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

Having between two and five hours seems to be about right.

In addition to the unhappiness from having too little time, the downward slope on the other side of the arc shows that having more than approximately five hours of discretionary time in a day is also linked to less happiness.

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.

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

However, given the now-understood role of confidence in the experience of time poverty, as well as the additional data Zoë, Mike, and I gathered confirming that spending time on others increases feelings of self-efficacy, this finding doesn’t only make sense but offers an empowering tool to combat feeling time poor.

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.

When we feel as though we have too little time, we end up living a smaller life. But

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