How much time do you spend cleaning?

I saw an interesting article the other day about the way the cleaning industry is evolving. One particular and quite astonishing statistic stood out over all the others: an industry survey found that we spend between 6 - 9% of our time cleaning! This isn't 6 - 9% of your working life, but your total life! 81.5 years was the expected UK lifespan in 2012, so that means we spend between 4.8 years and 7.34 years of hard toil. With an ageing population, this figure will both increase and also be harder to maintain for those in the more venerable section of our society.

But the one question above all that it raises is an obvious one, and one I have no doubt that everyone of us has asked many, many times over the years: just how valuable is my time? Am I happy to come home after work to polish the mantlepiece and hoover the floors, or would I prefer to use that time to prepare a nice meal and recharge my batteries for another day at work?

I've always believed that Time is the only real currency we have in life, yet it is one that is impossible to value accurately. But who would ever turn down another 4-7 years of time?

(The source information for this article was taken from the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23787775).