Understanding Time Poverty and Happiness
Melina Palmer: Welcome to episode 590 of The Brainy Business: Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy. In today’s episode, I’m excited to introduce you to Dr. Cassie Holmes, author of Happier Hour. Ready?
Melina Palmer: Let’s get started.
Announcer: You are listening to The Brainy Business Podcast, where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here’s your host, Melina Palmer.
Melina Palmer: Hello.
Melina Palmer: Hello everyone.
Melina Palmer: My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to The Brainy Business Podcast. Have you ever had a day where you were genuinely busy from the moment you woke up until the moment you went to sleep and yet somehow still felt like you hadn’t done anything that mattered? Or did you hear that and think, “Might be easier if I told you the last time I didn’t feel that way”?
Melina Palmer: But then you realized it isn’t easier because you genuinely can’t remember. I really hope that isn’t the case for you, but I also know that more and more these days, that’s tending to be the norm. We are all stretched so thin with so many priorities and projects and opportunities and obligations and distractions that the days get longer and our output feels way less and we’re just beyond drained. Maybe you’ve had a daydream or two about quitting it all and moving to an island somewhere for a simpler life, or to take a sabbatical and just get a six-month refresh to get your head straight. But how do you know how long will be enough to get the happiness and balance back into your life and work?
Melina Palmer: Does it really require such drastic measures?
Melina Palmer: Do you have to wait until you retire to get that balance? My guest today is Dr. Cassie Holmes, and she’s here to answer those questions and more. She’s a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and one of the leading researchers on time and happiness. Her book, Happier Hour, is based on her wildly popular MBA course on applying the science of happiness to life design. And I’m so honored that she joined me on the show. As you’re going to hear, this episode originally aired in early 2023. So we talk about the new year and resolutions and things like that, but I hope you’re going to feel motivated to take action quickly.
Melina Palmer: Don’t wait for the calendar to give you permission to change your life for the better. If you want to have happier days, start now. Cassie is going to give you great tips for how to go about doing that. So be ready to think. And if you like to take notes, maybe grab a pen and paper if you can, to motivate you in that quest. Before we begin, I encourage you to consider what might be different for you if you had truly, genuinely happier days. If you could eliminate one thing that’s bogging you down in that kind of negative way, what would it be? Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch, and more. It’s all waiting for you in the app you’re listening to and at thebrainybusiness.com/590. Now let’s jump right in.
Studying the Role of Time in Happiness
Melina Palmer: Dr. Cassie Holmes, welcome to The Brainy Business Podcast.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Thanks so much for having me.
Melina Palmer: I’m so, so excited for you to be back. It’s funny as our listeners, you know, who’ve been here for a while, and of course we’re going to reference back to the conversation with you and Ayelet that ended the year, talking about having a happier, better 2023 and beyond. And so these are going to come out several weeks apart. But it’s like you and I just talked what feels like 10 minutes ago because we got, you know, holidays in there and all this stuff. So, feels like it’s right here. But for everybody who has not yet heard about you and your background and the work that you do, can you share a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Absolutely. Well, I am really excited to chat with you again to talk more specifically about the work that I do. And what I do is I study happiness, and in particular the role of time. And I’ve been doing this throughout my career and interestingly I used to have to motivate why we care about happiness. And I also want to say when I use the word, what I’m talking about is what we refer to as subjective well-being: so both more positive emotion than negative emotion in the moment in the day-to-day, but also that evaluation of one’s life or one’s days as satisfying. And I used to have to motivate why we care about happiness. But sadly, in the last couple of years, with anxiety rates, depression rates, burnout rates as high as they are, nobody takes our emotional well-being for granted anymore. And so I don’t have to share all the studies that show that when we feel happier, it makes us better in the work environment, makes us more creative and adaptive in our problem solving, it makes us nicer, we’re more likely to help others out. Basically, when we feel happier, it’s not frivolous because it helps us across our domains of life, nor is it selfish because it actually makes us show up better for those around us.
And then I also focus on the role of time in particular, recognizing that the hours of our days sum up to the years of our lives. Recognizing again, actually in the face of the pandemic, it’s become all too clear that our lives are finite and precious and fragile, and therefore our time is really precious. And so folks are trying to figure out, how do I invest the hours of my days to feel more satisfied, more joy, more meaning? And that is what I look at in my research. And I developed a course. Sadly for us academics, not many people read our academic peer-reviewed papers. And I was like, oh my gosh, there’s a lot of insights and applications that folks are missing out on. So a couple years ago, or four years ago, I developed a course applying the science of happiness to life design that I’ve been teaching at UCLA to our MBAs and our executive MBAs to basically figure out how do we spend our time better so that we feel better in the day-to-day, as well as align our careers so it’s more satisfying, as well as design our lives so that they’re more fulfilling and aligned with what matters to us.
