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: 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

• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Free Time: RadReads x Pivot & Free Time

  • 046: Time Margin—Are You Drowning, Treading Water, or Gliding?

  • 188: Energy Capacity Planning, Pricing, and Finding Resonant Masterminds with Kelli Thompson

• Pivot: 315: Intuition-Building, Spotting Pedestal Syndrome, and Closing the Confidence Gap with Kelli Thompson

  • 61: Virtual Freedom: Overcome Superhero Syndrome and Start Outsourcing with Chris Ducker

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