How to Spend Our Time and Money to Optimize for Happiness

by Tim Delson

Optimizing Happiness with Your Time & Money

Introduction

In short, focus on time over money. You’ll be happier and more satisfied with your life (Hershfield et al., 2016; Whillans et al., 2016). Doing so motivates you to socialize more and work less (Mogilner, 2010). You’ll be more giving and less stingy (Gasiorowska, Zaleskiewicz, & Wygrab, 2012; Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006, 2008). 

Fight “time famine” in your short-term, day-to-day life, or else it’ll stress you out.

But that being said, you should still be aware of how limited your overall time in life is. This will encourage you to find greater joy in life’s ordinary pleasures, such as eating a piece of chocolate, basking in a sunny morning, or receiving a text from a friend, and close relationships, and ultimately make you happier (Bhattacharjee & Mogilner, 2014; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999; Cozzolino, Sheldon, Schachtman, & Meyers, 2009; Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Samboceti, 2004; Kurtz, 2008; Mogilner, Aaker, & Kamvar, 2012; Mogilner, Kamvar, & Aaker, 2011).

How should we spend our money (to optimize for happiness)?

That being said, there ARE some ways that you can increase your happiness through the spending of money.

Spend it on others. There are some conditions here. The idea is to feel like your giving is making a difference in the lives of others. So how could you do that? For one, you could do it in person. Buy them the coffee as you sit with them and drink it, that kind of thing. Also, you could focus it on your strongest relationships – family and close friends (Aknin, Sandstrom, Dunn, & Norton, 2011), over acquaintances or strangers. 

Buy experiences, not things. When it comes to spending it on yourself, buying experiences will bring you far more happiness than buying stuff (Gilovich & Kumar, 2015). Experiences are more emotionally acute and socially connecting than stuff (Chan & Mogilner, 2017). Also, they’re more tied to your identity, which will inevitably create some happy memories (Carter & Gilovich, 2012).

Buy time. The final way that spending money can actually increase your happiness is to use money to buy time (Whillans et al., 2017). What can you pay to have someone do that would free up time for you? Maybe the expression should be “money is time!”

How should we spend our time (to optimize for happiness)?

The key to unlocking long-lasting changes in happiness involves spending time on activities that do not require a lot of money, but do provide small frequent boosts in mood (Mochon, Norton, & Ariely, 2008).

  • Do stuff that makes you happy. This may seem obvious, but you should optimize for spending time engaged in activities that elicit a positive vs. negative mood (Krueger, Kahneman, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2009). 
  • This might be active leisure activities, such as exercising or volunteering, over passive forms like watching TV. (More on this in other months.) Or it could mean work. It’s up to you to know which elicits a positive mood! (Lathia et al., 2017; Smeets, Whillans, Bekkers, & Norton, 2017; Richards et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2012). 
  • Cultivate social connection. (Refer back to Tribe month.) Time spent connecting with others tends to be the happiest part of most people’s day (Kahneman et al., 2004; Mogilner, 2010), and experiences that are shared produce greater happiness than those experienced alone (Caprariello & Reis, 2013). 
  • Help others. (Refer back to Give month.) Spending time helping others enhances our mood, reduces the stress associated with feeling time-constrained, and even makes us physically healthier (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008; Gimenez-Nadal & Molina, 2015; Liu & Aaker, 2008; Weinstein & Ryan, 2010; Whillans et al., 2016, cf. Whillans, Dunn, Smeets, Bekkers & Norton, 2017). 
  • Spice it up! Variety truly is the spice of life. It increases excitement and engagement. We don’t mean multi-tasking – multi-tasking undermines productivity and happiness. We’re referring to how you fill your days and your weeks (Etkin & Mogilner, 2016).
  • Savor it. It’s one thing to spend your time on the right stuff. But the extent to which this makes you happier is influenced by how much you’re actually IN that moment (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). But how can you be more in-the-moment? Try one of these: 
    • Make it a ritual. For example, you will savor the chocolate more if you did a little ritual of unwrapping it a specific way first (Vohs, Wang, Gino, & Norton, 2013).
    • Don’t just use it. Create it. It’s called “the IKEA effect” and it’s real! If you take part in making it, you’ll find it more satisfying (Norton, Mochon, & Ariely, 2012).
    • Give it some space. Over time, things you usually enjoy lose their luster. It’s called “hedonic adaptation.” If you step away from something that normally gives you pleasure, you’ll derive greater pleasure from it when you return to it. Put some space between occasions! (Quoidbach & Dunn, 2013)
    • Be aware of how much longer you have. Do you remember the few months of school? In these moments in life, you get more engaged and experience greater happiness. That’s because you’re aware that your time with that thing is running out (Kurtz, 2008). Interestingly, you can even re-create this effect, for example, by pretending it’s your last month living in your city (Layous, Kurtz, Chancellor, & Lyubomirsky, 2017)! Realizing the preciousness of time encourages you  to extract more happiness from even the most mundane activities 
    • (More on this in other months.)  


