The Art of Doing Nothing

Summary

The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

Episode: "The Art of Doing Nothing"

Date: May 11, 2026
Host: Dr. Laurie Santos
Key Guests: Tom Hodgkinson, Ashley Whillans

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Happiness Lab explores the rare and undervalued art of idling—intentionally doing nothing. Dr. Laurie Santos, Yale professor and happiness expert, interrogates our packed schedules and the modern phenomenon of “time famine.” Through personal stories, scientific research, and conversations with “idling” advocate Tom Hodgkinson and time affluence researcher Ashley Whillans, the episode challenges listeners to reconsider the link between productivity and happiness, and offers practical strategies for reclaiming leisure and purposefully structuring downtime.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Tyranny of Time and “Time Famine” (03:57–07:38)

• Dr. Laurie Santos shares her diary from a typical overloaded day, underscoring how modern life often leaves no space to simply be.
• Introduces the concept of "time famine," a condition where people feel perpetually short on time.
• The scientific connection between an overloaded schedule and decreased wellbeing.

“My calendar is now so packed that I sometimes feel like I'm drowning in all the stuff I have to do. Maybe you can relate.”
— Laurie Santos (06:42)

2. Tom Hodgkinson and the Philosophy of Idling (06:35–13:29)

• Tom Hodgkinson, author of How to Be Idle, explains his lifelong affinity for idleness and critiques the industrialized obsession with productivity.

  • Clocks and schedules are relatively recent inventions and have fundamentally shifted how we experience time.
  • Medieval societies often enjoyed a fluid conception of time—punctuated by natural cues like sunlight or church bells.

"Alarm clock. What a horrible invention. It's a horrible way to start the day."
— Tom Hodgkinson (07:38)

• The "cult of productivity" is challenged for its supposed moral virtue, referencing allegories from literature (Alice in Wonderland, Animal Farm) as warnings against glorifying overwork.

“Work in itself is not good. And that's one idea that I want to fight, is this idea that any kind of hard work is morally good.”
— Tom Hodgkinson (11:35)

• Idling is framed as a noble pursuit, essential for creativity, health, and happiness.

3. The Science of Time Affluence (19:03–23:42)

• Ashley Whillans, Harvard professor and author, introduces "time affluence"—the subjective feeling of having control over one's time.
  • Counterintuitively, people today have objectively more leisure time but feel less time affluent due to “time confetti”—free time broken into scattered, unsatisfying fragments.

“Leisure time is sporadic, it's scattered because we're constantly connected to our phones … our attention is pulled in many directions.”
— Ashley Whillans (20:25)

• Studies show time famine has a dramatic negative effect on happiness, greater even than unemployment in some analyses.

“This feeling of time famine had a worse impact on happiness than being unemployed. So it seems to have dramatic consequences.”
— Ashley Whillans (21:29)

• Many people mistakenly choose money (and the illusion of status) over time, believing busyness equates to importance—even among the very wealthy.

4. Busyness, Relationships, and Morality (23:06–28:12)

• Prioritizing busyness and money over time has detrimental effects on relationships and compassion.
  • Good Samaritan Experiment: Seminary students in a hurry overwhelmingly failed to help a stranger in distress, demonstrating how time pressure diminishes kindness.

“When we're time famished, we become crappy people.”
— Laurie Santos (26:48)

• When people are focused on efficiency and economic value, they’re less likely to help others or even do small, prosocial tasks (like recycling).

“What we really need to do is to solve time poverty so that people can have more cognitive resources and also just a more outward focus... able to have these self transcendent values.”
— Ashley Whillans (28:12)

5. How to Reclaim Free Time: Practical Tips (32:48–43:40)

Tom Hodgkinson’s Advice for Purposeful Idling

• Structure workdays with deliberate breaks and downtime:

  • Take a full hour for lunch with real conversation (34:07)
  • Indulge in naps or walks after lunch (34:31)
  • Use travel time or commutes for genuine leisure, not additional productivity (34:53)

"Give a gift to yourself of that time. It's completely free. It doesn't cost anything. It could really have incalculable benefits for your mental health.”
— Tom Hodgkinson (35:37)

Ashley Whillans’ Accessible Strategies for “Time Affluence”

• Cut commute times, even at financial cost, to free up quality time for things that matter (36:58–37:26).
• Use money, if possible, to outsource disliked tasks, buying back time for relationships or meaningful activities (37:33–39:02).
  • Even small nudges like hiring help, ordering takeout, or reinterpreting existing expenditures for time saving can foster well-being.

“Some of the happiness benefit of these time saving purchases… [comes] from just thinking that you’re saving time and then spending that time in a more deliberate way.”
— Ashley Whillans (39:02)

• Most important: Be deliberate about how you use recovered time. Even small periods of “found time” can be used for connecting with others or self-care.

