199: Creating Happier Hours and the Diminishing Returns of Too Much Free Time With Cassie Holmes
What’s the daily free time sweet spot? Between two to five hours, according to today’s guest, professor and researcher Cassie Holmes. In this conversation, you’ll hear about the wedding that wasn’t — sparking Cassie’s quest to determine the areas of highest agency for improving our own happiness, why time well spent is such a big factor to that end, the powerful question her now husband opened with on their first date, and how to buy better time.
More About Cassie: Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, an award-winning teacher and researcher on time and happiness, and bestselling author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Too much free time can lead to less happiness: There are diminishing returns on more than five hours of free time a day (if we’re not on vacation) because we do value work activities that foster meaning, connection, and purpose.
Least happy activities: Lonely, obligated, and wasteful.
Happiest activities: Connecting through conversation, fresh air / getting outside, and “buying better time” through delegation
📝 Permission: Prioritize your own personal happiness. It’s tempting to try and prioritize the happiness and needs of others, but when we personally feel happier, we show up better for the people around us than we do otherwise.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Buy better time—identify one household chore that you could delegate, and/or experiment with a meal service like Thistle, Gobble, Factor, etc.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Cassie on the web
Parable: “We’ll see”
Research: UCLA Anderson Review—Too Much Free Time? Blame Solitude or Lack of Productive Activity
Tool: The School of Life—Conversation Cards and Decks
Meal Services: Thistle, Gobble, Factor
📚 Books Mentioned
Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most by Cassie Holmes
Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan
Time Smart by Ashley Whillans
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