References

  1. Aknin, L.B., Sandstrom, G. M., Dunn, E.W., & Norton, M. I. (2011). It’s the recipient that counts: Spending money on strong social ties leads to greater happiness than spending on weak social ties. PLOS ONE, 6(2), e17018. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017018
  2. Banwell, C., Hinde, S., Dixon, J., & Sibthorpe, B. (2005). Reflections on expert consensus: A case study of the social trends contributing to obesity. The European Journal of Public Health, 15(6), 564-568. doi:10.1093/eurpub/cki034
  3. Belk, R. W. (1985). Materialism: Trait aspects of living in the material world. Journal of Consumer Research, 12(3), 265-280. doi: 10.1086/208515
  4. Bhattacharjee, A., & Mogilner, C. (2014). Happiness from ordinary and extraordinary experiences. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(1), 1-17. doi: 10.1086/674724
  5. Caprariello, P. A., & Reis, H. T. (2013). To do, to have, or to share? Valuing experiences over material possessions depends on the involvement of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 104(2),199. doi: 10.1037/a0030953
  6. Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist, 54(3), 165-181. doi: 10.1037/0003- 066X.54.3.165
  7. Carter, T. J., & Gilovich, T. (2012). I am what I do, not what I have: The differential centrality of experiential and material purchases to the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6), 1304-1317. doi: 10.1037/a0027407
  8. Chan, C., & Mogilner, C. (2017). Experiential gifts foster stronger social relationships than material gifts. Journal of Consumer Research, 43 (6), 913-931. doi: 10.1093/jcr/ucw067
  9. Cozzolino, P. J., Sheldon, K. M., Schachtman, T. R., & Meyers, L. S. (2009). Limited time perspective, values, and greed: Imagining a limited future reduces avarice in extrinsic people. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(3), 399-408. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.008
  10. Cozzolino, P. J., Staples, A. D., Meyers, L. S., & Samboceti, J. (2004). Greed, death, and values: From terror management to transcendence management theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(3), 278-292. doi: 10.1177/0146167203260716
  11. Dittmar, H., Bond, R., Hurst, M., & Kasser, T. (2014). The relationship between materialism and personal well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 879–924.
  12. Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319(5870), 1687-1688. doi: 10.1126/science.1150952
  13. Etkin, J., & Mogilner, C. (2016). Does variety among activities increase happiness? Journal of Consumer Research, 43(2), 210-229. doi: 10.1093/jcr/ucw021
  14. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A. (2005). Income and well-being: An empirical analysis of the comparison income effect. Journal of Public Economics, 89 , 997-1019.
  15. Gasiorowska, A., Zaleskiewicz, T., & Wygrab, S. (2012). Would you do something for me? The effects of money activation on social preferences and social behavior in young children. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(3), 603-608. doi: 10.1016/j.joep.2011.11.007
  16. Gilovich, T. & Kumar, A. (2015). We’ll always have Paris: The hedonic payoff from experiential and material investments. In M. Zanna and J. Olson (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 51 (pp. 147-187). New York, NY: Elsevier.
  17. Gimenez-Nadal, J. I., & Molina, J. A. (2015). Voluntary activities and daily happiness in the United States. Economic Inquiry, 53(4), 1735-1750. doi: 10.1111/ecin.12227
  18. Goodin, R. E., Rice, J. M., Bittman, M., & Saunders, P. (2005). The time-pressure illusion: Discretionary time vs. free time. Social Indicators Research, 73(1), 43-70. doi: 10.1007/s11205-004-4642-9
  19. Gino, F., & Mogilner, C. (2014). Time, money, and morality. Psychological Science, 25(2), 414-421. doi: 10.1177/0956797613506438
  20. Hershfield, H. E., Mogilner, C., & Barnea, U. (2016). People who choose time over money are happier. Social Psychological and Personality Science , 7(7), 697-706. doi: 10.1177/ 1948550616649239
  21. Hobfall, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513-524.
  22. Hobfall, S. E. (2002). Social and psychological resources and adaptation. Review of General Psychology, 6, 307-324.
  23. Hudders, L., & Pandelaere, M. (2011). The silver lining of materialism: The impact of luxury consumption on subjective well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(3), 411-437. doi:10.1007/s10902-011-9271-9
  24. Jabs, J., Devine, C. M., Bisogni, C. A., Farrell, T. J., Jastran, M., & Wethington, E. (2007). Trying to find the quickest way: Employed mothers’ constructions of time for food. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 39(1), 18-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2006.08.011