The “Time Windfall List” (42:59–43:40)

• Keep a list of quick, life-affirming activities to use in five- or ten-minute breaks ("time windfalls")—such as calling a friend, sending a gratitude note, or taking a mindful walk.

“Doing this research has made me a little bit more strategic about not squandering the small moments that all of us find ourselves with on a daily basis.”
— Ashley Whillans (43:40)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On the Cult of Productivity:
  “I'm trying to look at things from a different point of view.”
  — Tom Hodgkinson (12:07)

• On Hustle Culture:
  “If you're 26 and you're not working crazy hours, you're not going to get anywhere. I think that's so wrong.”
  — Tom Hodgkinson (11:35)

• The Subjective Power of Cancelling Class:
  “One woman even burst into tears announcing it was the first free hour she’s had all semester.”
  — Laurie Santos (41:15 approx.)

• On Time Choices for Everyone:
  “There are small things that we can all do around the margins. One example might be hire the neighbor's kid to mow your lawn. … Some of the benefit is actually from just thinking that you’re saving time and then spending that time in a more deliberate way.”
  — Ashley Whillans (39:02)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:57 – Dr. Santos’s overstuffed diary and the experience of modern time famine
• 06:35 – Introduces Tom Hodgkinson and the history/philosophy of idling
• 19:03 – Ashley Whillans on "time affluence" vs. "time famine"
• 21:29 – The mental toll of time stress, based on Gallup data
• 24:38 – The Good Samaritan experiment: Time pressure and willingness to help
• 32:48 – Tom Hodgkinson’s daily routine and idler’s advice
• 36:41 – Ashley Whillans’s personal strategies for reclaiming time
• 39:02 – Making time-saving purchases work for happiness (even small ones)
• 42:59 – Practical approach: Your “time windfall list”

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Host’s Personal Commitment & Closing Thoughts (43:40–end)

• Dr. Santos resolves to construct her own “time windfall list,” dedicate more moments to connection and mindfulness, and prioritize time affluence for herself—inviting listeners to do the same.
• Reframes small steps toward reclaiming time as valuable not just for oneself, but also for becoming a more generous, fulfilled person.

“I'm making a public commitment to all of you that I plan to prioritize my own time affluence. And I hope you will too.”
— Laurie Santos (44:20 approx.)

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Takeaway:

Deliberately carving out even small moments for idling, relationships, and genuine rest is not lazy—it's essential for happiness and wellbeing. Challenge the cult of productivity, use your resources to free up time where you can, and use “time windfalls” to connect, reflect, and restore.

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Further Resources

• Tom Hodgkinson: How to Be Idle
• Ashley Whillans: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life (forthcoming)
• The Happiness Lab archive at Official Website

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For more science-backed happiness tips, subscribe to The Happiness Lab, and consider your own "time windfall" experiment this week!

Transcript

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Foreign. Hey Happiness Lab listeners. We're cruising through our special series on Spring Cleaning youg Happiness. And we're continuing our deep dive into the Happiness Lab archive to find well being boosting insights that you might have missed. This week's classic episode takes on cleaning up one of the messiest, most cluttered parts of our lives, our schedules. Ever had a week when it felt like you didn't have a single moment of downtime? When it felt like your calendar was overflowing with endless meetings? And to dos social scientists have a word for that awful feeling. They call it time famine. And studies show that time famine can make you miserable. But what would it look like to spring clean your schedule? To carve out time, to wander around, to chat with friends, to think about nothing in particular and or even to take an afternoon nap? That is what I explore in this throwback Happiness Lab episode. So get ready to clean up those schedules and to break free from the tyranny of time in today's throwback episode,

which is coming up right after the. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

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Looking Back at My Diary Wednesday, February 5, 2020 was a fairly ordinary day. And by fairly ordinary I mean to say that my day was absolutely packed to the brim. Which makes sense because I don't just have one amazing job, I have lots of them. I'm a professor and a research scientist. I run one of Yale's residential colleges, which means I over 400 students to take care of all the time. I travel a bunch for public lectures to spread the science of happiness. I'm a manager to all my amazing staff, a colleague to my science friends. And now I'm a podcaster too. So how do I keep track of all these different roles? My Planner. It's a small red notebook that I carry with me everywhere. It's where I write out every single commitment I have, including the time it starts and the time it ends. My planner is like a precious friend. It helps me keep track of what I need to do every single day. And so I'm now looking in my planner at the page for Wednesday, February 5, 2020, which, as usual was completely packed. On that day I had some podcast stuff to do at specific times. Three different student meetings, a staff meeting, and an important department talk, after which I wrote in very decisive ALL CAPS LETTERING 3:45pm Leave immediately. That was a note to remind myself that I needed to get out of that department talk a little early in order to make it to the airport for my flight to D.C. that night. That one was a very, very hard stop. But on this particular busy day, my morning got to begin with a really exciting start. 8am Interview with Tom Hodgkinson, one of my personal heroes.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

I'm here, but I can only hear you very faintly.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I've admired Tom and his work for years.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Very, very quiet.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I had scheduled Tom's interview for a whole hour in my calendar, but with so, so much to ask him, I was worried I wouldn't have enough time. And by this point, we were already 10 minutes into our time together, and Tom couldn't hear me. We tinkered with the mics and checked the phone connection. I kept asking Tom, is my voice louder now?

