Speaker 1: Pushkin, and I think we maybe have a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes for question. I'm looking at Katie to as a
Speaker 1: happiness expert, I give a lot of public talks on
Speaker 1: the science of well being. I've kind of lost track
Speaker 1: of exactly how many I've done, but at this point
Speaker 1: it must be in the hundreds. At the end of
Speaker 1: every lecture, I usually try to leave at least a
Speaker 1: few minutes to take questions from the audience. Hello, you
Speaker 1: said you spent a lot of time with the students
Speaker 1: in the correlation of too much alcohol use and nightlife
Speaker 1: not enough sleep. So what did you find there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the question is about those Q and A sessions.
Speaker 1: They're my favorite part of speaking. I can pretty much
Speaker 1: guarantee this someone will ask a question that'll make me
Speaker 1: stop and think again about the challenges we all face
Speaker 1: to become happier. We've been focusing on the younger generation,
Speaker 1: but a lot of service indicate that as you get older,
Speaker 1: you get happier. Are we? And because I love these
Speaker 1: Q and A sessions so much, I've always thought it
Speaker 1: was a shame that listeners to this podcast have to
Speaker 1: miss out on them, and so I decided to change that.
Speaker 1: I put out a request for any and all Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab listener questions on my Twitter and Instagram feeds, and
Speaker 1: immediately I had a ton of great ones flooding in
Speaker 1: questions like this one. Hey, So my name is Nikki.
Speaker 1: I love the Happiness Lab. I've been listening for a
Speaker 1: few years now, and my question is are we born
Speaker 1: to work or are we born to live? Seems like
Speaker 1: it should have a simple answer, right, I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: we're born to live, but we don't always act like it.
Speaker 1: I'm going through my own work life transition right now.
Speaker 1: Over the last year, I've sensed the signs of burnout
Speaker 1: creeping into my day to day life. So I decided
Speaker 1: to take a year off from a lot of my
Speaker 1: academic duties at Yale so I can focus on other
Speaker 1: projects like this podcast. And so Nikki's question really jumped
Speaker 1: out at me. To help me respond to it and
Speaker 1: to get some advice for myself, I decided to recruit
Speaker 1: an expert on how we can spend our time in
Speaker 1: ways that nourish us both on and off the clock.
Speaker 1: I am Cassie Holmes, and I am a professor at
Speaker 1: UCLA's Anderson's School of Management, and I wrote the book
Speaker 1: Happier Hour, How to beat distraction, expand your time and
Speaker 1: focus on what matters most. So sit back, relax, and
Speaker 1: get ready to learn how to avoid getting two worked
Speaker 1: up about work. You're listening to the Happiness Labs Listener
Speaker 1: Questions Special Edition with Me Doctor Laurie Santos. Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: listener Nicki Walker was kind enough to join me and
Speaker 1: Cassie for recording and to start things off. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know what made Nikki ask about work life balance
Speaker 1: in the first place. So Nikki, I absolutely loved this
Speaker 1: question because I think it's something that I've struggled with too.
Speaker 1: Write how much of our identity is built into our
Speaker 1: work versus built into the rest of our lives? Do
Speaker 1: you want to expand on Why you that question? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It really started during COVID for me, after about a
Speaker 1: year of working from home and having just life turned
Speaker 1: upside down. I sort of just raised my head one
Speaker 1: day and I was like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Why am I still doing this? Do I really enjoy
Speaker 1: what I'm doing? I feel like I have been idling,
Speaker 1: wanting certain things, wanting to pursue a certain lifestyle, which
Speaker 1: for me is to be closer to nature and closer
Speaker 1: to the outdoors that I love my mountain bike a lot,
Speaker 1: hype with my dog, and so I quit my job.
Speaker 1: I actually just finished moving from Washington, d C. To Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1: It's something that I've wanted to do for a while.
