, it was 10 hours. Once I recalculated what I was making an hour, I couldn’t tell you the dread I felt.

I took drastic action, and moved downtown so I could be within 5 blocks of my workplace. Imagine getting the equivalent of 12 weeks of vacation by making a simple move (2 hours a day x 5 work days a week x 4 weeks in a month (plus some) equals roughly 40 hours).

If making a move closer to work is out of the question, there are other things you can do to get more time.

• If you’ve got flex-time, use it strategically. Sometimes the rush hour traffic can be sidestepped by leaving the house 10 minutes later. Experiment until you strike gold.
• Start floating the idea of telecommuting to your employer. You might finally end up with the leisure time you’ve been looking for all this time. Just make sure that you don’t work longer hours than you did at the office ;-)
• Make commute time part of your leisure time. Check out audio books at the library and feed your mind, or listen to some relaxing music.