Owners of small and medium sized businesses are losing roughly one day every week travelling, according to a new report from research organisation The Bathwick Group.

The report, which surveyed almost 500 UK businesses and was carried out in conjunction with T-Mobile, found that SME founders spend a staggering 10.7 hours a week travelling. Commuting is the largest single factor, but bosses of such businesses also find themselves wasting vast swathes of ‘dead time’ on their way to meetings and waiting for connections at train stations and airports.

Unsurprisingly, T-Mobile’s Simon Ainslie argues that all of this transit time needn’t be wasted, however.

Respondents to the survey also admitted to spending around one day a week responding to emails and, says Ainslie, ‘anything SMEs can gain back from dead time has the potential to greatly increase work options and productivity. The ability to access email on your own terms, wherever you may be, offers a means of managing workload and freeing-up time,’ he concludes.