Pressed for time? You鈥檙e not alone.
Even though we have more leisure time than our grandparents, we鈥檙e also more pressed for time. Why is that? And is there a solution?
If you feel as if there aren鈥檛 enough hours in the day, you鈥檙e not alone. Americans feel more pressed for time than ever, with听听they lack the time to do what they want to do each day. But studies also show that leisure time has risen since the 1950s.
So, if we objectively have more free time than our grandparents, why do we feel more stressed? In Episode 3 of the Monitor鈥檚 six-part podcast series 鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time,鈥� hosts Rebecca Asoulin and Eoin O鈥機arroll explore why.听
The feeling of not having enough time is a psychological experience, says Ashley Whillans, a Harvard Business School professor who studies time and money.
She says: 鈥淵ou could work more or less hours and feel more or less stressed.鈥�
We tend to trade away our most precious resource 鈥� time 鈥� for more work and more money. But Dr. Whillans has found that those who value time over money are happier.听
Of course, some of us are more burdened than others. One of the world鈥檚 most time-impoverished demographics is working mothers. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only made matters worse, says Leah Ruppanner, a sociology professor at the University of Melbourne. So what are some solutions? For working moms, a household strike might be in order.听
鈥淲e have put families into the biggest pressure cooker ever,鈥� she says. 鈥淎ll of those things that really weren鈥檛 working, are now really not working.鈥�
This is Episode 3 of a six-part series that鈥檚 part of the Monitor鈥檚听鈥淩ethinking the News鈥�听podcast. To listen to the other episodes on our site or on your favorite podcast player,听please visit听the听鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time鈥� series page.
Episode transcript
Jessica Mendoza: Welcome to 鈥淩ethinking the News鈥� by 海角大神. I鈥檓 Jessica Mendoza, a producer on this podcast. Today, we鈥檙e releasing Episode 3 of our new science series called 鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time.鈥� If you haven鈥檛 listened to our first two episodes, go check them out! Here are our hosts, Rebecca Asoulin and Eoin O鈥機arroll.听
[Music]
Rebecca Asoulin: Hey, you. Yes ... you. Let me guess, you鈥檙e listening to this right now while driving. Or doing laundry. Or
Eoin O鈥機arroll: Do people still dust?
Rebecca: Wait, you don鈥檛 dust?听
Eoin: And maybe listening to this podcast is making you feel a little less anxious than if you were alone with your thoughts 鈥� well, at least until I said the word 鈥渁nxious.鈥�
Rebecca: By listening to a podcast, you鈥檙e turning your mindless tasks into something productive. Well, maybe driving isn鈥檛 totally mindless. Either way, you鈥檙e staying doubly productive.
Eoin: And isn鈥檛 that the whole point of life? To be productive?
Rebecca: I鈥檓 starting to rethink that a little bit.
Eoin: Yeah, me too.听
[Music]
Eoin: This is 鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time.鈥� A series all about ...
Rebecca: Time. I鈥檓 Rebecca Asoulin.
Eoin: And I鈥檓 Eoin O鈥機arroll.听
Rebecca: In this science series, we interview experts on time. They鈥檒l help us unravel its mysteries.
Eoin: Because understanding time more deeply can help you make the most of the time you have.听
Rebecca: The passage of time is literally the most predictable thing in the universe 鈥� but we constantly find ourselves asking where did the time go?
Eoin:听And it鈥檚 almost like: where do you think the time went? The time went to the same place it always goes. Into the past! The Steve Miller Band had it backward.
[Music]
Rebecca: That feeling of time slipping through our fingers is what we鈥檙e going to be exploring this episode. We鈥檝e all experienced it. That sometimes creeping, sometimes overwhelming, feeling of not having enough time.
Eoin: We probably don鈥檛 need to tell you this, but people who report being short on time听 lower levels of happiness. Even though we have the same 24 hours each day that our ancestors did, Americans听 than ever before. In fact, up to say they don鈥檛 have the time to do everything they wanted to do each day.
Rebecca: But since the 1950s, leisure time has actually increased 鈥� .
Rebecca: That鈥檚 Ashley Whillans, a Harvard Business School professor who studies time and money.
[Music]
Eoin: There are a lot of terms for that feeling: time stress, time pressure, time famine, time poverty, and time scarcity.