[Tom Hodgkinson]

I'm afraid not, no.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

As the time ticked away, I felt my stress levels rising. It was already really difficult to find a long enough slot for this interview. And so, I mean, should we push through and risk me being late for all the rest of the stuff that day, or should I try to reschedule for God knows when? I was starting to freak out, and then suddenly.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom could finally hear me. Which meant the interview I was most looking forward to this season could begin. So what was the topic I was so anxious to jump into with Tom? So talk to me about your history of becoming an idler. Like, what drove you to that? Talk about kind of why you decided to become more idle.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

I think I was born fairly idle. I always had a strong will towards idling.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yup, idling. It's a pretty foreign concept, at least for me. I tend to fill my day to the brim, mostly with meaningful and interesting things. I always thought that was what I was supposed to do. But it's gotten to the point where my calendar is now so packed that I sometimes feel like I'm drowning in all the stuff I have to do. Maybe you can relate. But as we'll see in this episode, if we really want to improve our happiness, we need to learn to do well, a lot less. Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back to in the right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Alarm clock. What a horrible invention. I mean, it's a horrible way to start the day. Get out of bed. Come on, you're lazy. You're never gonna get anywhere.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom is obsessed with clocks because he absolutely despises them. In his book, how to Be Idle, Tom tells his readers that to be happier, they need to throw away their alarm clocks.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

I'm not one of those people who sort of leaps out of bed the moment my eyes open. Yay. I can't wait to get on with my day. You know, there's quite a lovely in between Y state, in between wake and sleep, when you're sort of half conscious of your dreams. I think that's a lovely state to be in. And a slower transition from sleep to wake, I think is civilized these days.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Clocks are everywhere, from our nightstands to our laptops to our wrists. It's easy to forget that watching the minutes of the day tick by is actually a new development.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

In medieval times, to an extent, they were masters of their own time, so they could sort of do a bit of weaving, have a nap, go into the vegetable garden, do a bit more weaving, go to church and so on.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Life back then was sometimes brutal, but Tom thinks our pre industrial ancestors enjoyed something that we've given up. A complete disregard for what hour it is. For most of human history, it was pretty hard to know the precise time. All medieval folks had was the position of the sun. Well, that end.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

The bell would signal the end of the kind of the shift in the fields or whatever.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The chimes from the church tower meant that it was time to put down your tools. Time to assemble together for worship or a meal. Time to think of something other than work. That is, until the industrial revolution kicked in.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

The system changed. You became a factory worker. The capitalists bought huge amounts of machinery and invested in it, and they had to keep this Machinery going, well, 24 7, ideally, so the people were told. Life's not about working at home when you feel like it, you know, time kind of. It weirdly becomes this sort of like a, sort of a tyrant.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom is like a resistance fighter at war with this tyrannical concept of time. And his primary weapon in the struggle is idling. Idling is the act of loafing, taking time to do nothing in particular. Think long lunches, midday naps, tea time, taking the scenic route, getting lost for no reason at all. Daydreaming, hanging with friends at the pub, Long, happy conversations that run well past the time we probably should have gone to bed. Tom encourages all of these. His books are manifestos against the cult of productivity that many of us grew up with.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

When you're not working, when you're reflecting, when you're walking around the groves with your friends and talking about art and love and philosophy and ideas, that's when you're really living. And if we overwork, then you neglect that very important part of life.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I first learned of Tom's work back in the early 2000s, when I myself had just started to neglect all these important parts of life. At the time, I was an untenured assistant professor, working all hours to get papers out and my lab up and running. I had fully subscribed to the philosophy that my generation inherited back from the days of the Industrial Revolution, that productivity is king. The idea of spending long hours walking around a grove with friends talking about art and philosophy, I mean, that seemed incredibly foreign, almost unattainable. But if I was being honest, it also sounded kind of amazing. I think it's one of the reasons I was first drawn to Tom's books.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

To devote a good portion of each day or each week to idling is actually very, very good for you, for your health, for your mental health, your physical health, for the health of your friends. That doesn't mean to say that you don't work or you don't enjoy working. In fact, idlers would probably like to find something that they would like to do anyway and make it into their work.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The problem, according to Tom, is when the urge to work makes us a slave to the clock, when we completely lose any free time whatsoever.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