  25. Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method. Science, 306(5702), 1776-1780. doi:10.1126/science.1103572
  26. Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(38), 16489-16493. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011492107
  27. Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1993). A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 65(2), 410-422. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.65.2.410 
  28. Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1996). Further examining the American dream: Differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 22(3), 280-287. doi:10.1177/0146167296223006
  29. Kasser, T., & Sheldon, K. (2009). Time affluence as a path toward personal happiness and ethical business practice: Empirical evidence from four studies. Journal of Business Ethics, 84(2), 243-255. doi:10.1007/s10551-008-9696-1
  30. Krueger, A. B., Kahneman, D., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2009). National time accounting: The currency of life. In A. Krueger (Ed.), Measuring the subjective well-being of nations: National accounts of time use and well-being (pp. 9-86). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  31. Kurtz, J. L. (2008). Looking to the future to appreciate the present: The benefits of perceived temporal scarcity. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1238-1241. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02231.x
  32. Lathia, N., Sandstrom, G. M., Mascolo, C., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2017). Happier people live more active lives: Using smartphones to link happiness and physical activity. PLOS ONE, 12(1), e0160589. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0160589
  33. Layous, K., Kurtz, J., Chancellor, J., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2017). Reframing the ordinary: Imagining time as scarce increases well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-8. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2017.1279210
  34. Liu, W., & Aaker, J. (2008). The happiness of giving: The time-ask effect. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(3), 543-557. doi: 10.1086/588699
  35. Lynch Jr, J. G., Netemeyer, R. G., Spiller, S. A., & Zammit, A. (2009). A generalizable scale of propensity to plan: the long and the short of planning for time and for money. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(1), 108-128. doi: 10.1086/649907
  36. Mochon, D., Norton, M. I., & Ariely, D. (2008). Getting off the hedonic treadmill, one step at a time: The impact of regular religious practice and exercise on well-being. Journal of Economic Psychology , 29(5), 632-642. doi: 10.1016/j.joep.2007.10.004
  37. Mogilner, C. (2010). The pursuit of happiness: Time, money, and social connection. Psychological Science, 21(9), 1348-1354. doi: 10.1177/0956797610380696
  38. Mogilner, C. (2010). The pursuit of happiness: Time, money, and social connection. Psychological Science, 21(9), 1348-1354. doi: 10.1177/0956797610380696
  39. Mogilner, C., & Aaker, J. (2009). “The time vs. money effect”: Shifting product attitudes and decisions through personal connection. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(2), 277-291. doi: 10.1086/597161
  40. Mogilner, C., Aaker, J., & Kamvar, S. D. (2012). How happiness affects choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(2), 429-443. doi: 10.1086/663774
  41. Mogilner, C., Chance, Z., & Norton, M. I. (2012). Giving time gives you time. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1233-1238. doi: 10.1177/0956797612442551
  42. Mogilner, C., Kamvar, S. D., & Aaker, J. (2011). The shifting meaning of happiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(4), 395-402. doi: 10.1177/1948550610393987
  43. Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009). Flow theory and research. In C. R. Synder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 195-206). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  44. Norton, M.I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2012). The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 453-460. doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002
  45. Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57-81. doi: 10.2307/2667031
  46. Quoidbach, J., & Dunn, E. W. (2013). Give it up: A strategy for combating hedonic adaptation. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 563-568. doi: 10.1177/1948550612473489
  47. Reed, A., Aquino, K., & Levy, E. (2007). Moral identity and judgments of charitable behaviors. Journal of Marketing, 71(1), 178-193. doi: 10.1509/jmkg.71.1.178
