
You Don’t Need More Free Time - otoolep
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/opinion/sunday/you-dont-need-more-free-time.html
======
abalashov
Having been self-employed for eight years now, with all the 24/7 life/work
home/office work/play crossover it brings, it's been so long since I could
relate to this perspective, or experience the joy of happy hour or TGIF. I
often work weekends, while am prone to accomplish very little on a random
Wednesday.

It's not that I'm always working or that I'm preternaturally time-efficient,
organised or productive, it's just that there are no clear boundaries between
work and non-work hours (for good or ill), nor between most friends and
colleagues.

Maybe this doesn't apply to most people, but with the proportion of the
economy accounted for by solitary freelancers expected to rise, I would think
I'm not the only one who doesn't even remember what weekends or holidays are
anymore. If so, it seems to me that a more enlightened and forward-thinking
perspective would take into account the fluidity of work-life space for many
Millennials (and beyond), rather than trying to shoehorn us back into mid 20th
century big-corporate life rhythms.

EDIT: My personal investment in that viewpoint has been largely about finding
better workplaces and better ways to work, e.g.
[http://likewise.am/2015/12/18/why-i-love-industrious-and-
abo...](http://likewise.am/2015/12/18/why-i-love-industrious-and-about-
coworking-and-offices-more-generally/)

~~~
scrollaway
I feel you. I'm a non-24 so regular office hours are often problematic for me.
When I was self-employed, I'd just work whenever I would feel like, be it
regular hours or weekends, day or night. I'd accomplish a lot more because I
would simply be in the right mood for work at that time.

I tried a 9-5 "flexible" job (remote foss work) for a year or so and was often
extremely unproductive, sometimes for several weeks. It just clashes with the
way I operate.

For most of the past year I've been trying to follow my github streak to
maintain the idea of doing a little work every day, no matter how small
([https://github.com/jleclanche/](https://github.com/jleclanche/)). It's been
an incredibly productive year and I've never felt unproductive like I did
before. I haven't felt the need for holidays because my "work days" are not
tiresome. I still take holidays sometimes, as long as I can get one small
piece of work done during the day, even if it only takes 15 minutes.

I kinda miss freelancing, although closed-source work makes me itch nowadays.

~~~
toomuchtodo
You might checkout Redhat and Mozilla. I've heard nothing but good things from
people working remotely at both orgs, and they have FOSS projects for people
to work on.

------
mbrock
Being unemployed seems like a very different situation from having one more
day off per week. If I had one more day off, my life would be the same in
terms of social connection, except that I'd have more time to relax, recharge,
and engage in solitary hobbies. The people I've worked with who have had
Wednesdays off certainly weren't bored on their days off; they were giddy and
triumphant on Tuesday afternoon and would spend the free day kayaking, fixing
around the house, reading, etc.

~~~
dasmoth
This resonates. Especially since having a kid, the tension between solitary
and family activities at the weekend has been a real struggle.

~~~
mbrock
If I ever get married I'll put an alone day clause in the contract. I love you
but I need to get away from _everyone_. It can be hard to say without seeming
like you're saying "you're annoying me" but there's just something different
about being _alone_. At least if I have a meditation bench, there's that.

~~~
learc83
The problem is that if you have kids, it's going to be almost impossible for
both of you to get an alone day and still have time to do things together.

~~~
Grishnakh
Yep, that's probably a big reason people just aren't having many or any kids
these days.

Back in the "old days", people lived with multiple generations under one roof
and with their extended families. So raising kids was easier because you had a
lot of help: grandparents, uncles/aunts, etc. Then the "nuclear family" came
along in the 50s and things started falling apart. It was OK for a while
because women were relegated to near-slavery, but then things changed and we
had two working parents, and then there wasn't enough time to parent properly.

------
coldtea
> _it’s not just that we have a shortage of free time; it’s also that our free
> time, in order to be satisfying, often must align with that of our friends
> and loved ones. We face a problem, in other words, of coordination._

Isn't it obvious that if we all get more free time, it will align with others
much more easily? So, it's not that "you don't need more free time", it's "you
all need more free time".

~~~
douche
Assuming that the activities that you find satisfying involve interacting with
other people.

I'm pretty psyched when I have more solitary free time that I can devote to
reading, or working on my own coding projects, or going hiking with my dog. Or
just being free to deal with appointments and errands outside of the tiny
windows of time that intersect between the business hours of other entities
and my pre/post work hours and lunch breaks.