And when I saw just how impactful the course was—of course measurement, like I would measure, I do measure before the course, all my students’ happiness, sense of connection, sense of meaning, sense of engagement. And at the end of the course, every single time I teach it, on all of those really important dimensions, it goes up significantly. But also the anecdotal, like my students telling me during the course how it’s impacting them, but then years later reaching out and telling me how it’s helped them in their lives, both professionally and personally. And so when I was approached to write a book, I was like, yes, because not everyone can sit in my class, but these empirically based learnings can help so many. And so Happier Hour, I spent the last two years writing it hopefully in a way that is engaging and feels like story so that it’s not just reading a boring research paper, but also sharing the assignments that I give my students as exercises in the book so that readers can apply the insights and experience the benefits, just like someone would in my course.
Melina Palmer: Yes.
Melina Palmer: And yes, it is just to say, having read it, and I will say for everyone who’s listening that if you enjoyed my first book, especially so if you liked What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You and the apply-it sections at the end of the chapters and references for things, you are, no question, going to love Cassie’s book because it’s so well put together. It is really great story. I love starting on the train or in the taxi or whatever on the way home. Now I’m kind of mixing that up, but you know, it’s just really well told and we’re going on a journey with you. And then the breakouts that are just, “Go now, go do this thing and do this and do that and do it this way, and this is what the chart looks like, and you can go to my website to be able to get the chart to use it yourself.” It’s super easy. It’s one of those things, and I say this with all of my work and in the books and things too, is most of it’s not hard conceptually, and it takes a lot of grit and focused effort to do the thing. You have to commit to doing whatever the thing is and changing some of your habits and just knowing that you can’t change everything, but you’re going to change the right things and you’re going to choose the ones that matter to you. You just have to put some effort behind it, and you can have this huge impact from changing a couple little things if you put a little focused effort forward. I really enjoyed the way that you included those exercises. I think my process for this is read through the whole book so you can get the lay of the land, and then you can circle back and say, “Okay, now I’m going to do step one, right? I know where I’m going, I’ve got the plan, and I’m going to come back and do my 30 minutes of daily exercise for two weeks.”
Melina Palmer: That’s the one that you’re like, “Oh, that’s the thing I need to do.”
Melina Palmer: I think that was the first one. I think that’s where you start for step one, right? Maybe not.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Yeah, but absolutely, like, I include all of the assignments and all of the exercises, and not each one is going to be similarly impactful for everyone, but each one of them will be most impactful for someone. So that’s why I include it. And I actually even have data to support that in my course. At the end of the class, I ask my students to write down what was most impactful in your life, and every single assignment was mentioned by at least two people as their most impactful. So I like your approach: read over all of it and then go back and start applying what can be most helpful.
And to your point, a lot of these little changes or little things to do can have a really big effect. So it’s not like you have to quit your job, or start training for a marathon, or change your approach to people at all. It is just little changes. And actually, I think some of the most powerful things are even the perspective that’s offered of recognizing how important our time is, and sort of that motivation and incentive to be more intentional about how we spend our time and therefore make the time that we’re spending both on the activities that we’re spending on as well as how we’re engaging during that time count. Really, the goal is to make more of your time, maximize the amount of time that feels worthwhile and minimize the amount of time that feels like a waste.
I want to point out that this is quite a different approach to time management than I think many take. I think oftentimes time management is all about efficiency—getting as many things checked off as quickly as possible. But that is not taking into account that the time you’re spending on those activities is the fabric of your life. So you don’t want to just be moving through it to check things off. Also, it’s not taking into account what are those activities that are most important. Some of those really important things you don’t want to rush through—they themselves take time. And so the goal, and what I encourage folks to think about when investing their time—and I actually like the phrasing “investing” as opposed to “managing”—it’s like, you know, this is what we have. This is our resource that we are investing and spending in a way that is going to be most worthwhile. And when I say “worthwhile,” it is not just about productivity. It is about what brings you joy, what feels fulfilling, what is satisfying, and that’s the goal.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, I really like that.
Melina Palmer: There’s a lot of language that you use in the book that I think is just a slight reframe, like you’re saying there on time management versus time investment or investing in your time, and that helps you to think about it in a slightly different way. That helps you approach—the whole mindset gets a little bit different there.
Overcoming Time Poverty and Finding Balance
Melina Palmer: The other one is when you talk about time poverty, you know, and being time poor, and that because of this balance between money and time—can you share a little bit about that? Because I just love how you talk about it.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Yeah, and I’m absolutely happy to. It’s really from my own experience of feeling time poor that motivated the book and that story that you referenced that involved both the train and a taxi. So you are good.
