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Newsweek
01-08-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Map Shows States With Best Work-Life Balance
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The industry you work in and your employer can make a huge difference when it comes to work-life balance. However, a new report from Solitaire Bliss indicates that the state you live in could also play a part. The report analyzed the average time spent on a variety of leisure activities reported in the U.S. Census Bureau's latest American Time Use Survey and found that Missouri, Louisiana, and Connecticut were the three best states for work-life balance. Why It Matters In the years following the coronavirus pandemic, conversations around work-life balance have reignited, with remote work and flexibility becoming key offerings for employers to attract top talent. While some employers feel it's vital to reduce turnover and attract top talent, others are more restrictive, preferring maximum time in the office. What To Know Missouri, Louisiana, Connecticut, Indiana and Massachusetts all ranked in the top five for states with the best work-life balance, with a leisure-to-work ratio of 1.3 or more. Closely following in the top 10 were Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Illinois. Meanwhile, Utah, Kansas, and Iowa are the three worst states for work-life balance. "You'd expect Utah to be near the top given its strong outdoor lifestyle and recreational appeal," Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. "To see it ranked as the worst state is a bit of an anomaly. That said, Utah's cost of living is higher than the national average, which could be a contributing factor." Other trends emerged in the data, according to Solitaire Bliss. "Some states ranked higher in work-life balance due to outside factors such as shorter commute times, job flexibility, and access to leisure-friendly environments such as nature," Solitaire Bliss CEO Neal Taparia told Newsweek. "This is especially seen with states such as California, where people spend the most time playing sports and in spiritual activities." While California and Pennsylvania residents spent the most leisure time on religious and spiritual activities, people in Nebraska and Missouri spent the most leisure time socializing and relaxing. California and Oklahoma residents were heavy on sports and exercise, while Iowa and Michigan saw high rates of leisure time spent traveling. File photo of a child painting while his mother works in the background. File photo of a child painting while his mother works in the People Are Saying Solitaire Bliss CEO Neal Taparia told Newsweek: "The findings suggest that an even balance of work-life activities is closely tied to overall well-being, mental health, and productivity. States that support more leisure time often have healthier, more satisfied residents, and the residents are far less likely to experience burnout." Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: "It may surprise some to see Missouri, Louisiana and Indiana beating out states more renowned for their outdoor-heavy activities like Utah and Colorado when it comes to a better work-life balance. However, work-life balance isn't just about options; it's about accessibility. "Some states have a better mixture of not just increased options for life outside of work, but they also benefit from shorter commute times, better job flexibility, and more affordable options for making activities with families or groups an easier possibility." What Happens Next Companies that prioritize work-life balance are likely to reap the benefits in the years to come, Taparia said. "As more people recognize these benefits and as employees begin to speak out about the importance of having leisure time, employers could start offering more supportive practices, such as flexible hours or even four-day workweeks," Taparia said. "On the employer side, enacting these changes could improve morale in the workplace and retention rates."
Newsweek
01-08-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Kelly Fanning on Redefining Leadership—and Balance—for Working Moms
While women have made significant strides in the workplace, inequities still remain. One of those areas includes the burden of home and career life balance that women undertake. Women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce but still take on a larger share of household responsibilities. The 2022 American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that women spend more time on average on household activities and child care than men. The Gender Equality Policy Institute's analysis of the ATU survey found that women who work full time do 1.8 times as much housework as men who work full time. Women who work part-time do 2.5 times as much housework as their male counterparts. Among full-time working parents, women do 1.6 times as much child care and household work as fathers. Part-time working mothers do 2.4 times as much child care and household labor as part-time working fathers. Kelly Fanning is on a mission to change corporate culture by normalizing those struggles that many working moms face. Fanning started her career at Johnson & Johnson, where she rose in ranks over 15 years from field sales to corporate leadership. She said that starting from the ground up in retail was the origin of her passion for consumer products, telling Newsweek that this experience brought her close to the shopper. About a decade into her career, she moved out of the field into the corporate side of the business. That path was through marketing, which meant getting her MBA at Northeastern part-time from 2009 to 2011. Fanning said this move was the biggest career step she had made. "When I went into marketing, that's the center of running the profit and loss statement, or the P and L, for the company and so it was an incredible opportunity to see the inside of an organization in a way that I had never seen before," she said. "But it also refilled my passion for the consumer, because it's so insight-based and consumer-based when you build a marketing campaign." She worked as a sales strategy manager and senior brand manager before becoming the director of marketing and sales strategy in 2016. After a stint as the chief of staff and strategy initiatives for the North