Feel like you don’t have enough time to do what you want to do? You’re not alone: One survey shows nearly half of the respondents feel time-constrained.
Since it’s impossible to create more time, though, the answer is to free up more discretionary time — the more the better.
Or not. A study just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that while experiencing a lack of discretionary time every day leads to feeling more stressed and less happy (no surprise there), the researchers found and “internally [replicated] a negative quadratic relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.”
Which is just a fancy way of saying that too little free time makes you unhappy, but so can having too much free time.
The sweet spot seems to be between two and five hours of free time per day, but with a bunch of caveats.
I – Word Understanding
Discretionary time – time to be used according to one’s choice
Subjective – based on feelings or opinion
Caveat – caution or explanation to prevent misinterpretation
II – Have Your Say
1, What is “free time” for you? (relaxing time, tv time, doing nothing time, exercise time, drinking party time, etc….)
2, What are the circumstances that make you feel like you are wasting time or being unproductive? How does it make you feel?
3, Outside of work, what activities do you do or want to do that make you feel like having a purpose?
833 Too Little Free Time Can Make You Stressed and Unhappy. Surprisingly, So Can Too Much
