Notes on Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes

I recently read ​Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most by Cassie Holmes, and I really liked it. My wife and I both read it together and both learned a lot.

Cassie is a professor at UCLA Anderson where I got my MBA, and she's also a parent at the school my son attends. It was so neat to hear about her life experiences and all the lessons she drew from them and how she solved various problems as I could relate to a lot of the same situations. I found her suggested exercises really helpful too.

Some specific things I started doing more consistently after reading this are ​exercising daily 30 minutes and working to appreciate each moment by remembering how few of them are left in my life.

Below are some of my notes and takeaways on the book. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to figure out how to use their time more wisely or for anyone who feels time poor (i.e., any parent).

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​1 time poor and tired
Discretionary time study
Inverted U
Too little and too much free time both bad
Time poverty
2-5 hours per day free ideal
Between 2-5 it’s the same; not about quantity but about how you spend it
Time more finite resource than money
Outsource certain things

2 all the time in the world
Time scarcity
Skipping exercise makes you less happy
Feeling time poor makes you less kind and less confident 
Promotion vs prevention focus
Time relativity: flies faster when you’re having fun
Limit your list
Use social media only to message and stay connected to loved ones
Reduce time spent scrolling
On-demand activities 
Chores
Expand your confidence
Feeling more self-efficacy makes you feel temporally richer
Get moving exercise: 30 min daily this week and next 
Carve out on schedule 
Don’t let great be enemy of good
Jot down note or voice message to self about how you feel after for next time you don’t feel like you can do it
Expand to others 
Do something for someone else
Those who gave time to others felt they had more spare time
Spending time on others makes you feel higher self efficacy and time rich
Random acts of kindness exercise 
Perform random of act of kindness twice this week: one for friend and one for stranger
Pay compliment
Pay for someone’s order at cafe
Bring flower or note
Ultimate expansion 
Feeling awe like when looking at ocean makes you feel more time rich
Social interactions can inspire awe
Nature
Art
Accomplishment 

3 wiser spending
Happiness influenced by personality 
Also determined by our thoughts and behavior 
Time travel 
Track your time
Table of half hour blocks per week
Print from her website cassiemholmes.com
Note what you did and how you felt
Be specific about what did instead of just category
Happiness on 1-10 scale
Be honest about how actually felt
Record in real-time throughout day or as soon as you can
Track for 1-2 weeks
Research into activities
Most enjoyable are those socializing with loved ones
Finding your happier hours
Identity your favorite activities
Find 3 top rated activities
Find commonalities like what thing, what place, what person
Identify your least favorite activities
Look for common underlying features of each set
Invest in your closest relationships
Reciprocal deepening personal info in conversations 
Conversation starter cards
People are happier outdoors
Activities to avoid
Loneliness
Obligatory activities
Wasteful
Time tracking exercise: calculate your current expenditures
Tally up time spent on various activities
Calculate % of waking hours per activity
Mood boosters
Exercise
30 min per day 
Sleep
Get sleep exercise
4 nights this week or at least 7-8 hours of sleep
No caffeine or exercise after 3pm
No screens in bedroom
Wake up same time daily
Make bedroom cold (65), dark, and quiet
Expose self to sunlight upon waking
If can’t sleep, read something boring in another room
Melatonin, tart Cherry juice, bananas, warm milk can help

4 waste management
Chores needn’t be a chore
Outsource chores
Bundle with fun
Temptation bundling
Linking exercise or chore with something enjoyable
Work can be fun
Job crafting exercise
Finding purpose
Why do you specifically do the work (domain) you do broadly
Ask why several times to go deeper
5 why’s
Make a friend at work
Have a work bestie
Commuting better
Use the time to read or do something enjoyable (bundling)
Audio books
Podcasts
Learn foreign language
Call and catch up with family and friends
Standing weekly phone date
Can do even more if hands free in public transit
Increasing connection

5 pause and smell the roses
Hedonic adaptation 
Realize your time left for good things is limited
Higher age makes you appreciate ordinary experiences more 
Witnessing crisis makes you appreciate more
Life stage changes
Counting and knowing days are numbered
Pick an activity you like
Count how many done already and how many left in life
Bedtimes left exercise
Thu morning coffee date with daughter
Make it special
Document with photo
Make tradition
Name the event
Give it a break
Renewed enjoyment of something after a break
Add some variety
Trying something new on date nights

