Time Well Spent

Rethinking How We Spend Our Days

Aug 01, 2025

Part of aging well is well-being - part of well-being is our evaluation of our life, including our emotions, life satisfaction, and sense of meaning or purpose. When life seems like all work with no play, the balance is off - rejuvenation is lost.

I do worry about running out of time, wasting it, and not getting everything I want done while I’m able.

The reasons for that worry seem to boil down to the following.

Perfectionism: Many people have a strong drive for excellence and a great fear of making mistakes, which leads them to demand perfection, even in activities meant to be enjoyable.
- I can easily turn hobbies into work because I don’t allow myself to relax and enjoy them. The need to do everything perfectly looms large, and mistakes cause self-criticism rather than a chance to learn. That leaves little opportunity for revitalization.
Societal pressure: In today's culture, there's an emphasis on productivity and achievement, making it easy to feel guilty about "wasting time" on activities that have no concrete outcome.
- As a child, I was taught an unwavering work ethic that has influenced me most of my adult life.
Mindset: Our way of thinking can be a potent motivator or a destructive force, leading to burnout and hindering performance or well-being. It's crucial to find a balance between pushing to achieve and allowing oneself to recharge.
- During my husband’s struggle with dementia, I became the head of our household in addition to my usual activities. After his death, I was creating a new life for myself - one that included new responsibilities and skills. It was up to me, and there was no time for play.

As far as I can tell, those three factors have led to considerable anxiety, with the most significant issue being a self-imposed need to do everything perfectly. This need increased dramatically after my husband died. It was now up to me; there was so much I didn’t know, and my body was aging.

So, it was time to rethink my position. Here’s my tentative plan.

I’ve divided my activities into two categories: work and play, with different sets of expectations for each.
Work includes doing the household chores, writing, aging well, spending time with my family, and maintaining my independence.
However, those activities involve other tasks, like learning how to use the computer properly, exercising regularly, preparing healthy meals, paying the bills, cleaning the house, and, oh, caring for the cats. All of which must be done at least as well as possible.
Art and my other hobbies, traveling, tending the plants, reading, learning a foreign language, and playing word games, could be a form of relaxation if I let them.
The issue had been the pressure to do everything perfectly; so, I’ve decided to let it go as much as possible and enjoy the hobbies for what they are - necessary and fun ways to refresh myself.
I’m substituting negative thoughts with positive ones when possible. This reminder helps.
“I’m in charge of how I feel. Now I choose to feel happy about my life, be grateful for what I have, and remain excited about what's to come in the future.”
I’m replacing the need to do everything perfectly by thinking in terms of experiments. What if I tried this or that, learned from the outcome, and tweaked the results until I’m satisfied, rather than expecting to do everything right the first time and getting angry when I don't?
Ask myself how I can enjoy the activity, whether I’ve labeled it work or play. Is it possible that everything could be playful?

So, this is my first attempt at recognizing and accepting the rejuvenating value of play as part of my effort to age well.

FOR THE COMMENTS: I'm not very good at taking time to play. Are you?

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Janice Walton is a psychologist, a widow, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and a writer. She has written articles for Substack for the past four years.