America president, and the birth of her second son, Fanning took on the role of senior director of consumer strategy for the skin care and beauty division of Johnson & Johnson. In 2019, Fanning left the company to work at Bayer for about five years. She said she was brought on to turn around teams. But she missed the culture and the beauty industry she fell in love with. After reaching out to her mentors, she left Bayer for The Estee Lauder Company as the senior vice president and general manager for Clinique, North America. She now oversees brands like Clinique, Origins and Dr. Jart+. Women's Global Impact: Kelly Fanning Women's Global Impact: Kelly Fanning Newsweek Illustration With two young sons and a husband who also works full-time, Fanning knows a thing or two about balance. "A lot of the times when I speak at events, I give some perspective [that] both the spouses can do it," she said. "You can both have great careers and make it work. Along the way, you make sacrifices and you tend to race to the calendar for first-come, first-served." She is also the first to admit that being a working parent, while rewarding, is not easy. Her passion for her work in brand marketing drives her, even in those more difficult moments. She commutes into New York City from northern New Jersey because it's important for her to be in the office. But that also means she might miss a school play or a baseball game. "I've learned too late in life about finding the balance of passion and performance," she said. "I think about it in the sense of debits and credits – there are days where I'm the best leader [at work] and I'm not as great as a mom, and there are days where I'm the best mom, I can't put in as much [at work]. It's all about the longer-term performance on both." In corporate America, many women believe there is a culture that appears to treat working mothers and fathers differently. A PEW study found that women earned an average of 85 percent of what men earned in 2024. Of the women surveyed for this report, 45 percent said a major contributor to the prevalent wage gap is the choices that women make about how to balance work and family. Women, according to PEW, are more likely to feel "a great deal of pressure" to focus on responsibilities at home, when compared to men. Fanning is no stranger to this feeling and makes it a point to be open and direct with managers and colleagues in the workplace. When she interviewed for her current role, she asked how commuting and family commitments would fit with the job expectations. She has been honest about having to leave in the middle of a meeting to catch a train back home or pass something off because she needs to attend her son's graduation at 9 a.m. "I think that you have to be strong enough to protect your time, to protect your schedule, and you have to be really open with others that, whether you're a working caregiver or whatever it is, everyone's time is the most valuable thing we have," she said. "We have to be able to push back and not worry and overthink it." Maintaining that balance means making the most of her time. Because it is limited, Fanning said her 30-minute impact might have to be as much as another person's one-hour impact. Being open about the struggles of being a working parent has also led Fanning to be passed over for opportunities like traveling for a work trip because colleagues thought she wouldn't want to be pulled away from her family. She noted that this type of behavior is more common with women in the workplace, as they are still seen as the primary caregivers. "I want to make the choice not to travel, versus someone else making that choice for me," she said. "And it's really important that as female leaders, we speak up to that in particular [because] not asking me to go on that trip wasn't done because they didn't want me to go. It was done because they thought they were doing me a favor, so I didn't have to say no. And I always want to be seen as having the ability and the strength to say no." Fanning wants to take the stigma and the guilt out of those decisions because she said the choice to attend a family event shouldn't feel like a hard choice. As she's moved up in leadership, Fanning has led by example and been vocal in the workplace to support other female colleagues and establish an inclusive, supportive and flexible culture. "Culturally, to have managers and leaders who say, 'no, go [to the graduation]' is so great and reinforces the positivity and takes that [stigma] away," she said. "It's super important to shape that culture and make it the norm." There have been times when Fanning has repeated in several meetings that she won't be available on a certain day because she has a family obligation. That way, when an expecting parent is faced with that choice in the future, they feel comfortable making it. Something Fanning often shares with peers is to take the aspects you love about leadership and culture from previous organizations and implement those bits where you can at your current job. "One of my biggest jobs as a leader is to set a culture and tone in which I want to work in," she said. "You can pay it forward and make the next organization, the next generation better." Mentorship has played a major role in Fanning's career. She remembers when she felt insecure about her ability to meet the challenge of a new role, and a mentor told her, "They would never have put you in that job if they didn't think you could do it." "I think sometimes you feel like you're going to fail, and when you realize that an organization, your leadership team, is there to make you succeed, just that shift in mindset, I wish I would have known that earlier in my career," she said. "So often you feel like 'oh my gosh, I'm going to fail, what if I fail?' and if you could flip that to say 'they put me here to succeed. What is it going to feel like when I succeed?' It's such a pivot on that emotion that I love to share with the next generation." Fanning will join Newsweek at this year's inaugural Women's Global Impact forum. The August 5 event, hosted at Newsweek's headquarters in New York City, will bring together some of the world's top female executives and connect them with rising stars across industries and job functions. For more information on the event and entry guidelines, please visit the Women's Global Impact homepage.