Rebecca: So why do so many of us feel like we don鈥檛 have enough time? Who feels that stress the most? And most importantly 鈥� what can we do about it?
[Music]
Rebecca: We have more time than ever before, but our time is more fragmented.
Eoin: Ashley says one of the major causes of that fragmentation is right in our pockets.
Eoin: We are interrupted during the workday . that it takes more than 23 minutes, on average, for a worker to refocus after an interruption.
Rebecca: Technology doesn鈥檛 just make you task switch. It also makes you role switch which creates goal conflict, a predictor time of stress. Goal conflict describes the feeling of doing something but wishing we were doing something else or feeling like we should be doing something else.听
Rebecca: We鈥檝e all tried to manage our tech use. My strategies include turning off personal messages on my laptop and putting my phone in a drawer while I鈥檓 working.
Eoin: I tried stuff like that too 鈥� turning my screen black and white, that sort of thing. But it wasn鈥檛 enough to stop my smartphone from distracting me. So I gave it up! I am now the proud owner of a $60 used flip phone.
Rebecca: So has it helped? Do you feel like you have more time?
Eoin: I actually really love using it. It feels like an actual phone, instead of a glass slab. I feel like not having an internet device on me creates a more solid boundary between my online and offline life.
Rebecca: OK, so do you feel like you have more time?听
Eoin: No. Not really. The time I otherwise would have spent doom-scrolling on my iPhone just got filled up with other stuff.听But that other stuff is maybe better stuff. I don鈥檛 check my phone when I鈥檓 playing with my kids, or when I鈥檓 trying to fall asleep.听
Rebecca: Getting rid of his smartphone made Eoin鈥檚 time feel less fragmented, which helped a little bit with his time stress. But it didn鈥檛 solve it. No single change is a magic bullet. In general, making one big decision like that can really help because it removes temptation completely. And that鈥檚 just easier than making a bunch of smaller decisions along the way.听
Rebecca: Time affluence means exactly what it sounds like. You have enough time to do everything you want and need to do. Ashley says she gets asked one question probably most often 鈥� and yes, I also asked it: what鈥檚 one thing we should do to become more time affluent?听
Eoin: Ashley finds that question impossible because everyone鈥檚 situation is unique. She suggests diagnosing your time stress problem by looking at moments in your day when what you want to do doesn鈥檛 align with what you鈥檙e actually doing.
[Music]
Eoin:听, is, of course, time poverty. And that brings us to one of the world鈥檚 most time-impoverished demographics: working moms.
Eoin: That鈥檚 Leah Ruppanner, a sociology professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who researches work, family, gender, and time pressure.
Rebecca: At the very start of the pandemic, Leah ran a study of Australians and Americans. She found that women were feeling more time stressed than men. Several studies have found that women are on average doing more housework and child care during the pandemic. They鈥檙e also dropping out of employment at higher rates than men, either losing or leaving jobs, or reporting fewer work hours.听
Rebecca: In the before COVID times, these gaps in housework and child care existed largely because of the nuclear family ideal, according to Leah. That model has the wife at home, and the husband working.听And it鈥檚 not working for many families because that鈥檚 just not true anymore. For straight couples, not to mention queer couples.
Eoin: And we should add that this has never been true for workers from lower income backgrounds where both partners have to work. .
Rebecca: Another big reason the nuclear family doesn鈥檛 always work is that many women want to work. In one 2019 survey, a 鈥� 56% 鈥� said they preferred to work over being a homemaker.
Eoin: But women still do more housework than their husbands, even when women earn more than their husbands.
Rebecca: It鈥檚 not just about the time women spend doing housework. Women also carry the burden of what Leah calls the 鈥渕ental load鈥� 鈥� the work of keeping track of everyone in your family鈥檚 needs. Planning for the future. Weighing what鈥檚 happened in the past.
Rebecca: So it鈥檚 not that men don鈥檛 do any of this noticing work. They do it more around their careers.
Rebecca: Carrying the mental load at home contributes to women feeling time pressure.
Eoin: We can try to be egalitarian on an individual level, but it鈥檚 not all on us as individuals to solve this. To fix this temporal gender inequality, Leah argues that it鈥檚 society that must change.
Rebecca: Partially to address this, employers have offered flexible working hours during the pandemic. And in one global study say they want to retain that flexibility over their schedules post-pandemic.