Speaker 1: I call myself a recovering type a person. I think
Speaker 1: you're not alone. I think so many people are having
Speaker 1: this question during COVID. This is why we're going through
Speaker 1: the great resignation, this question of should we all jump
Speaker 1: off the business treadmill? If we do, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: And it's one of the reasons I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: have Cassie here today because in some ways her whole
Speaker 1: book is about a lot of these questions, but also
Speaker 1: in part because Cassie, it sounds like you went through
Speaker 1: the same kind of should I completely jump off the
Speaker 1: business treadmill too? This was the story that started your book.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell me about that moment, that
Speaker 1: scary moment. Yes, I absolutely was about to jump off
Speaker 1: the business train early in my career. So I was
Speaker 1: an assistant professor at Worton and I had a new
Speaker 1: baby at home. I have a husband who I love
Speaker 1: very much friends who I wanted to spend time with,
Speaker 1: and I was on the late night train home because
Speaker 1: despite having a four month old, I agreed to give
Speaker 1: a talk at Columbia's Business School and it was like
Speaker 1: this crazy, hectic day. I'm like waking up in a
Speaker 1: hotel room, rushing from meeting to meeting, and it was
Speaker 1: on the last train that would get me home. I
Speaker 1: was just exhausted, and I was like, can I actually
Speaker 1: do this? All the business at work, trying to get
Speaker 1: actual work done amidst meetings and emails, and then also
Speaker 1: wanting to be present with my family and with my friends.
Speaker 1: And that's not to mention when you get home from
Speaker 1: work all the work that has to happen to keep
Speaker 1: your household going. And I was about to give it
Speaker 1: all up. I'm like it's too much, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to figure this out because it's not just
Speaker 1: me that has this experience, and being a social psychologist,
Speaker 1: we can put these questions of how we're feeling and
Speaker 1: the choices we make to test. And so I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: if I were to quit, so that I would have
Speaker 1: endless hours a day to spend exactly how I wanted
Speaker 1: would I be happier? And so I recruited some wonderful
Speaker 1: colleagues summers or Strief and how Hirshfield to address this question.
Speaker 1: And we looked at huge data set American Time You
Speaker 1: Survey data, which basically captures how individuals spend their days
Speaker 1: as well as how sad as they feel. And we
Speaker 1: wanted to see what's that relationship between how much discretionary
Speaker 1: time or free time one has in their day and
Speaker 1: how satisfied are they overall, so that I could know
Speaker 1: if I had a lot more discustionary time, would I
Speaker 1: be happier? You're like trying to find the empirical sweet
Speaker 1: spot of not full jumping off the business treadmill. But
Speaker 1: where do I want to be in the balance of
Speaker 1: work versus feeling overwhelmed? Yeah, And I didn't actually even
Speaker 1: know that there would be a sweet spot. I thought
Speaker 1: it would just be like more time is better, more
Speaker 1: free time is better. But what we've found in the
Speaker 1: data is that there is a sweet spot. There is
Speaker 1: such thing as too little time in our data set,
Speaker 1: At least less in about two hours a day of
Speaker 1: discretionary time is associated with less happiness. But what I
Speaker 1: didn't know, and is really important as we're making these
Speaker 1: decisions of do we quit, is that there is such
Speaker 1: thing as too much time. Beyond about five hours of
Speaker 1: discretionary time in your day, you actually see decrease in satisfaction.