~~~
coldtea
> _Assuming that the activities that you find satisfying involve interacting
> with other people._

I'd venture to say that for the majority of people, that is the case (the
activities that they find satisfying involve interacting with other people). I
mean, even introverts go on the internet and enjoy stuff involving interacting
other people all the time, the just don't do them in close contact.

But even things that don't involve other people directly (present or remote),
they do involve other people in making them. E.g. reading a blog or a webcomic
or listing to music, still involves these other people (its creators) making
those things.

Hence, when everybody gets more free time, then you get more free time to e.g.
read, and others get more free time to write stuff that you'll eventually
read.

------
Amorymeltzer
tl;dr - Free time is better when other people have the same time off as well.

This feels like a bit of a no-brainer to me, but that doesn't mean more time
off wouldn't be useful. Saturday and Sunday are usually spent catching up on
work, doing some laundry and dishes, and all the other errands we didn't have
time for during the week (groceries, repairs, etc.). We have more leisure time
as well, but a few hours here and there during the week are quite useful, even
if nobody I know shares those hours, as they would let me shift the "boring"
stuff to a time when nobody else is free.

Life is better if I can meet a few friends for brunch Sunday morning because I
had time to get groceries on Tuesday and do laundry on Thursday.

~~~
ritchiea
Exactly! And just because free time is better when there are others around
doesn't mean that extra days off aren't helpful. I'm a contractor and I
regularly have a week or two off between jobs. Sure the weekend is still
better than a Tuesday without work but I can take time on that Tuesday to go
to a movie or a museum on my own and it feels great.

And another thing the study fails to account for is that unemployed people are
less likely to enjoy their days off than employed people. Being unemployed and
seeking a job is stressful, many unemployed people are concerned about how
long it will take to find a new job or what kind of stress is being put on
their finances. If you have stable work and get Wednesday off you can go to
the spa and spend some time in the sauna to relax. If you are unemployed you
are probably being frugal and know it's not wise to spend money that you may
need later to pay your rent.

This article is narrow sighted rubbish trying to twist the author's research
to have greater impact.

------
blabla_blublu
The study does not account for the fact that some people simply choose to
spend their free time by themselves and do not indulge in 'social' activities.
Including the average size of the participant's social circle and how they
chose to spent their free time could have been useful.

I am sure a lot of people who travel around by themselves or spend the
weekend(s) hiking/biking their favorite trail, etc. do not really rely on
their free time coinciding with others'.

Thoughts?

~~~
yason
Definitely so. For the half(?) of people who are like this, more time off from
work would be valuable. It would mean more time for being alone and doing your
own things. It's hard to take hours and hours of alone time if you're married
with kids and you stick to the traditional work week schedule. You would
basically need that "other weekend" for yourself, after having been with your
family (and maybe friends) for the "first weekend".

------
cryoshon
"The intuitive finding was that people’s feelings of well-being closely
tracked the workweek. As measured by things such as anxiety, stress, laughter
and enjoyment, our well-being is lowest Monday through Thursday. The workweek
is a slog. Well-being edges up on Friday, and really peaks on Saturday and
Sunday. We are, in a real sense, living for the weekend."

Great, another person admitting that American work culture is slowly killing
people, even the people who aren't actively working. This is an impetus for
change.

"This conclusion points to a key feature of the work-life problem: You cannot
get more “weekend” simply by taking an extra day off work yourself. If we were
to take more time off as individuals, we would be likely to spend that time,
as the jobless do, waiting for other people to finish work. We are stuck “at
work,” in a sense, by the work schedules of our family and friends."

Yes, I found this to be true during my times of unemployment, but only if I
assumed that my daytime hours had to be waiting... there are many ways to be
useful during the day without a job, however that time period will not be
relaxing. Sounds like "more free time" and less "time spent filling a seat"
would lead to more general wellbeing in both employed and unemployed people
because people would have more shared time together and less time in the
stressful and mentally detrimental work environment.

My solution: make all weekends three day weekends and don't alter the amount
that people are paid. Remove the outdated and harmful protestant work ethic
and replace it with the German work ethic: do the work that is requested of
you at maximum efficiency, then leave immediately afterward, and do not answer
the phone or emails. Gutting the idiotic and nigh-suicidal affinity that
people have for wasting time at work without actually doing anything would
also help.

So yeah, we do need more free time, because time spent at work is typically
wasted time as well as mentally unhealthy time. If everyone gets more free
time on the same day, I assume better mental health would result. To be clear,
we've reached the point in our technological development that this goal is
eminently possible if there were political will or popular revolt.

------
sreejithr
BS. I love the weekends because I can sit in my room alone coding, reading a
book or watching some TV series. Lack of social interaction is the highlight.

------
egypturnash
While the article's conceit that free time has more potential to make you
happy when it's free time you can spend with your friends is not untrue, I
think it's pretty obvious that people who are working fewer hours have more
chances for their free time to intersect with their friends. If you and all
your friends work 20 hours a week, but some of them have firm schedules where
they're in the workplace 4h every weekday, while others are in the workplace
for 8h two days and sporadic appearances the rest of the week, and whatever
other configuration of that you can think of, you are all still going to have
a generally higher chance of finding time to spend with each other than if
you're all spending 60h working three part time jobs to make ends meet!

------
davesque
Seems like an assumption to say that "time together" is the key difference.
For example, at various times in my life when I've been jobless, I did
experience similar peeks in my mood over the weekend. But I'm a solitary
person and I was not necessarily spending that much more time with others. I
would say that the difference was psychological. On the weekend, I felt okay
relaxing because I knew everyone else was and the pressure was off of me to be
looking for work. During the week, I couldn't escape thoughts about my
joblessness. The article touches on this slightly when it characterizes the
difference as being more in sync or out of sync with society.

------
spacehome
I'm retired and I still want more free time.

~~~
bisRepetita
Please expand on this. Sincerely curious why/how.

~~~
spacehome
Is it so hard to imagine? Like most here, I enjoy a wide variety of pursuits.
I'm not sure the specific pursuits would matter; everyone can fill in their
own blanks. A single pursuit could easily take dozens of hours per week or
more to enjoy in their fullness. Add in physical fitness, sleep, cooking, and
hygiene, and that's more time than I'm blessed with.

------
zenir
"The solution might be found in a form of constraint: more standardization of
the time for work and the time for life." And stuff gets even more crowded
because everyone is free at the same time, yay.

~~~
dasmoth
Like a lot of sociological research, I don't think this was written with
knowledge workers with hobbies and/or side projects in mind. Still, I found
that statement deeply frustrating.

------
coldtea
> _It seems obvious why working people cherish the weekend: It’s a respite
> from work. But why is the weekend also so important to the unemployed? The
> key to answering this question is to recognize that not all time is equal.
> Time is, in many ways, what sociologists call a “network good.”_

Maybe, besides the "network good" thing, it's also the fact that the workdays
painfully remind the unemployed that they are unemployed?

------
robbrown451
Sounds like a solvable problem, in theory anyway. Some sort of super-smart
fuzzy logic scheduling app where you can plan all the things you want to do,
and everyone who you might need to collaborate/meet with at work, all your
friends you might want to meet up with at the pub or go on a hike with, your
family, and everyone else relevant is on the same app.

(ok in the perfect world it wouldn't be a proprietary app, but a standardized
protocol so whatever app you happen to use negotiates with everyone else's
apps)

Your work hours would change from day to day and week to week, and all things
might shift around (with the exception of things that can't, obviously) but
that's ok.

The longer ahead you plan things, the better, since you'd give it more
flexibility, and the more flexible you are, the more you earn points you get
to spend when you really need them.

It would know things like traffic patterns and when things are crowded, so
instead of just arranging leisure time on the same two days of the week, it
would mix them up.

And of course it should also take into account the weather. I'd like as much
of my actual free time to coincide with sunshine.

------
mpweiher
TL;DR: We _all_ need more free time.

------
gopher2
If this writer doesn't want their free time, can I have it?

Yes I know... probably not the point of the article, but I couldn't get past
the clicky-baity headline.

------
joeguilmette
I am a remote worker. Our team averages 15-30hrs/wk each. Some of us never get
above 15. I personally average 25-30 when I'm at home, and 15-25 when I
travel. I travel for about 6 months out of the year.

If I am not in someone else's company and am able to open my laptop, I'm
working. What I mean by that is when most people would be lounging on their
couch with their laptop cruising reddit, or watching TV aimlessly, or reading,
I end up thinking about work and then just clock in. I get my general goof-off
online time via my phone when I'm getting from A to B or am otherwise not in a
position to open my laptop.

This means I very often end up working 7 days a week. I think a few times this
year I hit 38hrs in a week. I generally keep track of work via my phone when
I'm unavailable or working less and if something pops up I clock in and take
care of it.

This is just my nature and I'm happy I've found a job that gives me this type
of flexibility. Filling work time into the bits of downtime that would
otherwise be wasted allows me to match my free time to those that I love, like
my father or partner (who is a schoolteacher and has frequent vacations).

Maybe this isn't for everyone, but if I had to back to a traditional work
environment I'd probably lose my mind. The ability to travel, visit my father
for a few weeks, take a 10 day vacation with my partner multiple times per
year (plus summer/winter break), wake up whenever I want, work out for 3hrs 3x
per week, followed by an hours at the pool - that's amazing. I wouldn't trade
this for anything.

I think I am much, much productive in this type of work environment than any
that I have ever had. It makes my work better, more focused, and keeps me
happy & loyal. Flexibility is king.

------
Legogris
I think part of this is the cultural contemporary occidental focus on that
some activities are inherently social. I think part of the decrease in
happiness in unemployed people during weekdays is just the fact that they tend
to not do anything they enjoy, because they think that they would not enjoy
doing it alone.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/the-
unex...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/the-unexpected-
pleasure-of-doing-things-alone/392486/)

------
galfarragem
What works best for me: a loose 9-17 that can be freely adapted according my
daily needs (8-16, 10-18, 12-20, etc). Like this it seems that I have always
time for everything.

------
leshow
This study is flawed in so many ways, my guess is a lot of things are
affecting jobless people's emotional states besides just when their friends
are also free.

------
dovdov
I'd love to start a trend replacing "work" with "spending time at the
workplace".

------
kazinator
> _The weekend derives much of its importance from the fact that so many
> people are off work together._

Oh, goodness no. The weekend is enjoyable in large part it because of those
who work to keep businesses open.

------
iradik
This logic in the article is so shaky. Because unemployed people also feel sad
on M-Thursday is a reason why an employed person doesn't need more free time?
It doesn't make sense.

------
danjoc
My first jobs were retail. Everyone had weekend off except me. I hated it. Ten
years in retail, and I dreamed of the day I would have a "career" and good pay
and weekends off to enjoy it all.

Then I got a career. Now everywhere I go is packed with people and lines.

A trip to the grocery used to be on Wednesday around 2pm. I could fill a cart
with anything I needed and get in and out in minutes. Now I go after work and
wait in the "express" lane with my under 20 items for upwards of half an hour.

I used to go out on a Tuesday night, because that was my weekend. Two for
Tuesday everywhere! Happy hour, all the time. Fast service. Hot food. Now, I
have to make reservations in advance to wait 20 minutes for a waiter, because
the restaurant is short staffed. God help you if you forget the reservations,
or the place doesn't take them. You'll easily wait an hour for a table on a
Friday night.

I take a weekend trip to a theme park and I have to park a mile away from the
tram which is a mile or more away from the gates, where there are lines to get
tickets and more lines to ride the rides. Just getting to the parking spot
requires slow traffic. Lines of cars all doing the same thing.

I've considered asking if I could work weekends at my career job. It would be
quiet on Saturday and Sunday. I could get a lot of work done without tickets
and support calls coming in all day long. But then, who would handle the
tickets and support calls if I'm not there?

What a pipe dream... To have a middle of the week "weekend" again would be so
grand!

~~~
skrebbel
> _Now I go after work and wait in the "express" lane with my under 20 items
> for upwards of half an hour._

wow, sounds like there's some space for competition in your country's
supermarkets!

~~~
citizens
The line for Trader Joe's in Union Square NY always amazes me—it often has
lines just to get _inside_ the store.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=trader+joe%27s+14th+st+line&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=trader+joe%27s+14th+st+line&num=20&source=&tbm=isch)

~~~
robryan
Are there no other decent supermarkets around? I certainly wouldn't stand in a
line for the supermarket on a regular basis no matter how good they are.

~~~
sethhochberg
Its in the middle of Manhattan, so there are grocery stores everywhere -
Trader Joe's is just a chain with a particularly strong cult following, and
there are fewer of their stores in Manhattan compared to a lot of their
competitors.

(I like Trader Joes well enough, but even when I lived very near to that
specific store I'd make a conscious effort to avoid it. Proximity to New York
University's dorms seems to do it no favors on the already very busy 14th St
corridor.)

------
andrewclunn
This so does not apply to people with small kids.

~~~
slowmovintarget
As the father of a 2yo... You are correct sir.