CNBC
14-07-2025
- General
- CNBC
25% of young Americans aged 18 to 24 eat every meal alone—'a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago,' expert says
Americans are not eating enough meals together. According to the 2025 World Happiness Report, the optimal number of weekly lunches and dinners eaten with others is 13. And in the United States, people only share 7.9 of those meals together every week. The picture is even more dire for young Americans. Researchers looked at data from the American Time Use Survey, "which has a measure for the extent to which people shared meals the previous day," says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Oxford and editor of the report. They found that in 2023, 25% of 18-to 24-year-olds ate all three meals alone the previous day. "That's a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago," De Neve says, and it's to the detriment of their mental health. The number of meals shared with others is "as predictive of their life satisfaction, essentially their overall well-being" as their employment status or relative income, he adds. Here's why he thinks young people aren't breaking bread with others, and how they — and their institutions — can ensure they do so more often. "There's not a single smoking gun," says De Neve about the growth of this trend. There are many factors at play, and they've been building for decades. By the year 2000, when social scientist and Harvard University professor Robert Putnam published his book "Bowling Alone," the U.S. was already seeing an increase in disconnect from family, friends and neighbors. Putnam pointed to changes in work, family structure, suburban life, television and computers as contributors to the decline. When it comes to 18-to-24-year-olds, the introduction of smartphones and social media in the last two decades has only exacerbated the problem, De Neve says. An overwhelming majority, 98% of 18-to-29-year-olds have a Smartphone, according to a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center. Smartphones are "distracting us from other human beings in the room," he says, "and are also sort of an excuse to not have to talk to people." Former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy came to speak at Oxford in 2024. Murthy had just come back from a tour of American college campuses and shared a key observation. "The default now is that you do not speak to people when you go into a dining hall and you sit by yourself," De Neve says Murthy told them. To mitigate the growing lack of shared meals among young people, De Neve offers up some possible solutions. First, on an individual level, De Neve recommends taking the advice of Harvard Business School professor Arthur Brooks who he says suggests a box in both your bedroom and your kitchen where you put your phone. "That will force you to be present, and actually having conversations with people," De Neve says. On an institutional level, at universities, for example, administrators could consider having "one table in the dining hall which has a no-phone policy," he says, which signals to students that "if you're sitting here, you have to strike up a conversation." Finally, on a societal level, "we need to work with these social media tech companies," he says. While companies like Meta might have started with the intent to strengthen our personal connections, they've done the opposite. Ultimately, De Neves says, it's time to focus on putting "the 'social' back into social media."
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Scientists have designed the perfect day. So I tried it
According to the Lou Reed song, the ultimate perfect day involves sangria in the park, feeding animals at the zoo and a movie. And possibly heroin. But that was the Seventies and things have changed. Feeding zoo animals is generally frowned upon nowadays, as is smack. Instead, researchers at the University of British Columbia have created the formula for a perfect day using AI analysis (admittedly, not as exciting as Spanish booze or narcotics). The boffins used data from the American Time Use Survey, in which participants recorded how much time they spent on 100 different activities and rated each. According to the science, the 'perfect' day consists of six hours of quality time with family, two hours with friends, one-and-a-half hours of socialising, less than six hours spent working (with a brief 15-minute commute), two hours of exercise and no more than an hour's worth of screen time. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? That's if you enjoy interaction with other people, because it involves a lot of that. If, on the other hand, you're an introvert, it could well be hell. Personally, I have reservations. Six hours of family time sounds excessive. And surely it would depend on which members of your family that time is devoted to. Do pets count? And two hours of exercise? I'm an avid gym-goer but would struggle with that amount of exertion. Consider, then, the opposite. What constitutes the 'worst' day? While there's been no definitive studies into this, I decided to try and build a non-scientific template by flipping the formula for the perfect day and substituting the 'good' activities with their 'bad' opposites, adding a few of the unhealthiest habits for good measure, such as sleeping in, being sedentary, excessive screen time, drinking alcohol, stress and isolation. Helpfully, the study also lists some of the lowest scoring activities, which includes gardening, looking after other people's children and time spent with spouses, which confusingly, may sound like