Speaker 1: So let's to say, to Larry, your point the sweet spot,
Speaker 1: it's like between two and five hours, which is actually
Speaker 1: quite a decent range, and two hours I will say
Speaker 1: that sounds totally unattainable. I was going to say in
Speaker 1: two hours for me, it seems I don't know whethers
Speaker 1: are magically going to come from hours twenty five and
Speaker 1: twenty six. But yeah, right, But when you start actually
Speaker 1: calculating within your day, how much time are you spending
Speaker 1: in ways that our facilities are Niki, you talked about
Speaker 1: riding your bike or getting outside, Like, how much time
Speaker 1: are you already spending in those ways? And it's likely
Speaker 1: that it's two hours is not completely out of reach.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things I love about your
Speaker 1: stories that you kind of made this decision based on
Speaker 1: the data, not to throw in the business towel completely,
Speaker 1: but to find ways to use your time better, to
Speaker 1: kind of invest it better. Why do we need to
Speaker 1: start thinking about time as an investment. How does that
Speaker 1: help us the way we spend our time, Those hours
Speaker 1: sum up to our days, sum up to our case
Speaker 1: on mptr. Life time is this resource that doesn't only
Speaker 1: sort of signal how we're doing in life, It literally
Speaker 1: is our life. And so where do we invest that
Speaker 1: so that we feel fulfilled? And it's not just about
Speaker 1: relaxing on the weekend or on vacation or data suggest
Speaker 1: that day and in day out having a whole lot
Speaker 1: of time of relaxing that that's actually associated with less
Speaker 1: satisfaction because people feel a lacking sense of purpose. So
Speaker 1: we don't want to feel so busy and productive like
Speaker 1: we don't have time to breathe or to notice, But
Speaker 1: we do want to feel like we're investing our time
Speaker 1: in ways that feel worthwhile. Nicky, I'm curious what you're
Speaker 1: thinking having heard Cassie's reaction to the business treadmill come
Speaker 1: to Jesus moment. Yeah right, I mean I think that
Speaker 1: when Cassie started talking about investing your time, that really
Speaker 1: resonated with me, because I mean, I did not make
Speaker 1: the decision to quit lightly, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: by investing my time and energy into shifting my life
Speaker 1: in this really big way that I'm kind of I'm
Speaker 1: investing in myself. I think our culture leads us astray
Speaker 1: in this really funny way, which is one way assume
Speaker 1: that we know how to invest correctly, right, that we
Speaker 1: put time and energy into the important stuff. We have
Speaker 1: the right balance the meaningful stuff versus the grunt stuff.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, Cassie, one of the things you
Speaker 1: point out in your book is that that balance doesn't
Speaker 1: come naturally. We often get that balance wrong. You talked
Speaker 1: about this possibly apocryphal story of a professor doing a
Speaker 1: demo for his class. I'm wondering if you could share
Speaker 1: that here, because I found that guy profound. So the
Speaker 1: room is full of students and a professor walks in
Speaker 1: and on the desk he puts a big plastic clear
Speaker 1: jar and then he out of this bag, pulls a
Speaker 1: bunch of golf balls and pours them into the jar,
Speaker 1: fills it up, and he asked his students is the
Speaker 1: jar full? And they all nod their head, and then
Speaker 1: he's like, and like, goes back into his bag and
Speaker 1: pulls out pebbles, and then he pours the pebbles and
Speaker 1: they sort of move around the golf balls and fill
Speaker 1: the jar. He's like, is the jar full? And they're
Speaker 1: like yeah. And then he from the bag pulls a
Speaker 1: bunch of sand and sort of pours the sand and
Speaker 1: that fills the jar in between, and he's like, is
Speaker 1: the jar ful? And they're like, yeah, the jar is
Speaker 1: definitely full. And he goes on to say if he
Speaker 1: had put the sand in first, the golf balls wouldn't
Speaker 1: have fit. And then out of the bag he pulls
Speaker 1: two bottles of corona. He opens when and then he
Speaker 1: pours a beer into the jar and he's like, this
Speaker 1: jar is your life, and the golf balls are the
Speaker 1: things that really matter to you, and the sand is
Speaker 1: everything else. It's sort of thoughtless ways that we spend
Speaker 1: our time. And if we let the sand fill our
Speaker 1: time first, if we let all this sort of stuff
Speaker 1: just happen, we don't put our golf balls in first,
Speaker 1: don't prioritize our time for them, then there won't be time.
Speaker 1: And then someone asks what's the beer all about, and
Speaker 1: he's like, no matter how full your jar is, you
Speaker 1: always have time for a beer with a friend. So
Speaker 1: it's just about prioritization, right. It's like understanding for you,
Speaker 1: what are your golf balls? What are those things that
Speaker 1: ultimately matter? And for some of us it actually might
Speaker 1: be the work we do, but it's important to identify
Speaker 1: what they are so that you prioritize you make the
Speaker 1: time for that, because if you don't, then all the
Speaker 1: sand is going to fill up our days. And Nikki,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you were sort of feeling like really sandy,
Speaker 1: and you're like, this isn't the life that I chose,
Speaker 1: and then you needed to clear it out so that
Speaker 1: you could start building on what's important to you totally. So, Nikki,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you just need very sandy. It sounds
Speaker 1: like you need a life of golf balls now that
Speaker 1: you're off in Denver. But the real question is how
Speaker 1: do we do this, especially if we don't have the
Speaker 1: luxury of quitting job that might be a little too sandy.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that question when the Happiness Lab returns.
