Why are you always out of time

It seemed that technology would free us from work

🏷️ Categories: Time management, Behavior, Motivation, Happiness, History.

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If you stop to think about it, it doesn't seem to make sense. If technologies keep automating and streamlining processes, why is everyone still living in such a hurry? Shouldn't we have gained hours of free time while machines do things for us?

Well, no.

In the late 19th century, a family spent hours every week on household chores. Washing clothes involved carrying buckets of water from a distant well and then tirelessly scrubbing garments on a board. Washing meant going back to the well, carrying more buckets and heating it in a pot over a fire. Cooking was synonymous with carrying firewood. And eating was synonymous with having spent weeks cultivating the land.

The work was endless.

Over the decades, technology transformed the landscape: washing machines, hoovers and kitchens with electrical appliances appeared. Machines promised to simplify life, free people from work and save them time.

However, that was not quite the case.

Although washing machines cleaned clothes while their owners could rest, or refrigerators helped to avoid having to go to the market every day, people did not find more free time. In 1920, housewives spent 51 hours a week on housework. In the 1950s, 52 hours a week. In the 1960s, 53 hours (Schor, 1991). Half a century of technological revolution and they were working more.

History repeats itself with every advance.

It's a global phenomenon that continues today: despite advances in automation, people live the same or more hurried lives with the same amount of free time. Why don't we work less and less if everything becomes more productive?

Let's see what happens with this paradox.

1. The power of expectations

Technology reduces the time needed to complete tasks, but it also redefines what is considered acceptable (Nam, 2014; Stephens, 2007).

In the past, a household with basic cleaning was sufficient. With the advent of household appliances came the need for shiny floors, perfectly ironed clothes and varied meals every day. No one expects less.

Technology improves efficiency and that raises expectations for everything.

Technology did not liberate housewives; it made them work to higher standards.

This is enhanced by Parkinson's Law, which postulates that ‘work expands to fill the time available’. As household chores became faster, people filled the new free time with more work and responsibilities instead of taking more leisure time.

In today's age, the phenomenon persists.

Digital tools make it possible to answer emails in seconds and complete projects faster, but this does not translate into less work. On the contrary, more tasks are assigned and even more ambitious goals are set in order to keep working the same hours (Boucekkine et al., 2014).

In the end, productivity keeps increasing, but the free hours remain the same.

In reality, with the increase in productivity, one could work less and still produce more than before. But nobody cares about that, nobody wants to slow down a bit and take advantage of the productivity increase to have more free time.

It's like a hamster trying to run faster and faster on the wheel.

2. The race to the future

Slowing down means falling behind in the race that everyone is running.

Nobody wants to be left behind, even those who don't even know there is a race.

I am talking about children. Schedules full of extracurricular activities and constant attention to get the best grades, go to the best university and get the best job. For example, in the US, since the 1980s, college-educated parents have doubled the time they spend with their children (Ramey & Ramey, 2009), due to the automation of household chores, as I said before.

At the same time, remember that families now have fewer children, so many resources and expectations are placed on one or two children.

A close example is my niece. When I was in primary school, we only studied English as a second language. She must have known English and French since she was little. Now she is in secondary school. There, I studied physics and chemistry in the last years, she has studied it since she just started high school. I had to choose my major at the age of 16. She should have a clear idea of her major at 14.

She said to me the other day, ‘I don't know what I want to do yet, how am I going to know’.

If she receives the same hours of classes as me, do they make the students go faster now? Do they study more subjects, but more superficially? I don't know.

What I said: Technology improves efficiency and that raises expectations of everything.

Despite living in an age of automation we are still in the same loop.

Luxury is not having more things, but having more time to enjoy them.

3. Keynes was wrong

John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, made a prediction in 1930 for the year 2030 that will not come true at all.

According to his calculations, the progress made over the last centuries, decades and years pointed to the fact that productivity growth and the wealth generated by the economy would be so abundant by 2030 that there would be no need to work, or at most 15 hours a week. This prediction is far from being realised because, as I said, technology raises our expectations as much as it raises ours.

Every advance redefines what we consider to be enough. And it is never enough.

Human needs are infinite; we always want more, whether in goods, status or experiences. That drives us in a never-ending race, seeking something that always seems beyond our reach. So, although technology promised more free time, our nature leads us to keep working the same, without ever getting to the problem that Keynes said would one day arrive.

The problem of what to do with so much free time.

✍️ Your turn: How do you imagine the future: do you think we will reach such a high point of productivity that working hours will be drastically reduced?

💭 Quote of the day: «This moment, like all moments, is a very good moment, if we know what to do with it». Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar.

See you next time! 👋

References 📚

1. Boucekkine, R., Hritonenko, N., & Yatsenko, Y. (2014). Health, Work Intensity, and Technological Innovations. Journal of Biological Systems, 22(2), 219-233. URL

2. Keynes, J. M. (2015). Las posibilidades económicas de nuestros nietos. Ed. Taurus.

3. Nam, T. (2014). Technology Use and Work-Life Balance. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 9(4), 1017-1040. URL

4. Ramey, G., & Ramey, V. (2009). The rug rat race. URL

5. Schor, J. (1991). The overworked American: The Unexpected Decline Of Leisure.

6. Stephens, P. (2007). Unintended consequences: IT's disruption of work-life balance. URL