So we're all constantly looking at our watches like the white rabbit in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Late, late. I'm very late. Completely unable to live in the moment. You know, I read these things on Twitter saying, hey, guys, sorry, but you know, if you're 26 and you're not working crazy hours, you're not going to get anywhere. I think that's so wrong. Work in itself is not good. And that's one idea that I want to fight, is this idea that any kind of hard work is morally good.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom worries that our modern ethos of productivity is turning all of us into unfortunate workhorses, the kind that great literature has long warned us about.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

In Animal Farm, we have the example of the horse boxer who, when faced with a problem, says, work harder, work harder work until he works himself into an early grave. He's taken off to the glue factory. Now, that, to me, is a. That's a warning. Overwork causes stress, heart disease. It obviously is bad for family life, bad for your relationships, and who is it good for? For you? For your ego? For your boss to make more money? You know, when you start to analyze these concepts, like the work ethic, they start to dissolve. So I'm trying to look at things from a different point of view.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom tries to live his entire life in accordance with these beliefs, but many people find his suggestions deeply challenging. At times, his ideas can sound like a radical religious ideology.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

It's not laziness to create free time for yourself. It's actually a mark of nobility. It brings you closer to the gods, actually, because when you start to realize where this stuff comes from, it comes from the people in power. I don't want to sound too Marxist, but it comes from the owners of capital. It comes from the owners of the means of production. They want to enslave us. We've got to break free of these chains. William Blake, he talked about the mind forged manacles, okay? We've created a situation with our own minds, and we can use our own minds to break free of these manacles.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

As I talked to Tom for this interview and reflected on how stressed I'd been about my schedule just minutes before, I got really sad. It's now been over a decade since I first encountered Tom's work, and I'm still not listening to his advice. If anything, I. I've become even more trapped in those mindforged manacles he talks about that ethos of productivity at all cost. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm really grateful for all the career opportunities that keep me so busy, especially this podcast, which I absolutely adore. But I'm also really, really overworked. I don't admit it much, but I feel overwhelmed all the time. I can't remember the last time I took a real vacation or had even a moment to just be idle for the sake of being idle, let alone traipse across a grove talking about philosophy. There's not a single entry in my red planner that says, just do nothing. And all of this makes me feel incredibly guilty, because as the host of this podcast, I'm supposed to know better. Usually, I'm pretty good at following the advice I share with you, but this is one domain where I'm really screwing things up. And honestly, I don't even know what to do to make my schedule less hectic these days. But as I always say, when all else fails, you should turn to science. After the break, we'll do just that. You'll hear what feeling this busy does to your mental health and to your relationships. And we'll see that having an extra bit of free time is more valuable for our well being than our lying minds often think. Right. Gotta go. The happiness lab will be back in a moment.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

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[Ashley Whillans]

Time affluence is this feeling of whether or not we have enough time to do all of the things that we want to do or have to do.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

This is Ashley Willins, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the upcoming book how to Reclaim youm Time and Live a Happier Life. Ashley is another one of my heroes.

[Ashley Whillans]

Instead of looking at whether we have objectively sort of enough hours in a day, we're looking at subjectively whether people feel like they have enough time.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Time affluence is one of my favorite scientific concepts because it's the opposite of what I experience on a near daily basis. My calendar never feels open. My subjective feeling is one of extreme busyness, what researchers like Ashley have christened time famine.

[Ashley Whillans]

People today are feeling increasingly pressed for time, increasingly time poor, such that they feel like they have too many things to do and not enough time in the day to do it. And it's interesting because there's also this data suggesting that we objectively have more time today than we used to. So subjective feelings of time stress are going up. Well, the objective amount of time that we have is actually going up as well.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

So why do we fail to notice the extra minutes we all have each day? The reason, according to science, is that nowadays our free time tends to be broken up into tiny chunks or time confetti.

[Ashley Whillans]

So we have more time confetti now than we used to. That leisure time is sporadic, it's scattered because we're constantly connected to our phones. We're trying to do many, many different tasks and our attention is being pulled in many directions. So this feeling of trying to pack in all of this stuff, being pulled in all these directions during our free time can make us feel more pressed for time.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I definitely get the concept of time confetti in my own life, because even when I get a break, it never feels like a break. I'll be lounging and watching tv and I'll get a stressful text about work, or I'll be in the middle of an otherwise enjoyable dinner chat when I get this anxious urge to do a quick email check, even lunch. A time my idol Tom says should be reserved for conversation. That often ends up being a time that I spend alone trying to quickly scratch a few things off that to do list. Sure, I wind up getting more done. I mean, it feels like I'm being productive and clearing things off my plate. But Ashley's research has shown that it's taking more of a toll on me than I realize these Feelings of Time

[Ashley Whillans]

Stress this time Famine Comes at a Cost of Happiness in some Gallup World poll data that we analyz with 2.5 million Americans, we found that this feeling of time famine had a worse impact on happiness than being unemployed. So it seems to have dramatic consequences for our subjective well being.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The problem, though, is that people don't realize the consequences of time poverty are so great, and so we constantly make individual choices that make our time famine even worse.

