Time was when we had plenty of it—time, that is.

At least so it seemed back in the spring of our lives, when summers were endless, the days were long and you had all the time in the world to do whatever you wanted.

Now, there’s never enough time to get anything done. What I’d wouldn’t give for the 36-hour day (would that be time and a half?) that would allow me to get all my work done on time (for me, that means meeting deadlines), to get all the errands run and chores done at home, to get all my required (what I read for work) and non-required (pleasure) reading done.

Oh, yeah, there’s sleeping and eating, too. And even zombie-ing out in front of the television in evenings after my eyes have glazed over from reading and editing too many stories on my computer screen.

Fifty years ago, we kids would look at the wall clock in the grade school classroom and wonder if that big hand would ever get to the top of the 3 o’clock hour so we could go out and play.

Forty-plus years ago, we’d look at a similar clock in the high school classroom and wonder if it would ever reach the end the last class period so we could do the meaningful stuff like the school newspaper or yearbook, band or chorus, a club or a sports team.

Thirty-some years back, we’d look at the clock in the college economics class and wonder if some miracle of physics or time and motion could make it go faster so we could do something meaningful like drink a beer or two or a hundred.

Now, as the day approaches 5 o’clock, I feel guilt if I entertain the thought of leaving the office, given the backlog of stories to be assigned, articles to be edited and/or phone calls to be returned.

Funny thing is that when I first started working I tried to get everything done every day but didn’t overly worry if I didn’t. Now, closer to retirement than not, I worry more and, I guess, care more, too. Proprietary interest in your work does come with age, kind of like an investment

With all the time-saving gadgets that are available to us, we do feel somewhat guilty if we don’t avail ourselves of the opportunity to use them.

We have all these conveniences and easy ways of doing things that are supposed to save us time, but figuring out how to program, re-program, operate and re-program them yet again takes more time than it’s worth. (How many still have VCRs flashing “12:00”?)

I’ve seen friends with Palm Pilots or Blackberries or whatever brand of personal organizer with all the bells and whistles spend more time using stubby middle-aged fingers to laboriously type (keystroke?) dates, times, places and notes on a too-tiny keyboard on the ungainly device.

My trusty monthly calendar works just as well, and I can even cross out or erase dates using a device known as a pen! Ultimately, it’s really a time-saving concept compared to my more technologically savvy (or is it show-off?) friends.

The problem for many of us in America, folks, is that time available dictates what we do on a daily basis rather than our deciding how to best use our time to get things done. We live by the clock, whether digital or analog. And we die by it, too, letting it run our lives.

“OK,” we think, “I’ve got 27 minutes. I can get such-and-such task done in that time even though spending the time on so-and-so would be time better spent.”

Invariably, we likely fail to get that first task done in those 27 minutes, either. Somewhere, there’s some addendum to Murphy’s Law that says that any task or job will take twice as long to accomplish as you expected.

We certainly ought to take time seriously. We do live and work and eat and sleep by clocks. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making and keeping a schedule.

But being chained to a clock, around the clock, at work and at home and even at play, means you’re simply missing the time of your life.

Contact editor Don Kopriva at dkopriva@thebusinessledger.com or at 630-428-8788.