6 driven to distraction
Live the actual moment
Planning for future/doing tasks vs being in the moment
People less happy when distracted 
Treat your weekend like a vacation 
Increased attention throughout the weekend led to higher happiness
Can do it midweek too
Practice meditating
10 min per day but can start with 3-5
5 senses meditation during walk
Apply it during work
Shut the door
The zone, flow
Clear space
Clean off desk
Clear schedule for a few hours
Create space when most alert
Close door to office at home or work
Put in ear plugs or headphones
Close out of email
Put phone out of sight
Put phone away
Disconnect from all digital devices for 6 hours
Digital detox exercise
Jewish Shabbat weekly

7 the time jar
Stones, pebbles, sand analogy
Stones family
Pebbles work
Sand small stuff
Must first fill with stones to have space for the other stuff after 
Social media and tv usage higher than expected
Tendency to overcommit
Falsehood that we will have more time available later
Solution: only say yes to requests you would be happy to spend time on today
Purpose filter
Only say yes to things that match your purpose
Happiness filter
Which activities likely to bring you joy
Your golf balls/stones
Reflect on part 2 weeks and record what activities brought greatest joy
Joyful activities exercise: list out top 3 from past 2 weeks
Carve out time for quiet reflection
Clear out distractions
Hide phone
Prioritize your priorities
Hyperopia: too focused on the future
Commitment device: impose a cost if you don’t follow through on your goal
Prepay for babysitter to come weekly
Make the time

8 time crafting
You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf
Your canvas
Can print from website
Step 1; set already set tiles
Required activities
Step 2: place joyful tiles first
Protect time for joyful connection
Date night
Protect joyful times by making them no-phone zone
Family dinner
Maximize times of joy by outsourcing chores
Meal delivery service
Assign time to focus on what’s good
Reflect on what grateful for
Gratitude journal
Everyone share favorite part of day
Establish tradition for regularly getting together 
Thu morning coffee date
Dedicate time to foster friendship 
Connect with other parents at kids’ activities
Book club
Bundle activity you want to do with one you have to do
Phone dates
Calls while in transit
Run dates
Protect time without distractions to pursue your sense of purpose
Schedule times you need to be alert for when naturally alert
Block off time for work towards purpose
For times you want to be productive, remove distractions and set up conditions optimal for flow
Door closed, ringer off, e-mail closed
Step 3: leave some space 
Actually block it off
Carve out time for you to spend how you want
Divide up mornings with partner for who is responsible to get kids out the door and other one is off duty and free. Other parent can’t intervene when not their morning. No maternal gate keeping. Full and complete delegation. 
Spend your time off however you please. Yoga class. Hobby. Reading.
Carve out time to think
Schultz hour
Running with no podcast or music and just deep thinking about strategic questions
Protect time to do nothing
Reserve Sunday afternoons unscheduled 
Step 4: sequence your tiles
Break up and spread out the activities you enjoy
Create more beginnings
Spread out the good stuff
Turn off tv 10 min before show ends
Consolidate the activities you don’t enjoy
Chores
Batch into one block weekly 
Bundle activity you enjoy with one you have to do but don’t enjoy 
Schedule a positive activity right after a negative one
Boba walk with friend after an undesirable meeting
Continually revisit your positive experiences 
Think about fun experiences you had and feel grateful 
The beauty of the mosaic
Step back and appreciate whole week
Can do it all across the whole week
Can focus on each activity 

9 the time of your life
Broader view of life as a whole
Zoom out
Birds Eye view
Think in terms of years not hours
Instead of whether, consider when 
Age based shifts
For older people, ordinary experiences are more meaningful than extraordinary ones
What constitutes a happy life will change
Considering entire life informs how to spend time now on important not urgent things 
Your end of life: how do you want to be remembered 
Write your eulogy
What do you want your legacy to be
Eulogy exercise 
The wisdom of others
Interview someone you admire who is a lot older
Looking back on your life, what are your greatest sources of pride and of regret
What has turned out to matter more than you expected and less than you expected
Carve out more time for relationships 
Gratitude letter exercise
Send letter to someone you have not properly thanked
Biggest regrets come from inactions not actions

References 
Confidence code
Humor seriously 
How to change