Melina Palmer: Okay, good.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: It was a day in my life, but one that I share because I think so many people can relate to it. It was earlier in my career when I was an assistant professor at Wharton, living in Philly. It was a day that I had gone up to give a talk in New York. It was sort of rushing to get to the talk, and then my talk was sandwiched within back-to-back meetings, and then rushing to this colleague dinner, and then realizing, “Oh my gosh, I’ve gotten so late.”
This is where the taxi comes in. I get in a taxi yelling at the already fast New York City cab driver to go even faster. I am not someone who yells; meanwhile, I was yelling at him like, “Go even faster!” because I couldn’t miss the last train that would get me home to my 4-month-old and my husband asleep in Philly. I did make the train, but I remember so vividly sort of sinking into my seat on the train that night, resting my head on the window, looking out at the night as it was whizzing by. I was like, “I don’t know if I can keep up between the pressures of work, wanting to be a good parent, wanting to be a good partner, wanting to be a good friend, the never-ending pile of chores.” It was simply too much to do and not enough time to do it, let alone to do any of it well, let alone to enjoy any of it along the way. I wanted more time so that I could not just get more done, but so that I could slow down and actually experience the time that I was spending, so that my life wouldn’t be passing by in this blur that I was seeing outside the train window.
I know now that what I was feeling is what we refer to in the literature as time poverty. That’s that acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. It’s prevalent. We’ve conducted a national poll showing that nearly half of Americans feel this way—that they don’t have enough time. Moms tend to feel more time poor than dads. Working parents tend to feel particularly impoverished. But all types of people, even if you don’t work for pay, even if you don’t have kids, are subject to feeling like you don’t have enough time to do all that you want to do.
In that state on the train that night, I was like, “Okay, well the solution is obvious. I need to quit. I need to quit my job, right, and move to a sunny, slow-paced island somewhere.” I know I am not the only one that has had this daydream on those crazy, hectic days where it’s just like, “I’m done, I’m out.”
Melina Palmer: Yeah.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Thinking that if only I have all the hours of the day to spend exactly how I want to rest, relax, do whatever, then I would be happier. But then I was like, before I quit my job that I’d worked so hard for, is it true? Is it true that people with a whole lot more time are significantly happier?
This is a testable question. So I’ve since gone on to test it with some of my favorite collaborators, Hal Hirschfield and Marissa Sharif. What we did was we looked at what’s that relationship between the amount of discretionary time people have and their happiness. Among our studies, in one of them, we analyzed data from the American Time Use Survey, looking for tens of thousands of working and non-working Americans at how they spent a regular day. We could calculate how much time they spent on discretionary activities and relate that to their happiness. What we found across our studies was this consistent pattern of results: it’s like an upside-down U, like a rainbow. It goes down on both ends of the spectrum in terms of happiness.
Yes, with too little discretionary time, people are less happy. That’s like me on the train. That’s like, as you’re nodding, so many are like, “Oh my God, life is so busy and I’m stressed out.” Higher levels of stress are what make the people who feel time poor less happy. But what was more surprising was that other end of the spectrum where we saw that there is such a thing as having too much available time. Looking into it, like why, when we’re daydreaming, that just sounds lovely—how could that be bad? It turns out that we are driven to be somewhat productive. We do want to spend the hours of our days with something to show for how we spent those hours. We are averse to being idle. When we have too much discretionary time spent in ways that don’t feel worthwhile, that undermines our sense of purpose. With that, we feel less satisfied.
There are ways of spending time that don’t involve paid work that do feel worthwhile and contribute to our sense of purpose, like volunteer work or engaging in a hobby that builds you and helps you develop. But I recognize for me and for many, work is actually a great source of purpose. It helps us feel not only productive, but it helps us contribute to whomever you want to have an impact on—to our society, to your organization, to your family. So that’s all to say that when we feel time poor, the answer is not to quit and have a whole lot more time. Unlike many things, more is not better.
In the data, there’s a really wide range—between approximately two and five hours of discretionary time in the day, the relationship was flat. That is, it’s not about how much time you have available, it’s really about how you invest the time you have available. That’s what propelled my research agenda from there: how do we invest our hours so that our time feels fulfilling? So that, yes, even though at the end of the day you might have been busy, instead of that depleted, stressed, overwhelmed state like me on the train, even though busy, you feel fulfilled and satisfied because you have invested and spent on these things that really matter to you.
Melina Palmer: Yeah. And I will say this, which drops in super early in the book with the U-shape and the two to five hours. I was like, mic drop moment for the book! You’ve answered this big question where it’s like, “How much time should I spend, and what do I need, and what’s the minimum, and how can I figure this out?” It’s like, boom, answered, done. Then all the ways to fill that up… My husband and I have been talking about this for a long time, and it’s such an easy thing to say that whether it’s two hours or five hours that you have doesn’t really matter on that happiness level.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Right.