fun ways to spend time (I love spending time with my wife, obvs). So, is the perfect day really perfect, and could the imperfect day be just as fun? I tested which was better… Skip to: The perfect day The imperfect day The verdict Normally I'll wake at 6am, get to the gym for around 7am and then spend an hour working out. I like to start work by 8.30am so the logistics of a two-hour session don't suit me. Instead, I set the alarm for 5am and get up straight away, which is a struggle, then head out for a light run, before heading to the gym for some weight training and a Blaze HIIT (high-intensity interval training) class. This is achievable in the summer when the weather is kind, but must be miserable in the cold and dark. By the end of this early morning marathon, I'm exhausted. It's much more than I'd normally do. The study distinguishes between socialising and time spent with friends and family, so I take socialising to mean social interactions. Luckily, I am friendly with many of the regulars in the gym and today I ramp up the chattiness. I stop to talk to the receptionist, then chat to the staff in the café while they try to set up for the day. On the gym floor I am that annoying person who wanders around and talks to everyone, and in the HIIT class I have plenty of banter with the instructor, monopolising the session. I then chat absently to people in the changing room in various stages of undress. As I don't work in an office, I've always valued these small interactions with different people during the day and I feel good about the connections I've made, but judging by some of the body language I fear I may have been a nuisance today. Nevertheless, I'm at my desk by 8am, happy in the knowledge that by 2pm I'll have finished. Normally I work 10 hours or more a day, often on weekends too. Being self-employed means if I don't work, I don't get paid. So a six-hour day should feel like a treat. Instead, I finish at 2pm weighed down by guilt and anxiety, knowing I'll have to start early and work late the next day just to catch up. Not exactly the perfect start to an afternoon off. According to the study, spouses don't count, which is a shame, because I really enjoy my wife's company. Besides, she's busier than I am anyway. Luckily, my mother, who lives in Australia, is visiting. It's a great chance to spend time with her and also catch up with my son and daughter, now 18 and 23. I haven't seen my mother in several years, so it's wonderful to be together again. Even so, after a couple of hours, the conversation slows, thankfully, she's great at filling the gaps. After a long lunch, I then meet up with my children, whose company I always treasure. In the evening I head off to the pub to meet a friend for an easy two hours decompressing after family time. To start with, the amount of social time looked daunting, but having spent it with a selection of my favourite people the time passes easily. The trick, I think, is to choose your company carefully. Some people are effortless company, others drain energy. Another easy win. An hour of Clarkson's Farm to round off the day is time well spent and leaves me lifted before bed. I read for half an hour before drifting off. Forcing myself to stay in bed until 8am on a weekday felt vaguely criminal. I tried to do something positive with the time and scrolled through the newspapers online, but still felt guilty. And the no-exercise rule was hard to adhere to. I wanted to go for a walk at least but instead headed to my desk in the home office. According to the study, when individuals worked for more than six hours, the positive effects rapidly turned negative, so I set myself an eight-hour working day. I have a love/hate relationship with my WFH set-up. I share the home office with my wife, who often presents seminars and workshops online, while I try to concentrate on writing. And when she is away, which she is a lot, I find the office isolating, so I work in a café or in the pub in the evening where the hum of life is comforting. Today my wife is away so, in keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I work in the home office with just the cat for company. And he whines all day. As expected, I find the solitude soul-crushing. The only bonus is that an eight-hour day, while detrimental in terms of the study data, is still shorter than my normal working day, which allows me to fit in the other unhealthy activities. In the study, time related to consumer purchases indicated a 'zero effect' on whether participants would have a good day, as did gardening. I love my garden, but am no fan of gardening. I do as little as possible, and we have gardeners. I choose the unpleasant job of pruning away aphid-infected leaves from the apple tree. The bugs excrete a liquid called honeydew and, as I chop away haphazardly, aphid excrement drips down on me. Ninety minutes later I head for a shower, then spend 30 minutes online shopping for summer clothes and pesticides. I'm lucky enough to have two pubs within yards of my front door. I head to the Brewery Inn for a couple of pints alone. I take my laptop too and cram in a bit more work. This is a regular early evening thing for me. My wife thinks it's sad; I think it's one of the best things you can do with your time. I'm comfortable with my own company, and the pub serves excellent beer and plays excellent music. Ninety minutes later, I emerge comfortably lubricated. Another surprising finding of the study was that time spent relaxing was negatively associated with having a good day. The authors make the presumption that this is because most of this time