Speaker 1: In a moment before the break, we were really talking
Speaker 1: about all the ways that we should be investing our
Speaker 1: time making sure we fit our golf balls in before
Speaker 1: with the sand kind of takes everything over, and you've
Speaker 1: come up with a nice exercise that we can use
Speaker 1: to do that. So tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the time tracking exercise. Yes, so this is to identify
Speaker 1: what are those activities that do make us feel happy,
Speaker 1: that do feel meaningful in our days, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: are what we would predict. Researchers have done time tracking,
Speaker 1: and what they do is, over the course of an
Speaker 1: individual's day, they ask people to track how they're spending
Speaker 1: their time as well as rate how happy or how
Speaker 1: positive they feel while doing it, and with that data
Speaker 1: you can ify what are those activities that tend to
Speaker 1: be associated with the most positive emotion, what are those
Speaker 1: activities that tend to be associated with the most negative emotion?
Speaker 1: And the research identifies that, on average, the activities associate
Speaker 1: with the most positive emotion tend to be those that
Speaker 1: involve connecting with other people, so spending time with your
Speaker 1: family and friends. The activities that tend to be assosiate
Speaker 1: with the most negative emotion are commuting, check work, check yeah,
Speaker 1: and housework. So Nikki, like your decision of Dude, I
Speaker 1: don't want to commute, it's reasonable because for the typical
Speaker 1: American those are the least happy hours of our day.
Speaker 1: And one thing is that you did this time tracking
Speaker 1: activity yourself, and I understand you found some surprises even
Speaker 1: though you do this for a living. Yes, So I,
Speaker 1: for instance, knowing the research very well, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: social connection, time that I am with others should be
Speaker 1: my happiest. That was true for me across the board.
Speaker 1: For me, it was a particular way of spending time
Speaker 1: with others, and for me as an introvert, I like
Speaker 1: sort of one on one conversations where I can get
Speaker 1: to know the person. My son, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: that the extrovert of the world, he wants all people
Speaker 1: around him, so like anytime other people are in the vicinity,
Speaker 1: that is actually positive time. So it's important for you
Speaker 1: to identify what are not only the activities, but the
Speaker 1: sort of features of those activities. So work, I really
Speaker 1: love my hours. When I spend working where I am writing,
Speaker 1: digging into data, my door is closed, not talking to anyone,
Speaker 1: That is really fulfilling. It's happy work. Whereas email time, Yes,
Speaker 1: then I am like the average America where I'm like
Speaker 1: work is the worst. One of the things I think
Speaker 1: this activity also helps with simulating doing it in my
Speaker 1: head is just you realize that everything's an opportunity cost, right,
Speaker 1: all the time at work that I'm spending on email
Speaker 1: that I might hate is time that I'm not spending
Speaker 1: in my office or with a close colleague having a conversation.
Speaker 1: It really highlights the fact that our time is a
Speaker 1: resource that if we're not using, your right is like
Speaker 1: going away. Yeah, I mean, it really helps you identify
Speaker 1: the sand. To be honest, you know all that sand
Speaker 1: that washes in and fills your time because you're not
Speaker 1: only looking at the activities that you're doing and how
Speaker 1: happy you feel while doing them, but you can calculate
Speaker 1: how much time you've spent on those activities. And so
Speaker 1: for me, my sand keep reports email. Email can literally
Speaker 1: feel one's entire days and therefore entire life, but will
Speaker 1: fill as much time as you give it. Among my
Speaker 1: students when they do this, often the sand that they
Speaker 1: identify is actually time spent on social media. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: just be a quick check, thinking that will be like
Speaker 1: a few minutes here, a few minutes there. Those few
Speaker 1: minutes add up a big portion of one's week. TV too,
Speaker 1: and so while that initial thirty minutes where you're watching
Speaker 1: your show and I'll excited, you're like sort of on
Speaker 1: the couch exhausted from the day. It's such a treat.