Melina Palmer: Where it feels like, “I need this much more, and if I only had all the extra, then I would have this benefit.” But if you are really taking the efficiency in there, if you only have two hours and you can use it well and be really thoughtful about that, you can be just as happy as you would have been if you had five and be able to get some of these other things done as well.
I’m going to phrase this for everyone listening who’s maybe asking: Do I have to have a solid two hours or five hours? Or how does this spread throughout my day on this discretionary time? Do I have to have a big chunk of stuff? And what is discretionary time anyway? What does that even mean from one person to the next?
Dr. Cassie Holmes: All great questions.
Categorizing Time and Tracking Your Routine
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Getting to that first one of what is discretionary time: the way we operationalized it was basically taking these categories of activities and saying that we would count anything that more than 90% of people said is something they want to do. Discretionary is what you want to do, as opposed to non-discretionary or obligatory, which is something you have to do. We chose 90% because we wanted to be really conservative—something that is truly discretionary versus “for some people yes, for some people no.” But even when we relaxed it to 75% of people agreeing that an activity was discretionary, we saw the same pattern of results.
The activities that got categorized by the broad sample as discretionary included things like “doing nothing,” relaxing, watching TV, and scrolling social media—these really passive ways of spending. But it also included active leisure like playing sports, going to sporting events, and socializing—spending time with family and friends in a social way, not as an obligation, but engaging with people and pursuing enriching hobbies.
Notably, though, there will be some activities that for some—like cooking… You actually talked about Thanksgiving and the opportunity to try out new recipes, so you enjoy cooking. I do not. So it is very clear. But ultimately, what counts as discretionary or not isn’t what matters. I share exercises in the book to help folks identify for themselves what are those worthwhile ways of spending.
Time tracking is a very helpful exercise. Researchers use time tracking to pull out what are those activities that tend to produce the most positive emotion or most negative emotion. You track people over the course of their days looking at what they’re doing as well as how they’re feeling. What the research shows is that on average, people are most satisfied and happiest from social connection—whether through physical intimacy or spending time connecting with family and friends (connecting in real life, not social media connecting). The least happy activities tend to be commuting, work hours, and housework.
But that’s based on averages. I can say for me, I actually really love my work. I’m sure everyone can think of a social activity that was not at all fun. So what I encourage folks to do is to track their own time. Over the course of a week, write down—and this is where on my website there’s a super easy printable worksheet. It’s so old school, or you could use an app, but the old school worksheet is very easy and it works. Basically, what you’re writing down for every half hour is: what activity are you doing? Be more specific than just “family time” or “work”—what are you doing with your family? What family members are there? What work activity are you doing? Also, rate on a 10-point scale coming out of that activity how you felt: how satisfying, how joyful, or how stressful—from positive to negative.
While tedious to actually track the time, it is so helpful because at the end of the week, you have this fantastic personalized dataset that you can look across for yourself. What are those activities that made you feel most satisfied that got your highest ratings? You can also look at what are some commonalities across those happiest activities.
An example that I saw very much in my data is that it was not just “socializing” in general; I really value one-on-one time. Whether with my family—like I really love my one-on-one time with my daughter, my one-on-one time with my husband, or my son—or with friends. I like one-on-one time with a friend versus a big group or a cocktail party. Some of my happiest, most connecting moments were one-on-one time with a colleague having a really good conversation, whether work-related or connecting through friendship. That was really informative because then with that information, as you’re thinking about how you invest your time for social connection, you know what way is going to be most worthwhile. That can be very informative. I’m like, “All right, for me, instead of going to group lunches with my colleagues, I actually set up one-on-one lunches or coffees.”
You can also see just how much time you’re spending on your various activities. You can find out, “Holy cow, I had no idea that I spent that much time on this activity, and look, it doesn’t even make me that happy, and it’s not even necessary!” The activity that is in my head right now, because I see it show up this way in so many of my students’ data, is social media. One of my students spent over 12 hours in a week on social media. She’s busy—working towards her MBA, working full-time. She thought she didn’t have time to meet up with her friend for dinner, but she was on social media for a dozen hours that week, and it didn’t even make her happy. She looks at her ratings, and it’s a four. That’s not fun time! That’s a great opportunity to realize, “Oh, that’s a whole lot of time that I don’t have to spend,” and then reallocating it towards things that are worthwhile, like meeting up with that friend for dinner that you initially thought you didn’t have time for. You do have time, and when you make the time, you come out of it feeling so much better than with all that wasted time.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoyed that in the book, too. There was the example of cooking to say, “Okay, I was cooking and I hated it,” or “I was cooking and I was really happy.” But if you just say “cooking” or “dinner” and you don’t notice that dinner on Tuesday night between pickups and soccer practice and calls and the PTA meeting sucks and I really hate that, versus the example in the book where on Friday or Saturday night with a glass of wine and my husband, we’re spending time creating a fun menu, chatting, and having a leisurely dinner—that is lovely and I enjoy that. What’s the difference between the two things, and where can you find the value points? Maybe you bring a little bit of the Friday experience to Tuesday, or maybe we say on Tuesdays we just get pizza and we’re cool with that because me cooking is not worth it. Or you do something in the crockpot to make it easier and find those connection points.
