Free Time Simplified: How To And Why

Oh, free time… You await and enjoy it. Reading, sculpting, drawing, writing, board games, movie night, hiking, going out for drinks, video games, volunteering, road trips. Time away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and studies makes way for their prosperity. An underappreciated aspect of life. A productivity and creativity booster.

Meaningful Free Time = Key To Happiness?

Research has long echoed the importance of interpersonal relationships—friends, family, relatives, colleagues—and work to the meaning of many lives. Precisely, meaningful work and relationships. Work you deem engrossing, fascinating, and rewarding—not work you would describe as a “bullshit job”. Relationships with strong and close bonds.

What’s up and coming is leisure as a source of meaning. While work is primary and leisure secondary for most, it can and does electrify a lot of happiness and satisfaction. Plus, when work sucks, leisure can fill in the gap in meaning for the individual. Post-pandemic trends, such as the Great Resignation, quiet quitting, shorter workweeks, and similar movements inclined toward leisure make it an issue of concern.

What Leisure Is, What Leisure Isn’t

Defining it is a terrific initial step. What is and what isn’t leisure are questions murkier than you’d think. It’s not work, nor does it include activities required for survival. Instead, it’s time after work, a subjective experience. Leisure itself isn’t an activity, leisure experiences, are. Being thrown into a bunker and force-fed chocolate chip cookies to a Netflix show isn’t leisure. Plopping down on the sofa at a self-chosen time, is.

Mere nonworking hours and the extraction of rest from these hours is therefore different. The cornerstone spinning the psychological thread is freedom. A sense of choice to do or not to do something defines leisure to people. A sense of obligation slaughters it. Can’t be forced. Autonomy is necessary. Studies have showed that just anticipating activities one is in control of recruits affective and motivational brain circuitry—the reward regions.

Free Time Must Be Free

Next in the characteristics of high-quality leisure is intrinsic motivation. Put it this way: freedom rather than a lack of it, intrinsic rather than extrinsic motive, and low work-relation increases people’s perception of leisure. What this means is any so-called leisure activity becomes work when it is enforced. Being required to do something, anything, turns a gear in our brains and makes seemingly pleasant events torturous.

This is crucial to grasp about free time. Choice and subjective meaning overpower all else. We are a fast-paced, achievement-emphasizing, always-on society which deducts leisure to a mere waste of time. Yet, over and over, studies show the upsides of mentally disengaging during off-time. Individuals who do are happier, more satisfied with life, and experience fewer symptoms of strain.

How Much Leisure?

The question remains unanswered: how much do you need? How many relaxing walks, yoga postures, swims, bike rides, hikes, boxing, skateboarding, spa days, museum visits, concerts, art galleries, musical instruments, book clubs, cooking classes, wine tastings, or sculpting sessions are required for you to rest? Sadly, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. A matter of self-exploration and discovery.

We already outlined what high-quality leisure is: meaningful, free, detached from work, and intrinsically motivated. Meaning is among the most desirable things in life but people are not quite sure what it is. Central to the human psyche, it has been pioneered as a direction of study. Four distinct needs: purpose, value, efficacy, and self-worth. Each is indelible for meaningful leisure.

Purposeful and Valuable

Purpose means drawing meaning from the future. Aspirational goals. Watching television to a tub of ice cream is lagging in this department I’m afraid—might explain why TV’s rated among the least pleasant of daily activities. On the opposite end, creative hobbies like playing an instrument, writing, or painting make for an abundance of fulfillment. Activities with cumulative progress amplify these experiences.

Value is complicated. Conceptions don’t always align and individuals bestow value differently. No one item or activity has an inherent value property, as it changes person to person and situation to situation. Four master categories can be put forth: functional, emotional, life-changing, and social impact. Function doesn’t fit leisure, but emotion rules it—those doom-scrolling sessions, TV shows, books, and other moving things. Life-change can occur—dabbing into violin to uncover musical talent. Last, a positive social impact from something as simple as helping the homeless is perceived as valuable, too.

Does Your Leisure Fulfill You?

The contribution of leisure to value in life is multifaceted. Some activities have strong moral components, akin to volunteering. In stark contrast, watching TV, scrolling social media, indulging in alcohol or drugs, consuming pornography, or chowing down junk food adds little value. Destructive and unhealthy, these activities are forms of escapism through binge-related behavior and are ill-advised.

Efficacy refers to the sense that you’re making a difference and accomplishing something. Where you sense that you’re using your potential to achieve something intrinsically meaningful and worthwhile. Musical instruments and languages are prime examples, as skill compounds over time and leaves you growing. The buildup from complaining neighbors to complex pieces on the piano or flute fosters efficacy like nothing else.

Does It Personally Fulfill You?

Last but not least, self-worth. Involves finding some way to recognize yourself as a person of worth. Traditionally you do this through comparison to others to feel good about yourself. A golden example is anything sports-related and/or morally virtuous (helping those in need). To illustrate, those who engage in challenging activities—sport, dance, reading, meditation, learning—report higher levels of self-esteem than those who “do nothing”—watch TV, scroll social media.

Thus, it’s clear leisure is very, very far from the straightforward thing you would imagine it to be. Solely having and spending more free time doesn’t guarantee rest. An entire web of factors—purpose, value, efficacy, self-worth, meaning, and freedom—play into the picture. This explains well why some, despite resting less seem well-rested, whilst their counterparts appear miserable. Their work-leisure harmony contributes more restful ingredients, that’s all.

The Bottom Line—No Answer

To boil it down: there’s no answer. Nobody knows how much free time you need. Unlimited time is bad. Think of retirees who miss their jobs or of a vacation you were excited for which grew boring and tiring. Too little is terrible too. The sweet spot appears to be between two and five hours of quality leisure. Less than two inaugurates too much stress. More than five leaves you unsatisfied because humans like feeling productive.

In the end, free time is a subjective experience. You need to find activities which foster meaning for you, like playing a sport or volunteering. Purposeless dopamine bombs won’t make for rest. Thoughtful and planned leisure will. Quality over quantity.