was devoted to watching television, 'which would not necessarily make for a better day'. In this spirit I settle on the sofa with crisps, biscuits, beer and wine. I try to watch programmes with no intrinsic value, but, after a trio of Eastenders, Coronation Street and Love Island, I begin to lose the will to live so switch to Shōgun, which is very good – although by this point I'm feeling the effects of the alcohol and the subtitles are challenging. I opt for something educational and watch the first episode of Adam Curtis's new social history, Shifty, which is excellent, but my brain struggles to keep up with the high-brow concepts. For light relief I head to Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure, which requires no energy, unlike the show's protagonist. I finish the day in bed scrolling through TikTok, X and Truth Social, and drift off dreaming of cats and hatred. Not as perfect as it would appear, especially if you value 'me time', or time with your spouse. It depends on who you spend your time with and what you do. Meanwhile a six-hour workday seems impractical for anyone with a full-time job. For me the most detrimental elements were the lack of interactions with people and the lack of exercise. This is not a prescription for good health, and it was easy to see how this sort of lifestyle could be damaging in the long term. As a one-off, however, parts of it were enjoyable, such as slobbing out on the sofa and sinking a few pints in the pub. The only ill-effect was a fuzzy head the following morning. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Scientists have designed the perfect day. So I tried it
According to the Lou Reed song, the ultimate perfect day involves sangria in the park, feeding animals at the zoo and a movie. And possibly heroin. But that was the Seventies and things have changed. Feeding zoo animals is generally frowned upon nowadays, as is smack. Instead, researchers at the University of British Columbia have created the formula for a perfect day using AI analysis (admittedly, not as exciting as Spanish booze or narcotics). The boffins used data from the American Time Use Survey, in which participants recorded how much time they spent on 100 different activities and rated each. According to the science, the 'perfect' day consists of six hours of quality time with family, two hours with friends, one-and-a-half hours of socialising, less than six hours spent working (with a brief 15-minute commute), two hours of exercise and no more than an hour's worth of screen time. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? That's if you enjoy interaction with other people, because it involves a lot of that. If, on the other hand, you're an introvert, it could well be hell. Personally, I have reservations. Six hours of family time sounds excessive. And surely it would depend on which members of your family that time is devoted to. Do pets count? And two hours of exercise? I'm an avid gym-goer but would struggle with that amount of exertion. Consider, then, the opposite. What constitutes the 'worst' day? While there's been no definitive studies into this, I decided to try and build a non-scientific template by flipping the formula for the perfect day and substituting the 'good' activities with their 'bad' opposites, adding a few of the unhealthiest habits for good measure, such as sleeping in, being sedentary, excessive screen time, drinking alcohol, stress and isolation. Helpfully, the study also lists some of the lowest scoring activities, which includes gardening, looking after other people's children and time spent with spouses, which confusingly, may sound like fun ways to spend time (I love spending time with my wife, obvs). So, is the perfect day really perfect, and could the imperfect day be just as fun? I tested which was better… Skip to: The perfect day Two hours spent exercising Normally I'll wake at 6am, get to the gym for around 7am and then spend an hour working out. I like to start work by 8.30am so the logistics of a two-hour session don't suit me. Instead, I set the alarm for 5am and get up straight away, which is a struggle, then head out for a light run, before heading to the gym for some weight training and a Blaze HIIT (high-intensity interval training) class. This is achievable in the summer when the weather is kind, but must be miserable in the cold and dark. By the end of this early morning marathon, I'm exhausted. It's much more than I'd normally do. One-and-a-half hours spent socialising The study distinguishes between socialising and time spent with friends and family, so I take socialising to mean social interactions. Luckily, I am friendly with many of the regulars in the gym and today I ramp up the chattiness. I stop to talk to the receptionist, then chat to the staff in the café while they try to set up for the day. On the gym floor I am that annoying person who wanders around and talks to everyone, and in the HIIT class I have plenty of banter with the instructor, monopolising the session. I then chat absently to people in the changing room in various stages of undress. As I don't work in an office, I've always valued these small interactions with different people during the day and I feel good about the connections I've made, but judging by some of the body language I fear I may have been a nuisance today. Nevertheless, I'm at my desk by 8am, happy in the knowledge that by 2pm I'll have finished. Six hours of work Normally I work 10 hours or more a day, often on weekends too. Being self-employed means if I don't work, I don't get paid. So a six-hour day should