Finding those common threads that exist from tracking… I know you were talking about spending time outside as something that you found was really important for you. Philadelphia is nice sometimes outside!
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Yes, it is easier to get sunshine outside, but irrespective, the research shows that being outside is a significant mood booster. There’s an interesting study that came out of the UK where they used geolocation data to see at any moment where someone was, and then it would ping them and ask how they were feeling. What they found was simply being outside had a significant positive effect. The UK, unlike where I am in Santa Monica, is not notorious for having fabulous weather, but they found people were even happier when it was sunny compared to when it was bad weather. There was a positive effect of being in a natural environment versus an urban environment. But controlling for those factors, simply being outside had its own significantly positive effect.
This is a really good recognition that just little things can actually have big effects. Recognizing that, it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to make a point that I’m going to get outside.” Particularly now, so many people are working from home, so you can spend an entire day—
Melina Palmer: —not leaving, or a week not leaving my house. There’s no reason to get out.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: It can seep in and have a negative effect on our mood. So simply getting outside, going for a walk around the block… And for me, exercise is also an activity that is a significant mood booster. It helps increase a sense of self-efficacy, it helps offset anxiety, and you don’t have to do a crazy amount. It doesn’t have to be super extreme, but it really has a positive effect. So recognizing that, it’s like, “Go outside for a walk around the block.”
Melina Palmer: Right. You don’t have to do super intense CrossFit for four hours or something; we can just go do a little bit of exercise, especially if we can combine it with being outside.
I’m going to link for everyone in the show notes my interview with Dr. Jay Maddock from Texas A&M University on the brainy health benefits of nature. He talks about some of the research that he’s doing on nature, what aspects of nature and the senses bring in those mood boosters, and things they’re doing with virtual reality that’s really cool and interesting. For people that can’t get out into nature, what are the pieces that are important for us? It’s a really interesting episode, so I’m going to link to that for everybody who wants to know more about being outside and the value that it has for us as humans.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Yeah. When we’re talking about time poverty and this feeling of not having enough time, there’s really neat work by Jennifer Aaker, Kathleen Vohs, and Melanie Rudd which showed that experiencing awe can increase one’s sense of time affluence. Nature is one of those sources of awe. You can understand why: now I live closer to the Pacific Ocean, so for me, going to the beach and having that horizon and big sky in front of me gives perspective. Or being outside in a park, seeing a sunrise or a sunset—that gives you perspective. It expands your perspective, and with that sense of expanse, it lessens our sense of constraint of our resources, in particular with respect to time.
I encourage my students to do this because so many people suffer from intense anxiety from getting things done, the urgency of everything, and deadlines due. There is a lot of value in stepping outside, going to a park, and taking those big breaths. That will lessen that anxiety and lessen that sense of urgency because it puts stuff in that broader perspective.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, absolutely. To put a fine point on what we’ve been talking about and answer my own question from before for everyone who’s curious: we don’t have to have a block of two hours, but we can be spreading that throughout the day?
I am notorious for asking 10 questions in one question and sort of letting it go, but in this case, I think people are going to say, “Melina, what the heck? Make sure this gets answered!”
Dr. Cassie Holmes: You don’t have to do it all in one block. Also, you don’t even have to make every day be the end-all, be-all. I actually suggest that people think about their week as what they are designing for, so that you can see what really matters to you. Investing in a relationship could be a half-hour coffee date or a half-hour really good conversation placed somewhere within your week. That half hour can have a really big effect on your overall sense of connection if it’s really thoughtful, you are not distracted, and you’re super engaged.
Yes, you can break up these worthwhile ways of spending, but you need to keep in mind how much time is needed for that time to be worthwhile. The reason I bring that up is because getting into flow—when you’re doing the work that really matters to you, that is totally in line with your purpose, what you love to do, and your skills—there’s no way you’re going to get into flow in little snippets of time. When you’re in flow, you totally lose your sense of time. You’re so engaged in what you’re doing, and when you come out of it, that’s where you feel the satisfaction. During it, you’re so engaged you’re not even thinking, “How am I feeling right now?” You’re just in it.