Speaker 1: But when that initial half hour it bleeds into an hour,
Speaker 1: two hours, three hours, and then it's ten o'clock and
Speaker 1: you're exhausted and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so tired.
Speaker 1: Are you even still having fun? Not? Really. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that time tracking exercise is so powerful,
Speaker 1: as we start learning what's fun and what's not. But then,
Speaker 1: of course there's the next step, which is to use
Speaker 1: the information that we actually get from the time tracking
Speaker 1: exercise totally. I think that means hacking two things. First
Speaker 1: hacking our leisure time and then second maybe hacking our work.
Speaker 1: And so let's talk about hacking our leisure time. As
Speaker 1: you talk through the sort of time exercise with other folks,
Speaker 1: are there specific spots where you've found not universal but
Speaker 1: pretty general recommendations for what people should add more of
Speaker 1: into their leisure time. Yeah. Again, touching to the role
Speaker 1: of social connection, So socializing to the extent that it
Speaker 1: makes you feel a greater connection and a greater sense
Speaker 1: of belonging, that's where you really get the boot. Then.
Speaker 1: So friendship research shows over and over again the rule
Speaker 1: of friendship family members can also be friends. It's the
Speaker 1: extent to which you feel understood and known and understand
Speaker 1: another individual. And the way that you can increase closeness
Speaker 1: among friends is increasing self disclosure and having conversations where
Speaker 1: you share about your experience, listen to the others experience.
Speaker 1: That can have a wonderful impact on how close and
Speaker 1: connected you feel. And I have this exercise that I
Speaker 1: do among my students in class where I pair them
Speaker 1: up and I give them this it's the relationship closeness
Speaker 1: induction task, but basically as a set of questions that
Speaker 1: as the questions progress, they become more disclosive. So the
Speaker 1: initial questions are the typical like what's your name? You know,
Speaker 1: why did you come to Anderson? What are your hobbies?
Speaker 1: And then the next set of questions is what do
Speaker 1: you go into this particular profession? So I started picking
Speaker 1: up on goals. And then the last most disclosive set
Speaker 1: of questions are like what was your happiest childhood memory,
Speaker 1: what is one of your greatest fears? What are you
Speaker 1: most proud of? So there are things that people at
Speaker 1: first might feel like this is a little overshare, like
Speaker 1: this is awkward and weird. But what you find is
Speaker 1: that's not what people experience, is it. Within just fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: these pairs that have randomly paired up feel like they've
Speaker 1: made a new friend. So that's how we can get
Speaker 1: more social and get less on screens. But there's also
Speaker 1: stuff that happens outside of work that also feels not fun.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of, like the chores and things. Any tips
Speaker 1: for how we can make our chore doing a little
Speaker 1: bit more fun and enjoyable. Yes, So, pulling from one
Speaker 1: of my favorite colleagues, Katie Milkman, she has wonderful work
Speaker 1: that shows that if you bundle unfun activity with a
Speaker 1: fun activity and makes that activity all the more fun.