[Ashley Whillans]

People who have more job flexibility, more paid vacations in their workplace are happier with their jobs. They're more satisfied and less likely to leave. But when you ask people would you rather have job A and job A makes more salary, or job B and job B has more paid vacation and less salary, people always go for job A.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

If you've listened to other episodes of the Happiness Lab, you know that many of us equate happiness with having more money, which means that most of us want to work more and more in order to earn more and more. But that trade off of giving up time for money winds up resulting in less and less time affluence, which often means less and less happiness. It's a pretty stupid strategy, but it's also one that Ashley has found many of us employ all the time.

[Ashley Whillans]

We think that prioritizing money and working a lot is a status symbol. So we think if we seem really busy, that's going to confer us higher status. And it's one of the reasons that we don't focus on time, take paid vacation, and instead focus a lot on working.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The connection between busyness and status means that even people who have the money to buy a little free time often choose not to do so.

[Ashley Whillans]

Even some of the wealthiest people we've studied, people with $2 million sitting in the bank are still focusing on money at the expense of time.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Ashley's also found that as we feel our days getting fuller and fuller, we don't make time for activities that can reduce our stress, like hanging out with friends or making new ones.

[Ashley Whillans]

We have a paper showing that even just this general prioritization of money over time means that we're less likely to interact with a peer. So we spend 18% less time interacting. And we know that these small social moments are some of the happiest in our day.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

These results got me thinking about why I'm so busy. Ironically, it's not because I'm focused on money or status. It's because I'm focused on people. I wind up saying yes to too many things because I don't want to disappoint anyone, either my colleagues or my students, or even you, dear podcast listener. But putting too much stuff on my plate means becoming even more time famished. I'm seeing lots of people, sure, but am I really spending any quality time with any of them? I explained this jumble of feelings to Ashley. I was surprised that my hero was experiencing pretty much the same thing.

[Ashley Whillans]

You're tunneling, you're just literally, it feels like survival. I'm having this day to day. I just taught two classes and had two hours of office hours. All I'm thinking about is when am I going to drink water? When is my next nap? I don't have the cognitive resources to also think about how am I going to connect with a friend who hasn't been doing very well.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Back in the 1970s, researchers John Darley and Daniel Batson ran a test to see why people help others. Was being nice a function of a person's personality, or did it depend on the situation? To test these questions, they chose a population known for being DO students at the Princeton Theological Seminary. Darley and Batson figured that students training to be priests were probably prone to being nice to other people. And so the researchers told these subjects that they needed to deliver a public sermon about Jesus. Story of the Good Samaritan in this parable, a man is beaten, robbed, and left unconscious on the street. Several people, including a priest, passed by without stopping. But one person, the Good Samaritan, took pity on the victim. He helped a man up and even brought him to an inn to eat and rest. The Samaritan, Jesus explains, is the guy we're all supposed to emulate. He's the one that's going to heaven. The seminary students all knew the tale well, so having to Give a sermon on that topic should have been mildly stressful but relatively straightforward. And that's when Darley and Batson upped the stakes. All of the students had to head across campus to another building to give the talk. One group was told that their sermon would happen later that day, so they had plenty of time to get there. A second group was told that they'd make it in time, but only if they set off immediately. But a third group was told that they were already late. They needed to sprint over there right away. And that's when Darley and Batson had a surprise for the men. They basically staged an experimental version of the Good Samaritan story. They hired an actor to pretend to be injured on the ground who was blocking a narrow part of the route. The students would literally have to physically step over the actor's writhing body in order to make it past. So what did a little time famine do to the students willingness to help? The results were really striking. 63% of the students who had time to spare stopped to help the hurt stranger, which, honestly, is already pretty bad. That means over a third of trainee priests basically stepped over a guy lying hurt on the street. But what happened? When subjects were in a mad hurry, only 10% of them stopped to help. 90% of the subjects completely ignored an obviously injured person on the street because they were rushing to give a sermon about how Jesus said you should stop to help injured people on the street. When we're time famished, we become crappy people.

