The way we view free time is making us less happy

It’s because time poverty doesn’t necessarily arise from a mismatch between the hours we have and the hours we need. It results from how we think about and value those hours. It’s as much psychological as it is structural. We might not be working more hours, but we are making decisions to work at all hours.15 We are ceaselessly connected.16 It’s ea

The truth, then, is that spending at least some of your leisure time ‘wastefully’, focused solely on the pleasure of the experience, is the only way not to waste it – to be truly at leisure, rather than covertly engaged in future-focused self-improvement. In order to most fully inhabit the only life you ever get, you have to refrain from using ever

You may have had a similar experience. It’s not uncommon. Researchers find that thinking about the economic value of our leisure time can undermine our enjoyment of it, because we are constantly comparing the experience against some perceived expected value or ideal.36 This has been shown in many types of activities: when we track the distance of a

The truth, then, is that spending at least some of your leisure time “wastefully,” focused solely on the pleasure of the experience, is the only way not to waste it—to be truly at leisure, rather than covertly engaged in future-focused self-improvement.