feel like a treat. Instead, I finish at 2pm weighed down by guilt and anxiety, knowing I'll have to start early and work late the next day just to catch up. Not exactly the perfect start to an afternoon off. Six hours of family time According to the study, spouses don't count, which is a shame, because I really enjoy my wife's company. Besides, she's busier than I am anyway. Luckily, my mother, who lives in Australia, is visiting. It's a great chance to spend time with her and also catch up with my son and daughter, now 18 and 23. I haven't seen my mother in several years, so it's wonderful to be together again. Even so, after a couple of hours, the conversation slows, thankfully, she's great at filling the gaps. After a long lunch, I then meet up with my children, whose company I always treasure. Two hours with friends In the evening I head off to the pub to meet a friend for an easy two hours decompressing after family time. To start with, the amount of social time looked daunting, but having spent it with a selection of my favourite people the time passes easily. The trick, I think, is to choose your company carefully. Some people are effortless company, others drain energy. One hour of screen time Another easy win. An hour of Clarkson's Farm to round off the day is time well spent and leaves me lifted before bed. I read for half an hour before drifting off. The imperfect day Late waking and zero hours exercising Forcing myself to stay in bed until 8am on a weekday felt vaguely criminal. I tried to do something positive with the time and scrolled through the newspapers online, but still felt guilty. And the no-exercise rule was hard to adhere to. I wanted to go for a walk at least but instead headed to my desk in the home office. Eight hours of work According to the study, when individuals worked for more than six hours, the positive effects rapidly turned negative, so I set myself an eight-hour working day. I have a love/hate relationship with my WFH set-up. I share the home office with my wife, who often presents seminars and workshops online, while I try to concentrate on writing. And when she is away, which she is a lot, I find the office isolating, so I work in a café or in the pub in the evening where the hum of life is comforting. Today my wife is away so, in keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I work in the home office with just the cat for company. And he whines all day. As expected, I find the solitude soul-crushing. The only bonus is that an eight-hour day, while detrimental in terms of the study data, is still shorter than my normal working day, which allows me to fit in the other unhealthy activities. Two hours of gardening, plus online shopping In the study, time related to consumer purchases indicated a 'zero effect' on whether participants would have a good day, as did gardening. I love my garden, but am no fan of gardening. I do as little as possible, and we have gardeners. I choose the unpleasant job of pruning away aphid-infected leaves from the apple tree. The bugs excrete a liquid called honeydew and, as I chop away haphazardly, aphid excrement drips down on me. Ninety minutes later I head for a shower, then spend 30 minutes online shopping for summer clothes and pesticides. One-and-a-half hours of drinking alone I'm lucky enough to have two pubs within yards of my front door. I head to the Brewery Inn for a couple of pints alone. I take my laptop too and cram in a bit more work. This is a regular early evening thing for me. My wife thinks it's sad; I think it's one of the best things you can do with your time. I'm comfortable with my own company, and the pub serves excellent beer and plays excellent music. Ninety minutes later, I emerge comfortably lubricated. Five hours spent watching television and eating junk food Another surprising finding of the study was that time spent relaxing was negatively associated with having a good day. The authors make the presumption that this is because most of this time was devoted to watching television, 'which would not necessarily make for a better day'. In this spirit I settle on the sofa with crisps, biscuits, beer and wine. I try to watch programmes with no intrinsic value, but, after a trio of Eastenders, Coronation Street and Love Island, I begin to lose the will to live so switch to Shōgun, which is very good – although by this point I'm feeling the effects of the alcohol and the subtitles are challenging. I opt for something educational and watch the first episode of Adam Curtis's new social history, Shifty, which is excellent, but my brain struggles to keep up with the high-brow concepts. For light relief I head to Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure, which requires no energy, unlike the show's protagonist. Late night TikTok and doom-scrolling I finish the day in bed scrolling through TikTok, X and Truth Social, and drift off dreaming of cats and hatred. The verdict Perfect Day Not as perfect as it would appear, especially if you value 'me time', or time with your spouse. It depends on who you spend your time with and what you do. Meanwhile a six-hour workday seems impractical for anyone with a full-time job. Imperfect Day For me the most detrimental elements were the lack of interactions with people and the lack of exercise. This is not a prescription for good health, and it was easy to see how this sort of lifestyle could be damaging in the long term. As a one-off, however, parts of it were enjoyable, such as slobbing out on the sofa and sinking a few pints in the pub. The only ill-effect was a fuzzy head the following morning.
