TSL #009: The Amount of Free Time You Actually Need In A Day
Read time: 2 minutes 50 seconds
How often do you feel like there aren't enough hours in the day for you to do the things you want to do? Pressed by endless work and family obligations, how often do you dream of quitting this life and moving to a remote beach, where you could read, paint, play music, or just veg?
When you feel time-stressed, having endless hours to do whatever you please sounds like the ultimate luxury, doesn't it?
Well, get a load of this…
The sweet spot of discretionary time per day is two to five hours.🤯
Yep. You heard me right.
How much discretionary time you have doesn't influence your level of happiness, except when you have less than two hours or more than five hours each day (which influence your happiness for the worse).
Also, it's not so much the amount of time that you have, but how you spend it that determines your happiness and, more broadly, fulfillment.
So let's talk about discretionary time. Think of it as the time you have outside of your obligations and responsibilities (e.g., work…household chores…another weekend sports tournament…🤪). But not all discretionary time is created equally. The ideal discretionary time is characterized by three key elements: choice, control, and engagement.
Choice refers to the ability to choose how we spend our time, without external pressures or demands.
Control means having a sense of autonomy and mastery over our activities, feeling like we have the power to make decisions and achieve our goals.
Engagement involves being fully absorbed and immersed in the activity we are pursuing, experiencing a sense of flow and enjoyment.
So how can you create more ideal discretionary time?
WHAT TO DO
First things first: when you experience that (pervasive) acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it, know that you're not alone. Nearly half of Americans experience being time-stressed. (Btw: this is true regardless of whether you work or have kids. Fascinating, right?🤓)
Also recognize that it's not a neutral event. Being time-stressed makes you less…
Healthy because you're less likely to spend time exercising or making nutrient-dense foods, and more likely to delay going to the doctor.
Kind because you become more stingy with your time instead of helping others.
Confident to pursue your goals.
Third (here's the single, high-impact lifestyle design tip of the week): Treat your weekend like a vacation. Limit your time spent working or doing chores, and allow yourself to pay increased attention to what you’re doing.
Getting to the place might require you to rethink your choices during the week, reallocate your budget so you can free up your weekend, or approach your relationship with weekend family obligations differently. In the end, though, this practice will help you be happier, less distressed, and more satisfied—both during the weekend and over time.
I share this all because so many of us think life would be better if we didn't have to work. And so we grind away, holding out hope that retirement will be an period of unrelenting happiness. But the latest research suggests that this isn't the ticket, either—the relationship between leisure time and contentment is much more nuanced.
While most of us work too many hours, we're also shortchanging ourselves on ideal discretionary time and, in turn, our fulfillment. There's a better way.
