Happier Hour: How to Spend Your Time for a Better, More Meaningful Life

One way to enhance the quality of connection during a social activity is by deepening the content of your conversation. A vital feature in the development of close relationships is reciprocal and escalating self-disclosure. Sharing information about yourself (e.g., experiences you’ve had, thoughts and feelings you’re experiencing), as well as activ

Interestingly, however, the flat portion of the graph between two and five hours suggests that within a pretty wide range, the amount of time people have available is unrelated to their happiness. This is important because it means that, except at the very extremes, to enjoy greater satisfaction in life, it’s not so much a question of the amount we

we found that lacking a sense of productivity is why people with excessive amounts of available time feel less satisfied in their lives.14

Apart from the large influence of our personalities, and the surprisingly small influence of our circumstances, a hefty chunk of our happiness is determined by our intentional thought and behavior.5 What this means is that our happiness is significantly influenced by what we deliberately think about and do.

To avoid this feeling, make sure you engage in at least one social activity every day.

If an activity thwarts any of the three basic drives of 1) relatedness (feeling interpersonally connected), 2) autonomy (feeling a sense of personal control), or 3) competence (feeling capable), it is likely to make you feel unhappy.24

The results from over a million instances are clear: people are happier outdoors. Furthermore, this boost in happiness doesn’t depend on a) the weather (though people are happier when it’s sunny and warmer), b) what activity they’re doing (though some particularly happy activities in the data, like gardening and bird-watching, can only be done outd

The graph makes clear that happiness is lower with less than approximately two hours of discretionary time in the day.

Doing good can feel really good. Sometime this week, perform two random acts of kindness—one for a friend or acquaintance and another for a stranger. These acts can be large or small, anonymous or identified, planned or spontaneous, sacrifices of time or money; and the act doesn’t need to be the same for each recipient.