Eoin: But the flexibility that some employers are offering at this time is a double-edged sword. Instead of a work-life balance, we now have a work-life blend.听
[Music]
Eoin: U.S. culture praises long work hours. And many of us buy into this. We trade away our most precious resource 鈥� time 鈥� for more work and more money.
Rebecca: Ashley Whillans, the researcher who studies time and money, has posed this question to hundreds of thousands of participants in her social psychology research: Would you rather have more time or more money? She鈥檚 found that those who value time over money are happier and experience fewer negative emotions like stress.听
Rebecca: How don鈥檛 seem to determine the value you place on time versus money.
Eoin: that, once we reach a financial baseline that meets our needs, getting more money doesn鈥檛 improve our emotional wellbeing. Money can鈥檛 buy happiness, but having enough of it does seem to protect against sadness.听
Rebecca: found that 40% valued money over time, and would rather work more than have more free time.
Rebecca: Because when you hit X number, you鈥檙e then around people who have hit Y number. And you start comparing yourself to those people, becoming even more materialistic. That same study of Dutch millionaires found that they were more likely to engage in active leisure, something like fishing. Even in leisure, the millionaires stayed busy.听
Eoin: OK, so what actually helps people enjoy their leisure?
Rebecca: Ashley has a study for that too. She and her team conducted large-scale field experiments in rural villages in both India and . Some women received cash with no strings attached from a nonprofit. Others received a timesaving service 鈥� like having their laundry done or getting meals delivered.听
Eoin: But unlike the cash transfers, the timesaving vouchers also gave women permission to take time off, and that let them derive more happiness from their leisure. So it helped legitimize leisure for them.听
Rebecca: Except even when we do have permission to not work 鈥� whether it鈥檚 legitimate vacation time or what Ashley calls 鈥渢ime windfalls鈥� 鈥� we don鈥檛 always spend the free time in ways that make us happier. Take the pandemic.
Eoin: That鈥檚 Leah Ruppanner again, the gender and time pressure researcher.听
Rebecca: Yep, a strike! The point to figure out what鈥檚 essential work and what isn鈥檛. A strike also shows your family the work you鈥檙e actually doing that might be invisible.听
Rebecca:听Last Hanukkah before the pandemic, I was home with my family. I spent all day cooking latkes with my mom and a 10-year-old family friend. Latkes are Jewish potato pancakes that you normally eat during Hanukkah. And we鈥檇 used something like 5 pounds of potatoes to make the first batch of latkes.听
Rebecca: Part of doing less is being OK with other people doing tasks differently (or worse, but I鈥檓 not judging).
[Music]
Rebecca: To change this dynamic we need to recognize it.听
Eoin: And to be mindful of how we spend our hours and days.
Rebecca: And weeks, months, years, and lives.
Eoin: That鈥檚 Ashley Whillans again, the time and money expert.听
[Music]
[Music]
Eoin: And of course that brings us to the one great secret to comedy.
Rebecca: OK. What鈥檚 the one great sec鈥�
Eoin: Timing!
[Music]听
Eoin: Do you know what my favorite time on the clock is?
Rebecca: What?
Eoin: 6:30. Hands down.
Rebecca: What?听
Eoin: Look at a clock. Wait three hours and 45 minutes.听
Rebecca: I can imagine. I have the ability to project. There鈥檚 a clock right here too. Oh, I get it because they鈥檙e both pointing down.听
Eoin: Because they鈥檙e hands down!听
[Music]
Eoin: We hope you had fun listening! If you liked this episode, please subscribe to 鈥淩ethinking the News鈥� wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or comment.听
Rebecca: And share it with your friends, family, and coworkers! We鈥檙e at csmonitor.com/time.听This series is hosted and produced by me, Rebecca Asoulin. My co-host is Eoin O鈥機arroll. Editing by Samantha Laine Perfas and Noelle Swan. Produced with Jessica Mendoza. Sound design by Noel Flatt and Morgan Anderson.听
This story was produced by 海角大神, copyright 2021.
[End]
Read more from Leah Ruppanner: The book looks at if states support mothers鈥� employment or not. And the states that do and do not do well across these measures will shock you.
Read more from Ashley Whillans: The book outlines the traps that get in the way and how to overcome them using empirically based strategies so that we can all live happier and more time affluent lives.