You can’t get into those flow states when you’re being interrupted by pings on your email where you think, “Oh, I’ll respond to this quickly and then get back to my task.” Even seeing your phone reminds you of all these other things you maybe could and should be doing. Some of the worthwhile activities, like those really connecting conversations, you can’t squish into 20 minutes. So be thoughtful. Have the activity that you are investing in be the thing that drives how much time you need.
Savoring the Moment: Turning Routines into Rituals
Dr. Cassie Holmes: It’s not the amount of time you have available that determines happiness, nor is it the amount of time you spend on a particular activity that determines happiness. It’s really the quality and your engagement in the activity that determines it.
One of the strategies I talk about in the book for how to make our time better comes out of the observation that we get used to things over time. Hedonic adaptation is the fact that when we do the same thing over and over again or are with the same person again and again, it stops having the same emotional impact. That’s good when we are adapting in the face of negative circumstances, but it’s bad when we’re spending in ways that really could bring us joy, but since we’ve done it again and again, we’ve gotten so used to it we don’t even notice it. So it doesn’t bring us joy.
I share strategies for how we offset hedonic adaptation. How do we make it so that we continue to savor those simple pleasures? In my work, I found that ordinary experiences can bring us as much joy as extraordinary experiences if only we’re paying attention—if only we’re savoring them and cherishing them for what they are.
One of those strategies is to turn routine into ritual. Routine is helpful because it means we don’t have to pay attention all the time; routine is good because that’s where we form positive habits. But because we’re not paying attention, we’re not continuing to enjoy the potential happiness from it. One way is simply reframing a routine as a ritual. You talked about making dinner with your partner on a Friday night. That’s something you might do every Friday night, but if you turn it into a ritual—you turn on music at a certain time, you pour yourself a glass of wine—it creates this special thing that you and your partner do together. Research shows that partners or couples who have shared rituals report greater relationship satisfaction.
You can think about giving it a name, like your “Friday Night Cooking Date.” It makes it more special and meaningful, and it draws your attention to it. What’s also cool about it is that it’s not just that hour that you’re spending that affects your emotional experience, but you look forward to those dates throughout the week, so there’s that anticipation of it. When you’re in it, your phone is away, so you’re not getting distracted; you’re just totally immersed, hanging out with your person, enjoying yourself, and getting into that conversation. Then you can reflect back on it. It’s not just the amount of time you spend that determines its impact; it’s really how you mentally engage in that time, and even when you’re not spending the time, what you’re drawing your attention to.
When I ask you, “How happy are you? How satisfied are you?”, your answer will be influenced by what you’re focusing on. You can choose to focus on all the bad, or you can focus on the good stuff. Along the way, you can spend time in ways that help you focus on the good stuff by savoring those rituals. We have agency in this.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, definitely. Everything in the book resonates so much with me. I see a lot of similarities in things—other than me liking to cook and bake and you totally not! But running and getting outside is kind of like meditation or “me time” that I always feel better when I’m able to start the day that way. You talked about your husband; my husband and I love doing long drives, going out somewhere and chatting while the kids are sleeping in the backseat or playing iPads. Having these deep, meaningful conversations when we’re out on a drive… We went on a trip that was five or six days before we had the little one, and we were driving solid all day together doing stuff. We got back at the end of this five-day span and realized, “Oh my gosh, we didn’t even talk about all these other things—we still have so much to talk about!”
Cultivating Meaningful Relationships
Melina Palmer: I resonated with some of the stories you were sharing about you and your husband and that sort of connection. When you find your person—whether that’s a friend, a family member, a significant other, or your children—letting others fill you up and filling yourself up helps lift everybody together in a really great way.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Absolutely. That sense of connection requires investment. When I talk about time investment, the most worthwhile investment is in cultivating these relationships in a way that is connecting.
There’s a really interesting study, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which tracked a cohort of men over their entire lives—for over 75 years this study has been going on. Most of the guys have died at this point, but they followed them over the years, connecting with them every so often to interview and survey them: “What are you doing? How are you doing?” What they found at the end of these guys’ lives was that the single biggest predictor of feeling satisfied in life—and there was a lot of variation in this cohort, including a U.S. President and people who were definitely not as successful—was not fortune, nor was it fame. It was having strong, supportive relationships, whether in the form of family or friends that feel like family. Having people who support you and know you requires investment. It requires you to invest your time, spend your time making the time to have those conversations, and when you’re having them, not being distracted, rushing through it, or thinking about what’s next, which we are so apt to do.
I share stories in the book of walking my three-year-old son to school. It was a moment I had worked so hard to create—this perfectness. We were living in Southern California, living next to campus so I could walk my son to his preschool. Commuting was this glorious thing walking through UCLA’s beautiful campus with the sun shining, and I have this adorable little three-year-old who is laughing, skipping, and having the time of his life. Here I am charging ahead because in my head I’m thinking about my next meeting, getting there fast, and all that I had to do that day. It was totally pulling me out of the moment.
