“I’m Very Busy”: How Feeling Constantly Busy Destroys Life
“You need to run even faster to stay in place” - many today live by following the well-known principle of the Queen from “Through the Looking-Glass”. As a result, life rushes past and seems to lose its meaning. But this feeling can be dealt with.
The day of a modern person is full of different tasks to the eyeballs. Trips to the office, work, gym, walking the dog, cooking, cleaning, visiting the doctor. It seems that you will never be able to cross off all the tasks from the to-do list. “I wish there were more hours in the day!” - this is the phrase that many people often end the day with.
Scientists call this state of haste time poverty. It has nothing to do with income. Poor people who have to take extra shifts or look for part-time jobs are just as short of hours in the day as successful businessmen who literally sleep in the office. The only difference is that for those who barely make ends meet, temporary poverty is more of a forced state, while for the conditional CEO or someone who hopes to become one someday, it is a status symbol. As researchers from the Columbia University Business School write, permanent employment creates an aura around a person “a specialist who has special skills, ambitions, high productivity, and therefore is very much in demand in the labor market.”
Another reason that leads to the feeling that there is not enough time is a large amount of content around a person. Every day there are films, series, books, courses, music albums, new restaurants open, opportunities to try an unusual sport. And all of them are so desirable to see, visit or try, and there are only 24 hours in a day. Therefore, modern man is haunted by a constant fear of missing out on something important.
How common is temporary poverty? According to Gallup polls, about 80% of Americans do not manage to do everything they would like to do in a day. In Russia, large-scale studies on this topic have not been conducted, but, according to VTsIOM, about half of the respondents would like to spend more time on hobbies.
Temporary stress affects a person more than the experience of losing a job. People who experience it are more likely than others to feel lonely and unhappy. They do not follow the diet and exercise less often, which negatively affects their health. In particular, they are more likely to have insomnia, obesity, digestive problems, psychosomatic disorders, headaches and muscle pain. In addition, they are more likely to quarrel with loved ones and divorce, and they are also less productive compared to “slow” colleagues. Just to combat the stress caused by temporary poverty, according to scientists, $48 billion is spent a year. The financial losses of the business, indirectly related to this problem, are many times higher.
People who feel time pressure are less likely to help others. In the early 1970s, Princeton psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson conducted an experiment on 40 seminary students. The researchers wanted to explore whether being religious would affect their ability to be compassionate. Respondents were asked to come up with a speech based on a text about a career or a parable about the Good Samaritan. Then they had to go to another building and record their speech on a Dictaphone, with half of the subjects asked to hurry up. On the way, the participants in the experiment saw a man who coughed and moaned. Among those in a hurry, only 10% stopped to find out what happened and offered to help him. Neither religiosity nor the reading of the parable changed the situation radically.
Free time has increased exponentially. Will it help
The solution to temporary poverty seems obvious: just shorten work hours and allow employees more rest. It is not that simple.
The first difficulty is that a modern person still spends a significant part of his free time doing housework. It takes about three hours to clean, about seven to cook, another hour to wash the dishes. It also takes time to buy groceries and plan menus. Most often, this burden, as well as caring for children and elderly relatives, falls on women, which is why their mental health is on average worse than that of men. In addition, several hours a week are spent on the road to the office if you do not work remotely.
It can be argued that today at least the inhabitants of large cities have the opportunity to delegate such duties. Order delivery or go to a cafe, pay for cleaning, buy a dishwasher, hire a nanny for children. The paradox is that the level of income that allows you to enjoy these benefits does not correlate with high levels of happiness. People in most cases value money over free time. That is why the number of requests “how to save money” is one third more than “how to save time”, according to Wordstat Scientists from Harvard analyzed the answers of 4690 respondents and found that only 48% of them were ready to sacrifice part of their income for the sake of additional rest. Even though it would increase their well-being.
Probably, the fact is that time is a scarce resource that can be exchanged for money, which means security, a familiar standard of living, and opportunities for self-development. The more an employee receives for each hour of his work, the more he feels the shortage of time. Especially in times of crisis and instability, when the risk of cuts is high.
But still suppose that a person is in an ideal situation. He has enough money to live comfortably, and a lot of free time. Will he be happy? Probably not. In the book Happier Hour, UCLA professor Cassie Mogilner-Holmes tells the story of an acquaintance, Ben, who ran an American hedge fund. Because of his work, he had no time or energy left to be with his family, read for pleasure, travel, play sports. He eventually quit and seemed to finally be able to make all his dreams come true.
It was not there: Ben was not used to living without a goal and messing around, and therefore decided to run the Dipsy marathon. The route passes through mountainous terrain, and in order to overcome it, excellent physical fitness is required. For several months he trained hard, adhered to a strict diet. Day X arrived. Ben decided that he had to run the route faster than planned, and therefore immediately began to give his best. Already after 4 miles (about 6.5 km) he began to choke. The next moment he was already lying on the side of the road and a group of doctors was standing over him. Ben has turned his hobby into the pursuit of super-ambitious goals.
As Mogilner-Holmes et al found out, it’s generally not common for people to sit back and enjoy life all the time, because there is little point in such a pastime. Remember your state at the end of the summer school or student holidays. For many, probably, in August, their hands were already itching to return to their studies. It is important for any person to feel the significance of their work. Ben is used to achieving ambitious goals, this is his motivation and the meaning of life. Therefore, finding himself out of work, he tried to compensate for the lack of significance with extreme goals in sports.
How much free time does a person need
It turns out that too much time for hobbies and recreation is just as bad as its lack. What is the optimal amount then? Cassie Mogilner-Holmes and colleagues calculated that the ideal option is two to five hours a day. To reach this conclusion, they conducted four studies. In total, more than 40,000 employed and unemployed Americans took part in them. The researchers studied how much free time they have, how they spend it, and how it affects their subjective sense of well-being. The highest rates of life satisfaction were among those who rested 2-4 hours a day. If the amount of time was more or less, the level of happiness fell.
But there was another nuance that the researchers found. If the respondents, according to their own feelings, spent time unproductively, then it seemed to them wasted. Activities that have a similar effect on a person were most often attributed, for example, to watching social networks and TV shows.
How then to spend time to feel happy
First, understand that each person’s list of inspiring activities will be different. Some are annoyed by cooking, while others enjoy the opportunity to stand at the stove and make an unusual dish, like a famous chef. Therefore, the first step is to analyze everything that you do during the day, understand what activities make you happy, and henceforth make a schedule so that you have at least two hours a day for your favorite activities.
Here are a few situations that studies show make people happy:
- Sports. Physical activity energizes, clears the mind, and also helps keep the body in shape - for everyone there is a different motivation.
- Volunteering, as well as meetings and communication with friends and loved ones. Selfless help to others makes life more meaningful. In addition, when a person spends time with others, he feels as if his day is lengthening. But do not strive to devote yourself to these activities, otherwise you will get the opposite effect: you will feel driven out and worthless.
- Events in which you manage to feel like a part of something bigger or experience sincere admiration. Often you can feel this in nature, for example, if you see a huge ocean in front of you or look around, standing on top of a mountain. Art also leads to a state of admiration: goosebumps from your favorite music, enthusiastic viewing of a performance or a deep film, the opportunity to see a picture of a talented artist. Finally, you can feel this feeling from the achievements of loved ones or scientists, as well as from your own merits.