Filling My Free Time with Apple Crisps
When I finish a really busy stretch of life, I have a feeling of withdrawal. I feel aimless, maybe a little sad. I miss teetering on—and sometimes falling over—that edge of being overwhelmed. Which makes me wonder: is free time bad?
I stumbled across this paper that looked at this question. The authors examine whether having too much is ‘linked to lower subjective well-being.’ To cut to the chase: yes, sort of.
The paper reports four studies, and the headline conclusion is that well-being has a U-shaped relationship with free time. Too little daily free time (15 minutes, as defined in one of the paper’s studies) harms our well-being. But, too much free time, described as more than five hours in the paper, is also correlated with worse well-being. It’s a Goldilocks answer—we need just the right amount of free time to be happiest.
But it’s not just the quantity of free time; it’s also the quality of the activities during the free time. The authors had people score different activities as productive versus non-productive and social versus non-social. Imagine the 2x2 grid.
Doing housework is productive and non-social. Going out to dinner with friends is social and non-productive (as was sex, which is…debatable). Volunteering is social and productive. Watching television or scrolling social media are non-social and non-productive.
These distinctions are important because it was not just the amount of free time people had that mattered but what they did during their free time. People who engaged in activities that were social and/or productive had better well-being. Quality, not just quantity.
This intuitively makes sense to me. When I have free time, I love spending time with my family and friends. I like going out, just not too late. I also have a sense of satisfaction when I finish cleaning the kitchen, blow leaves off my deck, or, in my latest project, change out our light switch plates. What brings me less joy is watching television, especially by myself, or mindlessly surfing the internet.
But making the right choices here is not easy for me. My devices are designed to capture my attention and hint that I might be missing out if I am not ‘engaging.’ It’s much easier to look at my friends’ social media than make plans with them. Meanwhile, my new light switch plates aren’t sending me alerts or collecting likes from my followers. Enhancing my well-being takes intentional effort.
Which brings me back to the withdrawal feeling from being busy. Those times are almost always dominated by lots of work. I feel productive and accomplished. They are also social. My busy times revolve around doctoring, traveling to speak, and family. When the business recedes, I miss those feelings of accomplishment and connection. This paper shows me the way forward to greater well-being in those moments. I need free time, and I need to use it to connect with people I care about and do things that feel productive.
After my latest busy stretch, my family went apple picking. As always happens, we came home with way too many apples. This weekend, I made my third apple crisp. One went to the neighbors and another to my mother. That’s productive. That’s social. And that may be the secret to making the most of my free time.
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This writing may not be used for generative artificial intelligence without express written consent of the author. Image created by the author using Midjourney.
