"YOU'LL soon get used to it," my boss told me, as I marvelled at his ability to live without a watch, and accepted his challenge to do it myself for a week.

I know of only three other people - all men - who don't wear one: a colleague at work, my best friend's husband and my dad.

All have busy lives, all have - or had in my dad's case - jobs that demand being in a number of different places at different times of the day and, most amazingly, all seem to manage with little or no problem. Or maybe they just don't admit to any.

As a child, I remember that every afternoon my dad - who worked from home - would frantically ask my mother the time, over and over again. Then, all of a sudden, he would stuff his papers in a large brown envelope and race to the village post office to catch the last delivery van to town.

Every other day he would miss it, and curse loudly as he got in the car to make the journey himself.

We had no clock in the house, and on a Saturday he would use the usually prompt arrival of the butcher's van to guess when it was time to leave for his cricket match. Very old-fashioned and, I seem to recall, not particularly reliable.

Over the past week, I've been following his somewhat eccentric methods of telling the time.

I've been looking at town hall and church spire clocks, watching the sky - especially at dusk - and even checking out (one of my dad's favourite timepieces) the odd sundial.

Above all, though, I've constantly badgered my husband, friends and colleagues, asking "What's the time?"

I've glanced at my left wrist about a hundred times an hour and become slightly deranged on finding it naked.

And I've spent many an hour hunting for the one clock in our home - a tiny bedside alarm. It hasn't been easy. But, the funny thing is, for the first time in my life, I've been early for appointments.

I'm a notoriously bad timekeeper, yet, through sheer paranoia, I have turned up at my daughter's school half-an-hour early.

I'm usually the one charging in like a mad bull as everyone else is leaving.

And, contrary to colleagues' expectations, I was early for work on Monday morning.

Lunch breaks are among the worst times to be watchless - having to peer into banks and buildings societies to catch a glimpse of a clock to see how long you've been roaming around the shops.

And not wearing a watch is a pretty feeble excuse to trot out, when you arrive back at your desk at 3pm

I may have become more reliable over the past week and I'm sure, over time - and that's what it's all about - I could get used to being without it (I've already stopped checking my wrist), but I am a bit lost without my watch.

I've missed its friendly little face telling me when it's time to do this and that - and as soon as I've finished this sentence it's going straight back on.