Here’s a stat to make you realise how much of our lives we waste – Brits spend an average of 10 years doing household chores.

When boiled down, this means adults are spending a depressing 26 hours a week doing jobs around the home such as maintaining the house and car, cleaning and tidying, preparing meals, cleaning up after pets, helping kids with homework and managing finances.

It’s one of the findings in a study conducted by OnePoll on behalf of the Molly Maid domestic cleaning service.

Here are nine other highlights from the results, with an infographic for you to peruse further down.

1. The most despised cleaning chore around the house is cleaning the bathroom, followed by cleaning the kitchen.

2. If they didn’t have to spend time cleaning people would rather be reading, going to the gym, relaxing in front of the TV, going out with friends or spending quality time with family – a large number would simply “spend time on themselves”.

3. Four per cent of people in the south east have a professional cleaner, rising to 11 per cent in London.

4. More than one in three parents encourage children to get involved with the cleaning, and seven in 10 of these parents offer pocket money. It seems excessively high but the average paid per child for each cleaning task is £3.71 – going up to £4.42 for kids in London.

5. While the gender gap is said to be closing, women spend 8.14 hours a week on average cleaning the house, compared to 7.21 hours a week for men. Women still spend more time cooking and doing laundry, while men spend more time paying bills and managing household finances.

6. Nearly three quarters of women spend between one and two hours a week dusting. Almost a third of men never dust, compared to 16 per cent of women.

7. A third of people clean their bathroom once a week, with 10 per cent doing it every day. Nine per cent of people only clean it once a month.

8. Most popular shortcuts to save time on housework include dusting around objects instead of picking them up, squirting bleach down the loo instead of cleaning it properly, picking up bits from the floor instead of vacuuming or mopping and picking clothes up off the floor and stuffing them back into the wardrobe. One in five admit to spraying air freshener instead of cleaning properly.

9. More than a fifth of people claim their homes are spotless.

Do any of these findings match up with how you run your household? What housework chores do you hate (or maybe even love) the most? What tricks do you use to lighten the housework load? Do you think kids should be paid for helping out around the home? Add your comments below.

Here's the infographic - click on it to view a larger version:

News Shopper: Housework infographic