  48. Rheault, M. (2011). Lack of money tops list of Americans’ financial worries. Gallup Poll Social Series: Consumption Habits. Retrieved from: http://www.gallup.com/poll/148625/lack- money-tops-list-americans-financial-worries.aspx
  49. Richards, J., Jiang, X., Kelly, P., Chau, J., Bauman, A., & Ding, D. (2015). Don't worry, be happy: Cross-sectional associations between physical activity and happiness in 15 European countries. BMC Public Health, 15(1), 1-8. doi: 10.1186/s12889-015-1391-4
  50. Richins, M. L. (1994). Special possessions and the expression of material values. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(3), 522-533. doi: 10.1086/209415
  51. Richins, M. L., & Dawson, S. (1992). A consumer values orientation for materialism and its measurement: Scale development and validation. Journal of Consumer Research, 19(3), 303-316. doi: 10.1086/209304
  52. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
  53. Schwartz, S.H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 25, (pp. 1–65). New York: Academic Press.
  54. Shah, A. K., Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2012). Some consequences of having too little. Science, 338(6107), 682-685. doi: 10.1126/science.1222426
  55. Shah, A. K., Shafir, E., & Mullainathan, S. (2015). Scarcity frames value. Psychological Science, 26(4), 402-412. doi: 10.1177/0956797614563958
  56. Smeets, P., Whillans, A., Bekkers, R., & Norton, M.I. (2017). Control over time predicts greater life satisfaction among millionaires. Working paper.
  57. Spiller, S. A. (2011). Opportunity cost consideration. Journal of Consumer Research, 38 (4), 595-610. doi: 10.1086/660045
  58. Srivastava, A., Locke, E. A., & Bartol, K. M. (2001). Money and subjective well-being: it’s not the money, it’s the motives. Journal of subjective well-being: it’s not the money, it’s the motives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 959–971.
  59. Strazdins, L., Griffin, A. L., Broom, D. H., Banwell, C., Korda, R., Dixon, J., ... & Glover, J. (2011). Time scarcity: Another health inequality? Environment and Planning A, 43(3), 545-559. doi: 10.1068/a4360
  60. Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440-463. doi: 10.1037/a0018963
  61. Van Boven, L. (2005). Experientialism, materialism, and the pursuit of happiness. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 132-142. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.132
  62. Veenhoven, R. (1991). Is happiness relative? Social Indicators Research, 24, 1-34.
  63. Vohs, K. D., Mead, N. L., & Goode, M. R. (2006). The psychological consequences of money. Science, 314(5802), 1154-1156. doi: 10.1126/science.1132491
  64. Vohs, K. D., Mead, N. L., & Goode, M. R. (2008). Merely activating the concept of money changes personal and interpersonal behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(3), 208-212. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00576.x
  65. Vohs, K.D., Wang, Y., Gino, F., & Norton, M.I. (2013). Rituals enhance consumption. Psychological Science, 24(9), 1714-1721. doi: 10.1177/0956797613478949
  66. Wang, F., Orpana, H. M., Morrison, H., De Groh, M., Dai, S., & Luo, W. (2012) Long-term association between leisure-time physical activity and changes in happiness: Analysis of the prospective national population health survey. American Journal of Epidemiology, 176 (12), 1095-1100. doi:10.1093/aje/kws199
  67. Weinstein, N., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). When helping helps: Autonomous motivation for prosocial behavior and its influence on well-being for the helper and recipient. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 222-244. doi: 10.1037/a0016984
  68. Whillans, A. V., Weidman, A. C., & Dunn, E. W. (2016). Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science , 7(3), 213-222. doi: 10.1177/1948550615623842
  69. Whillans, A. V., Seider, S. C., Chen, L., Dwyer, R. J., Novick, S., Gramigna, K. J., ... & Dunn, E. W. (2016). Does volunteering improve well-being? Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology , 1(1-3), 35-50. doi: 10.1080/23743603.2016.1273647
  70. Whillans, A.V., Dunn, E.W., Smeets, P., Bekkers, R., & Norton, M.I. (2017). Buying time promotes happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114 (32), 8523-8527. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706541114
  71. Zauberman, G., & Lynch Jr, J. G. (2005). Resource slack and propensity to discount delayed investments of time versus money. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134 (1), 23-37. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.134.1.23

Leave a comment

Back to Blog