[Ashley Whillans]

When people are thinking about the economic value of their time, when they're thinking about being hyper efficient with every second. This comes at a cost of our willingness to take time out of our day to help others, to volunteer to do something as simple as recycle a piece of scrap paper in the lab. Something that takes 10, 15 seconds to do.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Ashley actually has experimental data to back up this last point. She had students cut up sheets of paper for a construction project. She told them they could either throw their scraps away in a nearby trash can or walk a few feet outside the room to a recycling bin. In this first control condition, 41% of the students opted to recycle. But Ashley also tested another experimental group in which she first had subjects write down how many hours they expected to work after graduation and then calculate their hourly pay rate. What happened to recycling? In this experimental group, only 12% made the extra effort required. Policymakers should take note here. Have you ever considered that giving people more time will help them become better, greener citizens?

[Ashley Whillans]

What we really need to do is to solve time poverty so that people can have more cognitive resources and also just a more outward focus. So that we're not just simply trying to solve our own time scarcity and get from point A to point B in our lives. But we're able to have these self transcendent values and think about how can I use my time to benefit others?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Which raises a big how can we fight time poverty? What can people like me do to feel a little more time affluent? We'll tackle those important questions when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

these days, research shows that simply gazing at bodies of water like the Pacific Ocean can help lower your heart rate and increase feelings of relaxation. Consider a trip to sunny San Diego. Put your toes in the sand, smell and feel the ocean breeze. Spending time in nature can be great for your mental health and as you soak up the bright side, feel your taste buds, your health and your wellness. With a local cuisine fueled by San Diego's year round farm fresh produce. San Diego isn't just a destination, it's a disposition. Come to the bright side. Plan your trip to San Diego by going to sandiego.org funded in part with City of San Diego Tourism Marketing District Assessment Funds. We talk a lot on this show about burnout and how easy it is to keep pushing without ever truly recovering. Real restoration usually requires a pause. Not another productivity hack, but a change of environment. Auto Camp is designed for exactly that kind of reset. It's all the amenities of a boutique hotel, but in nature you stay in thoughtfully designed outdoor accommodations set in beautiful natural environments with comfortable beds, spa inspired showers and a central clubhouse for gathering and connecting. It's all the grounding benefits of the outdoors without the stress of planning or roughing it. If you're overdue for a real break, explore Otto Camp's nine locations and iconic outdoor [e-mail] this message is in partnership with Simple Mills. On our show we talk a lot about how small choices can have a big impact on your well being and one choice that often gets overlooked, the Snacks you reach for during the day. It might sound simple, but the right snack can help you feel energized and focused. Two things that make sticking to healthy

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[Ashley Whillans]

Mmms.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

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[Tom Hodgkinson]

I would get up at 8 with the kids or 7:30. Then I would sit down in my study at 9:00 clock and I wouldn't leave until 1:00pm So I would do four straight hours of work. And that was it.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Welcome to the typical day of time affluence guru Tom Hodgkinson. I was struck that Tom's day involved both less and more idling than I'd expected, if that makes sense.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

After lunch I would go into the garden, go for a walk, sleep. My children would come back from school, we'd do dinner, I'd have a couple of beers, read books in the evening, go to bed sort of fairly early, 10 or 11. That was great. And you know, that was a four hour working day and often took Fridays off for trips and so on. So that was lovely.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom is super time affluent but he isn't some bum who never gets anything done. He's an incredibly accomplished writer with six best selling books and that doesn't even include his ukulele handbook.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

The problem with being an idler actually is that you can end up working quite hard. I mean, I get a lot of criticism from our readers saying, well, you seem to work quite hard, Tom, because you're quite productive. And I think that's because, you know, you give yourself lots of thinking time and then you start having creative ideas and then you want to carry them out and you know, it takes some work to actually make them happen.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

And so I asked Tom for some advice, practical tips that would actually work with my busy professor lifestyle practical tips.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Okay, please, you know, take an hour off for lunch and talk to people.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I sheepishly admitted to Tom that I pretty rarely take a lunch break that doesn't involve checking my email.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Overwork can drag you backwards. Take your lunch break.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

A full, uninterrupted meal break with proper conversation already was seeming like the stuff of fantasy. But then Tom upped the ante with an even more indulgent afternoon activity.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Ideally, have a short nap after lunch. I mean, I personally find that time between two and four. I mean, I'm completely dead. I used to get quite depressed. I can't think, I'm so tired. And then I wake up again at four.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Uh, a two hour siesta. Yeah, that basically sounds kind of impossible for me. Tom was horrified when he learned that I had a flight later that day and that I planned to spend most of that travel time working.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Travel time is a gift. In the old days you couldn't work. We didn't have WI fi and stuff. And so it was a lovely opportunity just to gaze out the window. But you could still do that. Planes, trains, automobiles, you know, sit in the back, stare out the window, unplug, you know, or read a book, a real, actual book. And sleep and doze. Even walking along the roads is supposed to be a sort of self improving activity because you put your headphones on and plug into some kind of inspirational podcast. Um, what I mean, okay, this is a good podcast to listen to. You'll want.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Tom's point isn't to cancel your Happiness Lab subscription. Like, seriously, don't do that. Tom's point is just that we need to find some time when it feels like we're not working or desperately trying to cram things in.

