When people find out I write about time management,

they assume two things

One

is that I'm always on time, and I'm not

I have four small children, and I would like to blame them for my occasional tardiness,

but sometimes it's just not their fault

I was once late to my own speech on time management.

We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony

The second thing they assume is that I have lots of tips and tricks for saving bits of time here and there

Sometimes I'll hear from magazines that are doing a story along these lines, generally on how to help their readers find an extra hour in the day

And the idea is that we'll shave bits of time off everyday activities, add it up, and we'll have time for the good stuff

And I question the entire premise of this piece,

but I'm always interested in hearing what they've come up with before they call me. Some of my favorites

doing errands where you only have to make right-hand turns

Being extremely judicious in microwave usage. it says three to three-and-a-half minutes on the package, we're totally getting in on the bottom side of that

And my personal favorite, which makes sense on some level, is to DVR your favorite shows

so you can fast-forward through the commercials. That way, you save eight minutes every half hour,

so in the course of two hours of watching TV, you find 32 minutes to exercise

Which is true

You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise?

Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?