Speaker 1: She has shown it and you can certainly use as
Speaker 1: if you are one of the people that view exercise
Speaker 1: as a chore. If you listen to a podcast, or
Speaker 1: if you're on the elliptical while watching The Bachelor, these
Speaker 1: are ways that you can make that exercise time or
Speaker 1: that chore time feel more fun. Turning on a podcast
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab, and you will have more fun folding
Speaker 1: the lundry. In fact, you will want to continue folding
Speaker 1: lundry and you're like albumed when the last socks have
Speaker 1: been paired up, So there are these ways of bundling
Speaker 1: that make it more fun. Another activity that I mentioned
Speaker 1: is associated with low levels of happiness, which feel like
Speaker 1: a chore because as a waste is commuting, and you
Speaker 1: can use this bundling strategy for that too. So if
Speaker 1: you drive for your commute listening to books on tape,
Speaker 1: listening to podcasts, as opposed to the sandy way to commute,
Speaker 1: which is flipping through the radio station, Nikki, you're smiling there.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that maybe you actually do some of these
Speaker 1: temptation bundling type activity. Oh yeah, I'm a big bundler,
Speaker 1: and I think that the opposite to listening to a
Speaker 1: book on tape is maybe like scrolling through social media
Speaker 1: during your commute if you take public transit. Yeah, and actually,
Speaker 1: again that's a really great sandy example because people tend
Speaker 1: to spend their commutes on social media. But that in
Speaker 1: itself actually isn't fulfilling, and at least my students time
Speaker 1: tracking results suggest that it's actually way less positive and
Speaker 1: way less happy and fun than people predict. We've heard
Speaker 1: about ways that we can fill our time with more
Speaker 1: fulfilling things in our leisure and in our chores. When
Speaker 1: we get back from the break, we're going to hear
Speaker 1: more about how we can do that at work too,
Speaker 1: through the process of job crafting. The Happiness Lab will
Speaker 1: be right back. So far, we've talked about how we
Speaker 1: can become happier in our leisure kind of you know,
Speaker 1: make sure our leasure is filled with golf balls. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying, but this is something we also have to
Speaker 1: do at work too. And we actually had another listener
Speaker 1: who we met with earlier who shared a question about
Speaker 1: this issue, trying to make our work a little bit
Speaker 1: more meaningful and fun. Hi, Laurie, my name's Megan kan
Speaker 1: and Cassie. I'd love to hear more about this concept
Speaker 1: of job crafting. I'm in a position where I have
Speaker 1: really demanding job that can really easily lend itself to burnout,
Speaker 1: but it's also really meaningful to me. I do patient
Speaker 1: care and also teaching, and I love my patients and
Speaker 1: my students. So I've tried to work on things that
Speaker 1: are more meaningful to me and that helps prevent the burnout.
Speaker 1: But I also have friends and relatives in jobs that
Speaker 1: are maybe less meaningful to them, and so I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how can someone in a position like that, where it's
Speaker 1: difficult to find the meaning in the work, enhance their
Speaker 1: happiness and their well being in the workplace. I especially
Speaker 1: hate the phrase do what you love and you'll never
Speaker 1: work a day in your life. First of all, I
Speaker 1: do what I love and it's definitely work. And there
Speaker 1: are people who just can't afford to do a job
Speaker 1: that is something that they love. They can't monetize the
Speaker 1: things that they care about. But I think they deserve
Speaker 1: to find wellness in the workplace too. And so it
Speaker 1: seems like Meghan has two questions about job crafting. First,
Speaker 1: how you can job craft if you have a really
Speaker 1: burnout prone, very busy job, and then second, how you
Speaker 1: can job craft in a job that might not be
Speaker 1: so challenging. Let's start with job crafting. It sounds like
Speaker 1: Megan has listened a lot to the Happiness Lab, which
Speaker 1: is not surprising. But Cassie, can you give us a
Speaker 1: quick rundown of what job crafting is. Yes, job crafting
Speaker 1: is about how do you take the job that you
Speaker 1: have and craft it so that you're more satisfied with
Speaker 1: the work at the day's end, and that involves a
Speaker 1: couple of things. One is it is redirecting where you
Speaker 1: spend your time within the work day so that you're
Speaker 1: investing on tasks that are more worthwhile. It also involves
Speaker 1: reframing some of the tasks that you're doing already. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like Megan has already redone that in terms
Speaker 1: of reframing her work by understanding what in her work
Speaker 1: is meaningful for her. And even though at the face
Speaker 1: of it, some of our jobs it's not quite clear,
Speaker 1: like what is the meaning of it, what's the sort
Speaker 1: of positive impact that it has on the world or
Speaker 1: on others or myself, But you can actually start to
Speaker 1: identify that in happier hour, I have this exercise called
Speaker 1: the five Wise, and what it is asking you to
Speaker 1: do is first state your job and then ask why
Speaker 1: do you do that? Oftentimes that first answer is for money,
Speaker 1: but then asking why is that important? I can use
Speaker 1: myself as an example. Okay, my job, I'm a business
Speaker 1: school professor. What is that job? I conduct research, I teach,
Speaker 1: and I do some service. Why is that important? Well?
Speaker 1: I want to create knowledge into seminate knowledge. Why do
Speaker 1: I care about that? Well? I want people to be
Speaker 1: smart why do I want people to be smart? Actually,
Speaker 1: I personally want people to be smart about their happiness.
