Let's say you've got an apartment that needs painting, but lack the time, patience, and smooth, steady rolling hand needed to make that happen - let alone the amount of cash required to bring in the professionals. You can, however, teach the guitar / proofread a report / fix a bike like nobody's business: Problem solved. Thanks to a new skill-swapping endeavour, the Toronto Time Bank, you can turn your own areas of expertise into a little free help from someone else in the community.

Here's how it works: You volunteer to perform a task for someone, and when you've completed the agreed-upon amount of time, those hours get put into your own personal "time bank" for you to spend on a free task from someone else. It's a relatively new idea in Toronto, where the local Time Bank chapter has only 67 members so far, but there are over 400 such groups registered across the U.S., boasting a total of about 40,000 members.

To learn more, visit the Toronto Time Bank website. Do you think this idea will catch on in Toronto? Would you barter your time?

Photo by Roger Cullman via the blogTO Flickr pool.