As a person of retirement age AND an entrepreneur, I spend my time differently than most people my age.
Also, I spend my time differently than I did 10 years ago. Then I was actively building my business and had short times to myself on weekends, which I relished. I protected that time!
More time?
Two years ago, with the pandemic and less work available to me in my office, I got to feel a little bit what it would be like to retire.
I could go for a walk outside when it was warmer in the middle of a workday in winter. I could cook for the day in the morning, instead of having a time crunch when I came home from work. I could spend just a little more time outside on weekdays grooming my yard instead of saving it all for the weekend.
Now, I don’t want to officially retire from my work, because I love it and my life revolves around it. I get to interact with interesting people and go deeper into what interests me.
But life can feel short. The question remains –
How do I want to spend my time?
This question is on the mind of people of every age all around the world. I bet it is on yours too.
Nearly half of Americans report they do not have enough time to do what they want to do, according to a nationwide poll.
Not having enough time leaves us stressed, depressed, and emotionally exhausted.
There’s more to life than that, right?
How much free time would it take to make us happier? And . . . is it possible to have too much free time?
The Magic Number
Exactly that was the subject of a recent study by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers calculated how much time people had in a day to spend on discretionary activities. They counted time relaxing, watching TV, playing sports or hanging with friends.
Then they correlated the amount of time spent on discretionary activities to their satisfaction in life.
The researchers found that the ideal amount of time to boost happiness was two to five hours of free time in a day. Having less than two hours decreased happiness.
How do you get more?
“How to Get 12 Hours Out of an 8-Hour Day” is an example of a book on time management. We can always look for ways to save time so that we can get more time to do what we really want. I suspect that results will vary.
We can also pay others to do our routine tasks like shopping, cooking or cleaning. A study showed that this works: spending money to buy more free time has been linked to greater happiness.
Americans as a whole can feel time starved and will look for any way to get more time for us so we can be happier.
Too much time on your hands
However, researchers discovered that having more than five hours of free time a day was too much discretionary time. They found it correlated with lower subjective well-being. Does that surprise you?
Because discretionary time is the amount of time you spend on pleasurable and rewarding activities, how is it possible to make you less happy?
There is mounting evidence that having “too much of [any] good thing” is not what we need for happiness. That is because it can undermine our sense of productivity and purpose.
Those people who are dissatisfied with more than 5 hours a day to do whatever they want lack a sense of purpose in that time. Having a purpose does not necessarily mean working a paid job. Volunteers can feel purposeful in their volunteer time. So can people who are raising a family and running a household.
Purposefully spending free time?
If too little and too much free time leads to unhappiness, does it matter how we spend whatever free time we do have?
Yes, researchers found that the way we spend our free time matters a great deal. People who had more of a sense of purpose in even abundant discretionary time were more satisfied.
What is more is that the way we perceive time makes a difference.
If you feel you never have “enough” time, even the free time you do have is unsatisfactory. You know there are 24 hours in a day, but you want more so you can get more done before you are satisfied.
If you feel confident that you are able to accomplish everything you want to do, you perceive time differently. If you are relaxed about it and don’t try to cross everything off a “to-do list,” you can feel like there is more time, enough time. The whole day can feel less overwhelming and more fulfilling with this different mindset.
Plenty of Time
I observe that I tend to automatically adjust how I spend my time so that I have enough discretionary time. If I have spent a lot of time on some work project over the weekend, there comes a time when I cannot do any more. My system just shuts down and I am only directed toward something fun, perhaps social.
Or I need to take a morning or a weekday off. It’s not being lazy; it’s keeping an equilibrium with my time and energy.
I may go outside to spend more time there. The desert has always been awe-inspiring for me. The vast sky, the distant horizon, the subtle colors renew me. Having a touchstone in Nature reminds me that there is plenty of time.
Nature doesn’t hurry as I watch a sunrise or sunset or the slow crawl of stars across the night sky. It puts me in my place and lets me know that I have plenty of time.
When I am doing something creative like sewing or baking, I am so immersed in the activity that time is of no concern. The step-by-step process keeps me in the moment, where the only time I need is now. And in being here and now, there is plenty of everything, including time.
When I catch up in a conversation with a friend, I often have no concept of how much time it should take. There again, immersed in the interaction, time is only now, and the conversation wraps up when it is done. I perceive there is plenty of time.
I have the opportunity to give time to my community association, typing up notes and preparing food in the kitchen. This takes me out of myself, where time can be a concern, to the space that there is plenty of time. I don’t want anything in return, so the gift freely given turns out to be rewarding for me.
And when I walk my dog every day, I don’t think about how long it takes. We do one loop or another, and the important thing is the time with my dog and observing the natural surroundings. I think any movement can be like that, whether it is running or biking or hiking or other formal exercise. It is worth the time spent because of how it makes me feel.
Now, to you
How much discretionary time do you have daily?
How do you protect your free time, so your life is balanced?
How do you know there is plenty of time?