Speaker 1: I want them to know how they should be spending
Speaker 1: their time to feel greater happiness. And having identified that,
Speaker 1: it actually makes some of my tasks more fun. So
Speaker 1: even emailing, going back to emailing one of my least
Speaker 1: happy sandy tasks, if I'm like, oh, actually creating knowledge
Speaker 1: about what makes people a happy is Now when I
Speaker 1: get emails from my collaborators, it's not like responding to email,
Speaker 1: it's oh, this is part of the endeavor to create
Speaker 1: knowledge about what makes people are happy. So even email
Speaker 1: takes on new meaning. It seems like it works in
Speaker 1: two ways. Right, it's not just the email takes on
Speaker 1: new meaning. But if you had some other tasks that
Speaker 1: you couldn't reframe, they're like, wait, this is not part
Speaker 1: of making people happy at all, then that might really
Speaker 1: cause you to think maybe this has to go, or
Speaker 1: maybe I need to really minimize this in my work
Speaker 1: as much as possible. Absolutely, So that's where the sort
Speaker 1: of where you dedicate your time. This helps inform what
Speaker 1: are those projects, what are those tasks that you say
Speaker 1: yes versus no too, And there is a lot of
Speaker 1: sand that is there and that shouldn't be there, and
Speaker 1: is potentially not necessary for your job and certainly not
Speaker 1: for what drives you and motivates you in your work.
Speaker 1: I'm curious hearing this, Nikki, what you're thinking now, especially
Speaker 1: having switched around your job so much. Now I'm actually
Speaker 1: transitioning into this really neat part time caregiving slash help
Speaker 1: with housekeeping and Errand's kind of situation that allows me
Speaker 1: to live up in the mountains and also help an
Speaker 1: older individual keep her independence as she gets closer to
Speaker 1: the end of her life, and it's really beneficial for
Speaker 1: me as well. We're just hearing you guys talk about
Speaker 1: doing that exercise like I've been doing it in my
Speaker 1: mind listening to you guys talk. And I work in
Speaker 1: public media, so I'm also really passionate educating people and
Speaker 1: creating content that they want to watch and share and
Speaker 1: are inspired by. But at the same time, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure, So what would you recommend for
Speaker 1: somebody who like me? Is because determined that maybe this
Speaker 1: thing that I've been doing for a long time and
Speaker 1: that I went to school for all these things isn't
Speaker 1: really serving me anymore. Or isn't the right fit for me?
Speaker 1: Maybe like how do you determine what comes next? I
Speaker 1: think that this job crafting, or even the time tracking
Speaker 1: and asking these questions of why. So, once you identify
Speaker 1: within your work day or within your former job, what
Speaker 1: were the pieces of it that were more fun for you?
Speaker 1: As well as why were those pieces more fun? Was
Speaker 1: it contributing to something that really gets you going? And
Speaker 1: so this job craft name doesn't only help make the
Speaker 1: job that you have better, but by identifying those things
Speaker 1: that can help you select what type of work actually
Speaker 1: would be where more hours of that job would be fun.