[Tom Hodgkinson]

Give a gift to yourself of that time. It's completely free. It doesn't cost anything. It could really have incalculable benefits for your mental health.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I was so thankful to hear Tom's suggestions, But realistically, I wasn't totally sure his advice was going to work for my level of time famine. I mean, I can shoot for longer email, free lunches, but napping for hours a day is not really practical for my situation. And if I'm being honest, it's also unlikely that I'll leave my laptop totally switched off on my next flight. I started to worry that Tom's recommendations were a bit too advanced for my level of time famine. I needed to start with some beginner tips, sort of a time affluence for dummies kind of thing. So I turned to my other hero, Ashley Willins. And she's an academic just like me, so I figured that she might have some more applicable advice. As usual, I was in a rush to get straight to the point. So you're a super busy Harvard professor. Yes. Who teaches about time. Feels a little bit ironic, but my

[Ashley Whillans]

life sometimes feels very ironic. Yes.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

So how are you actually putting this stuff into effect in your own life?

[Ashley Whillans]

I'm trying. And sometimes failing. Yeah. I feel like I'm grasping at straws sometimes to try to try to keep it all together.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

It wasn't exactly the guru level of time mastery I was hoping for, but I also admired Ashley's honesty.

[Ashley Whillans]

One thing that I did structurally in my life is I cut my commute time to basically zero. I pay a lot of money in rent, but I can walk to the office. So I'm not only buying myself time each and every day, but I can also spend that time in ways that are good for happiness, like walking, enjoying the scenery. I take in a lot of sunrises, walking across the bridge to work. And I think that's one thing that I've done that I've noticed has dramatically improved the quality of my life.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

So Ashley exchanges money in the form of rent for less time wasted on a dull commute. She also uses her other expenditures in

[Ashley Whillans]

the same way, like house cleaning, grocery delivery.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

It turns out that allocating more of your available budget to these services can substantially increase your time affluence.

[Ashley Whillans]

If you spend money in a typical month to outsource disliked tasks to others, therefore buying back some of your time, or at least buying more positive moments, we see that that is a good predictor of happiness for people all across the income spectrum. The richest people that we've studied, people living kind of at or even slightly below the poverty line.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Paying someone to do your disliked tasks can also provide a much needed boost to your social life.

[Ashley Whillans]

When you outsource something you don't like, you not only get to spend more time with people you care about, but you're less thinking about all these other things you have to do while you're socializing. And so it buys us of some of this dread, this anticipation of having to come home from a nice social event on the weekend and have a million chores to do before the work week starts. And we've also started looking at the effects of time saving services, house cleaning, someone to mow your lawn on relationship satisfaction. And we have some findings suggesting that couples who make a concerted effort to outsource in a typical month experience greater relationship satisfaction because they're less negatively impacted by daily stressors. And that effect on relationship satisfaction is just about as good as having a partner who's a really good listener.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

All of this sounds great, but I bet some of you are thinking the same thing I was Is this a

strategy everyone can use or is this

just for wealthy Harvard professors who can afford a house cleaner?

[Ashley Whillans]

I get this question a lot. Isn't this just for rich people? Most of us listening at least are lucky enough to have some discretionary income at our disposal. So then we want to start thinking, well, If I have $100 a month, $200 a month, $300 a month, how can I start thinking about spending that money in a way that might best promote my happiness? And there are small things that we can all do around the margins. One example might be hire the neighbor's kid to mow your lawn. That might not cost very much money. Getting takeout. Takeout can be one way of saving time, but interestingly, we often don't think about takeout in that way. So we show in some of our studies that some of the happiness benefit of these time saving purchases that we make on a regular basis, some of that benefit is actually from just thinking that you're saving time and then spending that time in a more deliberate way. So you could, even if you don't want to change the way that you're spending, sit down and look at your purchases that you make in a typical month and say, hey, when I made that takeout purchase, I actually was saving time that I wasn't saving spending on cooking. What did I do with that time? And next week when I buy that fast food, could I be spending that time I would have spent cooking in a better way? So part of the benefit is just removing negative tasks that you don't like. And part of the benefit of time saving is being more deliberate with the free time that you've gained.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The idea of being more deliberate with how we think about our time is critical. Remember, time affluence isn't the objective amount of free time. You have the actual number of open blocks in your calendar. It's your subjective sense that you have some free time. And that means you can do a lot to boost your sense of time affluence, even if in reality you can't really open up that much actual free time. It's just the sense of giving yourself a bit of a break that makes all the difference, even if the amount of time you actually gain is small. I saw this firsthand in my happiness class when I first introduced my Yale students to the concept of time affluence. With hard classes, demanding extracurriculars, and an intense social life, Yale students feel incredibly time famished pretty much all the time. So I decided to give them a booster shot of time affluence by surprising them with a canceled class one spring day. Students came to lecture expecting to be in class for an hour and 15 minutes. But when they arrived, my teaching assistants were handing out flyers explaining that I was giving students a bit of time affluence by canceling class that day. The students were ecstatic. They finally had a bit of free time. Some even started screaming and jumping up and down. Others just seemed incredibly relieved. One woman even burst into tears announcing it was the first free hour she's had all semester. But my students joy demonstrates this important feature of time affluence. It doesn't take all that much to feel incredibly good. My yalies were only given an hour and 15 minutes free, but at the time it felt like years. Many of them even used that free hour to do something really fun. They hung out with friends over bubble tees or went for a short hike. Which shows one of the most important features of using our time affluence. Well, in the rare cases when we get free time, we need to use it wisely. This is something I really struggle with because I do get little blasts of free time confetti here and there. There are lots of unexpected changes as an academic meetings, canceled, talks that wrap up earlier than predicted, appointments with people who never show. I usually use those free moments to do a quick social media check or dig into my email, but Ashley argues that I should plan to use those little time windfalls a lot more effectively.

