A recent survey conducted by MSN has found that most nearly four in five people could carve out an extra 1.5 hours each day. Seven thousand people responded to the survey from 13 European countries, and the results were clear: when it comes to having time to do the things you love, the personal ‘to-do’ list is the key issue. Improve your efficiency and organisation and you create valuable time for yourself.

The 1.5 hours a day equates to 10.5 hours a week, 45.5 hours a month, and 546 hours (23 days) per year. Just think what you could do with that time:

1. Read many, many books.
2. Write a book.
3. Write a blog.
4. Exercise.
5. Practise a skill, such as cake decorating or sculpture.
6. Learn a language.
7. Decorate your home.

Put like that, getting organised looks very attractive; you’ve much to gain. But how about making that extra hour ‘we-time’ instead of ‘me-time’? Just think how your relationship would benefit from a golden hour a day in which you and your partner make the effort to really connect with one another and be romantic. A candlelit dinner. A dance to your song. A reminiscence about how you met. A moonlit stroll on the beach. Over the course of a year, you would create a lot of intimacy and a lot of memories to look back on fondly.

Of course, though the research suggests we can create 1.5 hours a day, we know that we will struggle to do so. Still, surely ten or fifteen minutes is possible for us all? And even that shorter, focused time could make all the difference to sustaining the magical feelings that love fosters in us.

When I picture the characters I create for my novels after their happy-ever-after, I always see them as spending time together, quality time, regularly – still delighting in each other’s company and making the effort to really be present in the moment and the mood throughout their lives. For the tragedy of life is that time passes too quickly, and really each moment with a loved one is immeasurably precious.

I remember once walking along the promenade of an English seaside and seeing a very elderly couple sitting on a bench together. They were hand in hand, and gazing into each other’s eyes with an expression of pure devotion. It was one of the most romantic sights I have ever seen, and I never forgot it, or the sense it gave me that time, and how we choose to spend it, matters.

As author JR Tolkein put it, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” And time is one of the integral ingredients of lasting love.