Another 20 days of free time

I really ought to ….

On average, the unlucky non-subscriber thinks 'I really ought to buy some more socks’ twice a week, usually in the morning when getting dressed. During the day, however, he is almost certain to forget all about it. We calculate 30 seconds per thought, which amounts to one minute per week or 52 minutes per year.

Which ones did I buy last time?

If our average non-subscriber should actually remember that he ought to buy some socks, a long search for the right shop and the right style is almost inevitable. Frustration mounts as he discovers that the shop he has taken so long to find no longer stocks the same style or doesn’t have his size. We calculate that the average sock-search lasts an hour and takes place every six months, amounting to 120 minutes per year.

Freshly washed but …

Freshly washed socks are a delight to behold, but they still need to be sorted into pairs. The problem is that men’s dark socks tend to look almost the same – 'almost’ being the operative word. Our field research has revealed that the process of sorting socks takes up about 5 minutes per week. On top of this comes the time spent thinking about this task and having a guilty conscience about not doing it. Let’s say that this amounts to an additional 5 minutes per week, making a total of 520 minutes per year.

Dealing with the orphans

It is common knowledge that socks never disappear in pairs but always individually. This means that lonely, orphaned socks hang around waiting in vain for their partner to reappear. These orphans are regularly pushed to the back of a drawer, but they always make their way to the front again, usually once every two weeks, until the owner loses patience and throws them out. Orphan-processing takes up about 40 minutes per year.

The end result

As you can see, the average non-subscriber spends about 732 minutes or 12.2 hours per year dealing with sock aggravation. Take your average life expectancy (central European male, no special risk group = 79 years), subtract your current age and multiply this by 12.2 A forty-year-old sock-subscriber can expect to save 19.8 days in his remaining 39 years. Our aim is to spare you any kind of sock aggravation, but please put the time you have saved to good use. As you finish your lemonade, start planning how to spend the extra days at your disposal, and continue to rely on us for a carefree, sock-secure future!