⌛️ Free Time Is a Blessing and a Curse
The curved relationship between discretionary time and wellbeing
We’ve all had the kind of day that leaves you slumped on the sofa late at night thinking “I need more free time”. For some of us, it’s chronic, and it’s a sign that something needs to give. Too much work and not enough leisure isn’t sustainable for most humans and inevitably leads to burnout.
Many of us assume that more free time means more happiness. Lifestyle gurus will often recommend that we “make more time rather than more money”, and there’s plenty of truth to that sentiment. However, it ignores the other extreme of the continuum. We know a lot about what happens when we work too much, but we know much less about whether there are negative consequences to abundant free time.
A new study has looked into the full extent of the relationship between free time and wellbeing and it doesn’t look as simple as a straight line. Happiness rises with more free time, but only up to a point. Just as your schedule can be too busy, it can also be too free, especially if you don’t use your freedom in the right ways.
𖼆 The inverted U: how free time affects wellbeing
In a paper published in 2021, researchers ran several studies interrogating how free time impacts wellbeing. They first analyzed data from a large survey of the American workforce covering 13,639 people between 1992 and 2008. There were two key questions in the survey:
“On average, on days when you’re working, about how many hours do you spend on your own free-time activities?” (answers could fall between 0-20 hours)
“All things considered, how do you feel about your life these days?” (answers used a 4-point scale from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”)
The researchers analyzed the data from these questions, testing how free time predicted wellbeing. They found a negative quadratic relationship between the two variables—in other words, an inverted U. The schematic chart below shows a simplified version of a graph from the paper:
Each end of the curve points slightly downward, which means people with no free time and people with plenty of free time both reported having lower wellbeing than people with moderate free time during their day. This relationship looked the same after canceling out the effects of demographic variables such as age, gender, and education.
The researchers ran the same analysis again on a second survey dataset called the American Time Use Survey (n = 21,736), which asked employed and unemployed people how they typically spent their days. This time, the researchers better formalized what “free time” meant by crowdsourcing opinions online. More than 90% of people agreed that the following categories of activity were representative of free time: relaxing, socializing, arts & entertainment, travel for leisure, and recreational sports.
To measure free time, the researchers simply totaled how many hours per day people spent on these specific activities according to the survey. To measure wellbeing, the researchers analyzed responses to a classic life satisfaction question known as Cantril’s Ladder of Life Scale: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you. If the top step is 10 and the bottom step is 0, on which step of the ladder do you feel you personally stand at the present time?”.
Once again, the results showed that the relationship between free time and life satisfaction was an inverted U. Both too much and too little free time were linked to lower life satisfaction.
To supplement these correlational results, the researchers finally ran a mental simulation experiment to assess whether changing how people think about their free time would change their expected wellbeing. They randomly asked a group of people to imagine having either 15 minutes, 3.5 hours, or 7 hours a day of free time for 6 months of their life. Everyone described in detail what they’d do with their free time before reporting on how much they expected to enjoy their lives in that context.
The overall trend looked very similar to the survey results: rising life satisfaction from low to moderate amounts of free time followed by declining life satisfaction from moderate to high amounts of free time. But the researchers also found that this pattern changed depending on how productively people imagined using that free time.
When people were asked to imagine “wasting” their free time, 3.5 hours made them feel happier than 7 hours of free time. This replicated the declining half of the inverted U, suggesting that people may be inclined to use their free time wastefully by default. But when people imagined using their free time productively—socializing, working out, or playing sports for example—the trend was in the opposite direction; people were happier when thinking about having lots of free time.
So there really is such a thing as too much free time. But you can mitigate the emotional risks by allocating your free time carefully. By focusing your energy on social and productive activities rather than perpetual relaxation or sofa-dwelling, you can enjoy your freedom without letting it overwhelm you.
⭐️ Takeaway tips
Don’t work too hard: I focused here mostly on the counterintuitive idea that free time can be a curse. But don’t lose sight of the more obvious fact that excessive work is bad for your health and happiness. If you’re feeling overworked and can’t find sufficient time to relax or do things you enjoy, it’s time to reprioritize (at least for those of us who are lucky enough to have that flexibility). You might need stricter boundaries at work or a more efficient process and schedule for your chores and responsibilities at home. Don’t apologize for organizing your life around personal flourishing.
Be careful what you wish for: When you don’t have enough free time, it’s easy to imagine that zero responsibilities and daily demands would make you happier. But free time comes with its own problems and you need to be conscious about using it wisely. Relaxing will only make you feel good for so long. A vacation once in a while feels amazing but vacations for life don’t quite scale up in the same way. You need to engage with things that make you feel motivated, productive, and full of purpose. Whether you choose to volunteer for your favorite charity, spend more time with friends and family, or work on your physical fitness, find ways to keep yourself energetic and mentally stimulated.
Look for your inverted Us: The inverted U relationship is all over the place and it supports oft repeated maxims like “you can have too much of a good thing” and “everything in moderation”. Be mindful of this general relationship for many of the things that make you happy. Your favorite foods, favorite hobbies, and favorite products can become bland or even unpleasant in excess. Crafting a greater sense of gratitude for what you have in life can help to push against boredom when it’s misplaced. But variety is the spice of life too, so explore more of the world’s diversity and find new possibilities for happiness. Right now, we’re all missing out on a ton of activities that would expand our minds and boost our capacity for joy (I randomly discovered I love birdwatching in the last couple of years). So why not actively look for some of those possibilities in your own life?
💡 A final quote
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
~ Albert Einstein
❤️ If you enjoyed this, please share it with a few friends. If you’re new here, sign up below or visit erman.substack.com
📬 I love to hear from readers. Reach out any time with comments or questions.
👋 Until next time,
Erman Misirlisoy, PhD