Queues and delays can put us in line to waste two years of our lives
BUSY Britons are forced to spend the equivalent of nearly two years of their life just hanging around.
Waiting to be served in the supermarket, for delayed flights and trains and for technology to charge or download are the main time-wasters for most people.
And seven out of 10 adults polled for a survey admitted that they “aimlessly waste a lot of their time” too.
Sitting in traffic, staying in for deliveries and waiting for slow service in restaurants were also cited as common wastes of time.
A typical adult will spend 48 minutes in every month waiting for a bus to pull up, 38 days of their life waiting in for parcels to arrive and 18 days of it queuing up in the post office.
Frustration
And fed-up consumers will complain in a shop, cafe, surgery or over the phone nine times a month, on average, about how long something is taking.
The poll of 1,500 people found that 14 per cent spent so long waiting they have shouted at a shop assistant, with 23 per cent having cried in frustration.
As many as 94 per cent of respondents agreed that the speed of modern life makes people too impatient.
And 95 per cent think it would improve their health if they relaxed and let life unfold a little more slowly. However, the digital age has brought with it a raft of new ways for time to be wasted.
The survey found that, on average, people spend 10 hours a year waiting for laptops and computers to load.
It also found that 45 minutes every month will be spent impatiently waiting for video buffering to stop, 11 minutes a week is for phones to update and the equivalent of nine hours a year is wasted as TV and films are downloaded.
Technology firm TalkTalk, which commissioned the survey, has now revealed the “top 10 time-wasters”.
The top three positions are taken by waiting for a phone to charge, sitting in traffic and waiting in for deliveries to arrive.
These each take up, on average, 70 minutes of our lives every month. Next, at 59 minutes wasted a month, is waiting for the washing machine to finish.
Waiting for a computer or hi-tech device to load wastes a further 53 minutes of our life every month. Waiting for your partner to get ready wastes 52 minutes a month.
Another 51 minutes a month is spent waiting for food to arrive in restaurants, while being kept on hold on a phone call takes up another 50 minutes.
Waiting for the oven to heat up and queueing at a supermarket take up the final two positions, at 50 and 49 minutes a month.
Laurent Kretzschmar, of Talk Talk, said: “We all lead increasingly busy lives and our time is valuable.”