On this one morning, he says, “Mom, wait.”
And I said, “We don’t have time to wait!”
And then he says, “But Mom…”
I turn around, and he had his nose buried in a bush of white roses. Before I could stop it from coming out of my mouth, I yell at him, “We don’t have time to stop and smell the roses!”
When I heard those words come out of my mouth, I was like, “Oh my gosh, it was so on the nose!” I’m yelling that we don’t have time to stop and smell the roses, but of course we do. Of course I needed to just pay attention, because that time with my son—those moments are passing and they are precious. That presence is required.
Of course we have things to do, and there are going to be a lot of times that we’re rushing through. But what I’m hoping to help lead people to do as they are designing their weeks is to apply some of these strategies and be thoughtful, intentional, and deliberate about what you make time for. Recognize that, “Okay, I’ve made time for this because it’s important, and this is the time that I’ve devoted to this. All the other stuff will happen at other points of the week. This is the time for this, so I better pay attention.” You can pay attention because this is time dedicated for that special, important thing. That’s the goal: to have people in those moments pause, at least for a moment, and smell the roses—whatever the roses are. They show up in all these different ways. But if we’re rushing through it all because we are time poor, looking to check things off our list, then we might as well not have spent the time in the first place. Then it’s just lost, and we look back with regret.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, for sure. Whatever your literal or metaphorical roses are, stop and smell them and be in the moments that you have.
Melina Palmer: I’m definitely going to be linking to the conversation when you were on the show with Ayelet from a couple of weeks back. You mentioned a little bit of research then… Having a work best friend also increases engagement. For everybody saying, “Okay, this is The Brainy Business, we’re talking about individuals a lot here”—businesses are made up of human people, and you want them to be happy! Having more engaged, more loyal, happier employees is very valuable, and cultivating those relationships at work is very important for satisfaction.
Ditching Resolutions for Intentional Living
Melina Palmer: The one thing that I promised when we talked before: I ended the other episode by asking if you make New Year’s resolutions, and you said no, and we didn’t have time to explain why.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Yeah, you didn’t either!
Melina Palmer: I know. Do you have a moment to share why you don’t make New Year’s resolutions for everyone who’s lost or abandoned theirs perhaps at this point? Is there something you do instead that you recommend for people?
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Well, I try to spend my time throughout the year in ways that feel satisfying, fulfilling, and rewarding. I’m sort of nervous about a New Year’s resolution because those seem to be really active at the beginning of the year and then give way, whereas my goal is throughout the year to invest in these things that really matter.
The last time I made a New Year’s resolution, it was a really hard one, but it was an important one. This was back when I was in Philly on those late train nights: I made a resolution not to work on the weekends. I did it for some time, but it highlighted that it shouldn’t be so hard to spend time across all of these worthwhile activities—with the work we do and love, but also the stuff we love to do outside of work. It shouldn’t be such a “should.” That’s why I don’t want New Year’s resolutions, because then it makes everything “shitty.”
Melina Palmer: Yes! That sounds so funny.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: I know.
Melina Palmer: I was like—
Dr. Cassie Holmes: It almost sounded like a swear word!
Melina Palmer: I say it in my book all the time: “should” is a four-letter word here at The Brainy Business.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Right.
Melina Palmer: To say that that just makes everything “shitty” is my new favorite term! That’s happening, world—get ready for me to say that all the time.
I have a pretty similar reason as to why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions—perhaps some psychological reactance in there. I don’t want to do it because you tell me I have to do it right now, and also because I don’t want to have to wait until the beginning of the year to do something big and important. Instead, I will choose a “word of the year.” That word and theme helps me throughout the whole year—it’s a practice that I always do. I also like to reflect and think about what’s going to be important in the next year, but I don’t do it in that way of a resolution.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: What’s your word for this year?
Melina Palmer: For 2022, my word had a duality to it: it was “content” and “content.” You’re able to look at it in both ways: focusing on the content that I am creating in a way that makes me content and makes others content in reading and engaging with it. Focusing on my own contentment and how I look at content creation was the theme of 2022.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Love it! Do you have your 2023 word?
Melina Palmer: I don’t yet! This is going to come out in January, so I have to be thinking about what the word is going to be. It actually might end up continuing this theme into 2023, but I can do an update for people on social media. When I message about this episode when it comes out, I’ll have the word of the year for this next year.
