The psychological trap of freelancing

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New research explains that people who attach dollar signs to their time - or “value time like money” - tend to be overwhelmingly less happy than those who don’t, because their nonworking hours suddenly seem less important. “Free” time gets tainted with guilt because there’s a cost associated with it.

A 2016 study found that 63 percent of respondents valued money over time, while the smaller percentage of people who valued time over money reported greater well-being than the larger group. This correlation was consistent even after researchers controlled for factors like income - which complicates the assumption that prioritizing time over money is a luxury that only rich people can afford.

Other studies found that billing by the hour - no matter how much people charged - compounded the tendency to view time and money as one and the same. Those who did so were less likely to take pleasure in leisure activities, because they were too preoccupied by the opportunity cost of their time. Again, these trends were similar across income levels.

Psychologist Ashley Whillans, a professor at the Harvard Business School who researches “time poverty” (also known as the feeling of running 20 minutes late to everything in your life), attributes this to an increasingly volatile job landscape. “Most people don’t have the same jobs for 10 or 15 years like previous generations did, which leads to a feeling of financial insecurity,” she says. “It isn’t about how financially secure you really are, or how much money you have in the bank, but how financially secure you feel that predicts whether you are willing to give up time to have more money.”

If valuing money over time is making us sad and paranoid, how do we stop? The solution, Whillans suggests, lies in changing your approach to time “off.” It may be too late to decouple time and money in our brains, especially when finances feel tight, but we can lean into that. “If we’re already in the time-is-money mindset, we can reframe our leisure time as something that enables us to be more productive in the future,” says Whillan. “When we’re conditioned to think of all our time as ‘on the clock,’ leisure time feels abstract and unsatisfying. But if we tell ourselves that leisure time is another means to achieve that goal or financial outcome, that can make us more likely to take the breaks that we need, enjoy them fully, and be happier in general.” If it helps you to think of it this way, great. But you also have permission to just relax, without worrying about how to improve your productivity when you’re once again hunched over your laptop.

Another trick is to figure out what you’re willing (and can afford) to outsource and what you’d prefer do yourself, says Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia. What she does not recommend, however, is sacrificing healthy activities you enjoy in order to make more money, at least when you can help it. “If walking your dog is a fulfilling part of your day but you need to pay someone else to do it in order to work on a boring project, you might reconsider your priorities.”

Stop apologizing, start thanking The eco-friendly straws made out of pasta

Single-use plastic straws draw ire from environmentalists, but reusable straws can be impractical (glass) or expensive (metal). Some compostable ones taste weird (bamboo) or resemble a soggy rolled-up newspaper (paper).

In Italy, bars and cafŽs are replacing wasteful plastic with uncooked, tubular versions of the country’s most famous export. Made from wheat and water, these pasta straws are biodegradable, long-lasting and edible. Unlike paper, they don’t affect a drink’s flavour and are strong: the founder of Stroodles, which makes pasta straws in Britain, claims you can even drum with them.

When you feel...

When you feel burnt out, what you need is to be real about your bandwidth and what *really* drives youWhen you feel vulnerability hangover, what you need is to share what you’re feeling with someone closeWhen you feel the desire to escape, what you need is to remind yourself you’re safe (or leave if you are not) 

from The News International - US https://ift.tt/37xcd6A