Not long ago, I heard the song “Live Like We’re Dying” by 2009 American Idol winner Kris Allen. As the title implies, it’s a message song about making the most of the time we have, which the chorus tells us is “eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds in a day to turn it all around or throw it all away.”

Did you know that? I didn’t either. Sure, the math is easy, but who bothers to find out that there are 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour day? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

We all spend a lot of time complaining that there just isn’t enough time in the day to do all the things we “should” be doing. So what are we doing with the 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, and 86,400 seconds we’ve been allotted each day? Are we spending them wisely and in a way that’s most likely to fulfill our needs and desires? Or are we foolishly squandering our time? I’ll be the first to admit, my time is not well-spent. Follow these suggestions to get a better handle on yours:

• Log. For one week, keep a log of how you spend every minute of your day. Begin when you wake up on Monday morning and end at that time the following Monday morning. Record how much time you spend eating, sleeping, dressing, working, commuting, watching television, interacting with your family, exercising, doing household chores, interacting with friends and coworkers, participating in hobbies. If you do it—even for only five minutes—record it.

• Review. Check to see where your time really goes:

• Sleep. Yes, depressing as it sounds, sleep should be one of the biggest time-consumers in your log. According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need 7–9 hours of sleep each night to meet their health needs. So if you’re in the mid-range of eight hours a day, that’s 56 hours, 3,360 minutes, 201,600 seconds spent snoozing each week. But like it or not, it’s time well-spent.

• Work. If you’re employed full-time, work will take up about as much of each weekday as sleep. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that the average employed American works close to the traditional eight-hour day/40-hour week.

• Common miscellanies. According to the BLS, Americans spend about an hour a day eating and drinking. And we can probably take for granted that most people spend at least an hour a day showering, shaving, dressing, etc.

So on the average weekday, you’ve already spent 18 of your 24 hours and have six left. How much time do you spend commuting? 15 minutes, 30, an hour? If you spend half an hour driving each way to work, you’re down to five hours.

That’s five hours a day to take care of household chores, run errands, buy groceries, go to the doctor, help the kids with their homework, date, attend parent/teacher conferences, watch television, entertain friends, spend time with your spouse or partner, volunteer at a homeless shelter, attend worship services, work toward your degree, walk the dog, shuttle the kids to karate and Little League, argue politics with your neighbor, weed your flower beds, shovel snow, tackle the work you’ve brought home, watch the game … whew!

Now that you’ve taken time to think about it, no wonder it seems as though there aren’t enough hours in the day. But … now that you’ve taken time to think about it, you can start prioritizing your activities to ensure you spend your time on the things that serve you best and matter most.