[Ashley Whillans]

How can we start claiming back some of these windfalls to really think about them in this more deliberate way so that these small pockets of time that we do receive in our everyday lives feel more like a gain and therefore might be more likely to increase our happiness.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Have you done this in your own life? Are there specific tips you use when you have a meeting canceled or have a small time windfall?

[Ashley Whillans]

Yeah, so I actually have started to keep a time windfall list of if I have small pockets of 5 minutes and 10 minutes, what are some life things? Not work things, not emails. Those will always be there. But some small positive life things that I can do with those windfalls. Send a letter of gratitude. Call my mom. Reach out to a friend from grad school I haven't talked to in a while, and I write those in my agenda. And I don't always get to all of them, but I do get to some of them. And I think that doing this research has made me a little bit more strategic about not squandering the small moments that all of us find ourselves with on a daily basis.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Making this episode hasn't completely cured my sense of time famine, but it has helped a lot. I've started my own time windfall list. I want to connect more with friends I haven't seen in a while and take more opportunities to express gratitude to the people I care about. I also want to take time to be more mindful and so I'm going to try to use some of those free 15 minute blocks for a quick meditation and some deep breaths. And in honor of Tom, I promise to spend at least a few minutes gazing out the window on my next flight. But most of all, making this episode has caused me to realize that I'm not helping the people I care about by packing my schedule to the brim. Hearing the science has caused me to reflect on the negative impact my time famine is having on the people I care about most. It also made me worry about the person I could become if I don't carve out a bit more free time. So Happiness Lab listeners, I'm making a public commitment to all of you that I plan to prioritize my own time affluence. And I hope you will too. As I said before, you don't need to unsubscribe from your favorite podcast. Seriously, don't do that. Even just making the most of small time windfalls can bump up your mood. And maybe, just maybe, it might even make you a better person.

Seeking more brightness these days, research shows that simply gazing at bodies of water like the Pacific Ocean can help lower your heart rate and increase feelings of relaxation. Consider a trip to sunny San Diego. Put your toes in the sand, smell and feel the ocean breeze. Spending time in nature can be great for your mental health. And as you soak up the bright side, feel your taste buds, your health and your wellness with a local cuisine fueled by San Diego's year round. Four Farm Fresh Produce San Diego isn't just a destination, it's a disposition. Come to the bright side. Plan your trip to San Diego by going to sandiego.org funded in part with City of San Diego Tourism Marketing District Assessment Funds. We talk a lot on this show about burnout and how easy it is to keep pushing without ever truly recovering. Real restoration usually requires a pause, not another productivity hack, but a change of environment. Auto Camp is designed for exactly that kind of reset. It's all the amenities of a boutique hotel, but in nature, you stay in thoughtfully designed outdoor accommodations set in beautiful natural environments with comfortable beds, spa inspired showers and a central clubhouse for gathering and connecting. It's all the grounding benefits of the outdoors without the stress of planning or roughing it. If you're overdue for a real break, explore Otto Camp's nine locations and iconic outdoor destinations at autocamp.com Behavioral science consistently shows that people are more likely to adopt habits that feel simple, clear and achievable. Sunday is a yard care company designed with that insight in mind. They analyze your soil and local climate to build a customized yard plan, removing guesswork and reducing the friction that often prevents homeowners from taking action. Instead of harsh chemicals, Sundae uses nutrient dense ingredients like seaweed, molasses and iron. Go to getsunday.com to get your free custom yard analysis.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

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