Use Your Money to Buy Happier Time

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ashley Whillans, professor at Harvard Business School, researches time-money trade-offs. She argues more people would be happier if they spent more of their hard-earned money to buy themselves out of negative experiences. Her research shows that paying to outsource housework or to enjoy a shorter commute can have an outsized impact on happiness and relationships. Whillans is the author of the HBR article “Time for Happiness.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you work with early career professionals, my colleagues at
0:03.8	HPR have a great new podcast for you. It's called New Here. Think of it like the
0:08.4	Young Professional's Guide to Building a Meaningful Career on your own terms.
0:11.9	Share New Here with the Young Professionals in your life. a meaningful career on your own terms.
0:12.8	Share new here with the young professionals in your life.
0:15.9	Listen for free wherever you got your podcasts.
0:18.6	Just search new here. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish. I keep thinking about something that a guest said recently on the show.
0:49.1	We have been living for several decades as kind of a tenant of a life structure that our
0:56.1	organization has created for us. We know where we're going to be at 9 a.m.
1:01.0	Monday through Friday. Our weekends are also structured around that because you
1:06.8	know maybe one day or part of a day is the day that we do all the chores that we
1:10.4	didn't have a chance for. That was Teresa Amabale on episode 665.
1:15.0	She was saying it in reference to her research on retirement,
1:18.0	but what really struck me is this idea that your job dictates your weekends, it even dictates how you spend your time off.
1:26.0	And that's why I'm excited for today's episode.
1:28.9	Our guest today believes people would be happier if they spent more of the money they earn at work to get back more of their
1:35.2	time when they're not working.
1:37.6	Ashley Willens researches the trade-offs we make between time and money and says we often get those wrong. She says we should
1:44.6	spend more money not just on the things we like, but to get us out of the things we don't
1:49.7	enjoy, say yard work, cooking or commuting. Ashley Willans is an assistant professor at
1:55.3	Harvard Business School. She's also the author of the HBR article
1:58.9	Time for Happiness. Ashley thanks for coming on the show.
	...

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