Speaker 1: Because of course there's going to be pieces of any
Speaker 1: job that just fun, but knowing why you're doing the
Speaker 1: work makes those unfun pieces more reasonable. Totally, I honestly
Speaker 1: wish that I could get every one of my Yale
Speaker 1: students to do this, because I think when they're picking
Speaker 1: their job, it's not based on what's that thing that's
Speaker 1: there why, it's like, oh it gives me the most
Speaker 1: money or the most prestige. They're falling into the same
Speaker 1: cultural trap that I think we all fall into. But
Speaker 1: then I also want to get back to Megan's other question,
Speaker 1: which is this is for the people who have a
Speaker 1: lot of choice about their job and had a lot
Speaker 1: of meaning Right my Yale students are often picking between
Speaker 1: jobs that are all really challenging and interesting. What about
Speaker 1: the jobs where you might assume it might be hard
Speaker 1: to job craft or the kind of job description you
Speaker 1: have is really specific and really tight and maybe not
Speaker 1: that challenging. What about people who are listening, who are
Speaker 1: in that situation, how can they also engage in job crafting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's another component of job crafting that we haven't talked about,
Speaker 1: and that relates to any job, no matter how meaningful
Speaker 1: the job scope itself is, and that is finding a
Speaker 1: friend at work. I've already talked about the role of
Speaker 1: social connection, and it's interesting because it's like in the
Speaker 1: time tracking research, they identify our happiest times of the
Speaker 1: day are when we are connecting with others, and the
Speaker 1: least happy times are when we're at work. But there
Speaker 1: are potentially a lot of work hours that you could
Speaker 1: imbue with that authentic social connection. In the Gallop Pull,
Speaker 1: they have this funny question which initially I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, is this for real? It sounds like
Speaker 1: something a third grade er would ask is do you
Speaker 1: have a best friend at work? And interestingly, the answer
Speaker 1: to that question is highly predictive of how engaged people
Speaker 1: feel at work, their performance at work, how satisfied that
Speaker 1: they are with their work, and satisfaction with our work
Speaker 1: is a very big determinant of how satisfied we feel
Speaker 1: with their life overall, because we spent so much time
Speaker 1: I'm on it or at it. I love this conversation
Speaker 1: because it's really telling us that even if you're feeling
Speaker 1: very not engaged at work, even if you're feeling like
Speaker 1: you're hating it, even if you're feeling like you're at
Speaker 1: the end of your business treadmill, there are paths forward
Speaker 1: to figure this out. Perhaps the path is to completely
Speaker 1: empty the jar and just like start over from scratch
Speaker 1: like Nikki did. But perhaps the task is to do
Speaker 1: a little bit of a time evaluation exercise to see
Speaker 1: what's in the jar in the first place. Then can
Speaker 1: I switch some things around. Cassie and Nikky, thank you
Speaker 1: both so much for being on the show. This was
Speaker 1: fantastic and such a wonderful little exercise having our listener
Speaker 1: on for the first time, so super appreciate it. Thank
Speaker 1: you both so much, so much fun, and thank you
Speaker 1: for all you're doing to do seven and eight knowledge
Speaker 1: about when it makes people at happy. For many of us,
Speaker 1: so much of our identity is deeply intertwined with what
Speaker 1: we do for a living, and more often than not,
Speaker 1: our work dictates our schedules and sometimes leaves us without
Speaker 1: time for fun, for family, for volunteering, or for just
Speaker 1: looking up at the clouds. So if we want to
Speaker 1: body the idea that we're really born to live, we
Speaker 1: need to practice these strategies to push back on all
Speaker 1: the social pressure and time pressure that causes us to
Speaker 1: prioritize work overliving. After chatting with Cassie, I'll be watching
Speaker 1: out to make sure my calendar isn't too sandy, and
Speaker 1: reminding myself that no matter how busy I feel, there's
Speaker 1: always time to get a tasty beverage with a friend.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Happiness Lab listener Nicky Walker and
Speaker 1: to my guest expert Cassie Holmes, be sure to look
Speaker 1: out for Cassie's new book, Happier Hour, How to beat distraction,
Speaker 1: expand your time and focus on what matters most. You
Speaker 1: can pre order it wherever you shop for your books.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with another show answering all the questions
Speaker 1: from you our listeners, and if you have a question
Speaker 1: you'd like answered, or you have a great idea for
Speaker 1: a show in general, you can email us at THHL
Speaker 1: Voice at Pushkin dot Fm. That's THL Voice at Pushkin
Speaker 1: dot Fm. You can also contact me on Twitter or Instagram.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. It's The Happiness Lab Listener
Speaker 1: Questions Special Edition with me, Doctor Laurie Santos. I hope
Speaker 1: it's been a good use of your time. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley, Emily
Speaker 1: Anne Vaughan, and Courtney Guerino. Our original music was composed
Speaker 1: by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing and mastering by
Speaker 1: Evan Viola. Special thanks to Milabelle, Heather Faine, John Schnars,
Speaker 1: Carli Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Brandt Haynes, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Royston Preserved, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent, Ben Davis.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries
Speaker 1: and me, Doctor Laurie Santos. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts.