But wait... there's less!

Why does time feel so scarce? Maybe we're not spending it as well as we could. James Wallman offers helpful strategies for improving our leisure time, in his book Time and How to Spend It . Why don't we like leisure? The happiness course I took included a study where researchers measured people's happiness at work and at home. Surprisingly, it seemed that people were often happier at work. Part of the explanation was that at work we are trained, doing tasks that challenge us and (hopefully) achieving goals. At home we flick channels hoping for something better than when we checked 10 minutes ago. But who wants to work more? Free time is scarce enough already. Isn't it? Why are we so time-poor? James gives seven reasons why we are time-poor. Reason 1 is that we now earn so much, so are more tempted to trade away more of our free time. Reasons 2 to 6 relate to digital devices (see my review of Digital Minimalism ). Reason 7 is the basis of the rest of the bo...

Irish Leonard explains how his family of four lives on a sailboat. No inheritance. No lottery. Just not wasting money - or his time. How does he afford it? He explains by showing the average Irish household expenses, converted into hours worked. Here's the result shown as a working week: We work a lot to pay for our cars. As he puts it: Almost 20% of our working lives is spent so that we can afford to get to our working lives. So Leonard eliminates or massively reduces most expenses. On the family boat, he sails "in a climate that requires no heating or air conditioning, doesn't own a car and generates what energy he needs using solar panels". Remove the unnecessary costs and you remove most of the need to work. He calculates that we can feed and clothe our family on 5 days work per month, or the equivalent. By contrast the average Irish couple devotes 19 hours a day to work, including commuting. Why all this focus on time? In Leonard's words "I...

Work seems to be compulsory. But it doesn't have to be that way, according to Tanja Hester and her book Work Optional . It's essentially a guide book; showing you how a Work-optional life can be done and giving you the practical and psychological guidance to achieve it. We work full time, with increasing hours and responsibility. There go most of our prime years. We spend our money to "soothe the stress" and get a few years of retirement at the end. That's the script we're given. But what if we write a different script. That's what Tanja's book is all about. She found that even in her chosen career, working full-time forever is not all it's cracked up to be. Alternatives to tradition Traditional retirement, and the pension, were first invented to entice older workers to quit and open up jobs for younger workers - not for the benefit of the retiree. It's "no reason to shape our entire lives in a conventional way on a made-up timeli...

Two mock ads. Opposite points of view. Head-to-head. Which is better? That's The Pitch - part of Aussie TV show Gruen . The ads are just for fun, but the topics are real. The latest episode focuses on retirement. Hiring more elderly workers versus compulsory retirement at 65. Here's the ad in favour of retirement. It features retired people making (pretend) regretful statements about work. None of which are in the least bit convincing - especially when said while the person is enjoying their post-work life. "I wish I'd spent more time at work" "I'd kill for a conference call." "I miss my emails" "What I'd give for one more rush hour" The ad ends with the slogan "Retirement never gets old" . While it's talking about retirement at 65, the same point could be made for 60, 55, 50, etc. For many the only reason to continue as far as 65 is monetary. Basically, we spend too much money on questionable ...