I love asking people what theirs is going to be and the reason behind it—the brain associations of “I choose balance because it means balance to me in this, that, and the other thing.” Someone said they were picking “hope” or “faith” because it was their daughter’s name, but it was also important to them in another aspect of their life for finding the balance of family. It’s really cool to see the words that people choose, and then they can be a theme that surrounds you with one thing you’re going to filter for. I think it’s a really cool way to approach vision boards or whatever else you use.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Very cool. Now I’m going to start thinking about my word! I love the fact that you’re not ready to change yours from this year because it’s been so powerful. To your point, you don’t want to make New Year’s resolutions because you don’t want to have to wait, but also if something is working, that aligns with why I don’t make resolutions. I want every day to be what I want it to be, and if you’re executing on that, be content with what you have going.
Melina Palmer: Just live in it if it needs to live a little bit longer, and maybe it’ll be a mid-year switch or something. I’m okay with that because I’m not so tied to the New Year’s resolution.
For everyone listening, whenever you’re hearing this, if you have a word of the year, a word of the month, or a word of the day that you want to share with Cassie and me, please do! You can tag me on social media as @TheBrainyBiz.
Cassie, where’s the best place for people to find and connect with you as they tag us?
Dr. Cassie Holmes: I’m not really on social media other than LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, and you can find out about me on my website, cassiemholmes.com.
Melina Palmer: Wonderful. We’ll definitely link to both of those in the show notes. It’ll be kind of a weird meta-experience: I’m going to end up doing a post around New Year’s talking about a word of the year in which I will tag you, which will come out a month after we’re talking now, but a month before this episode comes out, so it’s going to be this weird time travel!
Dr. Cassie Holmes: It’s super fun!
Melina Palmer: Yep, so we’ll be linking to that in the show notes, too. Hopefully when you come up with your word of the year, you can share it with us all as well.
Dr. Cassie Holmes: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, this was such a treat.
Melina Palmer: Of course, thanks for joining me. Until next time—I guess we’re going to talk again in 10 days to see you here next time!
Dr. Cassie Holmes: I hope so! I like this tradition, this ritual.
Melina Palmer: I love it. All right, thanks.
Final Takeaways on Investing Your Time
Melina Palmer: Thank you again to Dr. Cassie Holmes for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today’s conversation?
For me, I always go back to the knowledge that as little as two hours of discretionary time in a day is enough to get you that peak happiness space, and knowing that it isn’t ongoing up and up, but that you should try to be between two and five hours, makes it feel that much more attainable. Knowing there’s that cap feels doable for most of us, especially since you can break up that time. You don’t need a solid four-hour block or something, because we all know that’s not going to happen. But can I find five minutes here, ten minutes over there? Absolutely, and it adds up.
Some of the things I’ve done since first hearing about this a few years ago and reading Cassie’s book is to do five-minute core or stretching classes on Peloton (Apple Fitness or YouTube have that stuff, too). I love that I can just take a quick five-minute break to do something for me. Sometimes I do 10 minutes, but it’s better to do five than none thinking I’m going to wait until I have 10, 15, or 30 minutes, you know?
I also do the bedtime routine with my little guy pretty much every night when I’m home. He loves books and would have me read him a thousand if I was willing to do so, but we get some time to read and exist together, which is nice. I also enjoy going for walks, and when the weather’s nice and I don’t have calls, I work outside on the back deck. We have been focusing on our yard this year, so I also take the time to water and deadhead the plants, admire them, and harvest our veggies, which is exciting. While as a kid I really hated yard work, being able to do it with intention from things I planted feels a little bit different—it’s like a happier space for me when I think about it in that way.
I’ve also made time for exercising, like going to CrossFit a few times a week or doing Pilates. I read a fiction book on a trip for the first time in what feels like a hundred years, and I found a podcast that I just enjoy listening to that’s not about work. There are lots of options, and what’s important is that the things that resonate for me may not be what resonates for you. Like I said, past me really hated yard work, but I like that now!
That’s the opportunity in finding what’s going to make you happier and get your minimum of two hours a day. A great place to start, of course, is with the recommendations Cassie made in the conversation today and in her book Happier Hour, like the tracking exercise that you can do for a week to see where your time’s going and how happy or unhappy it’s making you feel. This helps you find stuff to cut, like mindless scrolling on the phone, just watching shows, or busywork that could be eliminated or hired out. That’s a great place to start chipping away at to get to your two hours.
Remember, an intentional five minutes for you is enough to start. Just do one thing today, even if it’s only for a few minutes, toward your own balance and happiness. What will you do to literally or metaphorically stop and smell the roses? I’d love to hear what you choose!
Whatever it is, come share it with me on social media. You’re going to find me as @TheBrainyBiz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, as well as links to my top related past episodes and books, including Happier Hour, ways to get in touch, and more. It’s all waiting for you in the app you’re listening to and at thebrainybusiness.com/590.
Thank you again to Dr. Cassie Holmes for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another brainy episode of The Brainy Business Podcast. It’s going to be a lot of fun—you don’t want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
Announcer: Thank you for listening to The Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops, and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.
