Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.

When we devote a little time to the other people in our life, we actually feel like we have more of it. Our guest tried a practice to regain control of his time and schedule

Episode summary:

Like many of us, our guest Bryant Terry felt like he never had enough time in his day. And while he was eager to reconnect with his family, his schedule was spiraling out of control. For our show, Bryant tried a practice proven to help you feel like you have more time, by specifically devoting some of your time to others. He set intentions to spend quality time with his children doing activities that they truly enjoy. By prioritizing those special moments with his family, Bryant felt more control over his schedule, recognizing that he has the power to make time for what truly matters to him. Later, we hear from professor Cassie Mogilner Holmes about why this practice works, and how being intentional with our time can reshape our relationship with it.
Learn more about this practice at Greater Good In Action:

Practice

1. Think of a person whom you care about.
2. What might you be able to do for this person that entails nothing more than the giving of your time?
3. Plan a gift of time for this person and give it, whether it means doing something with them (in person or virtually).
4. Spend as much time as needed to do the favor well and do not take any shortcuts. You might even consider taking off your watch or putting your smartphone away.

Today’s guests:


Bryant Terry is an award winning chef, author and artist.

Learn about Bryant’s work:

Follow Bryant on Instagram:

Learn about his imprint, 4 Color Books: http://tinyurl.com/yuhrsrp8
Cassie Mogilner Holmes is a professor of marketing and behavioral decision making at UCLA.

Learn about Cassie’s work: http://tinyurl.com/rb5r97s5
Resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

How to Feel Like You Have More Time:

Ten Ways to Make Your Time Matter:

Why You Never Seem to Have Enough Time:

Can Awe Buy You More Time and Happiness?

How to Spend Your Time on What Matters Most: http://tinyurl.com/ycw527tj
More Resources on spending quality time with others:

BBC – How to feel more in control of your time:

Stanford – Jennifer Aaker: How to Feel Like You Have More Time:

Harvard -You’ll Feel Less Rushed If You Give Time Away: http://tinyurl.com/yc86ymve
How do you devote time to others? Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

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Transcript:

Bryant Terry: Ok, hold on a second. All right, let’s do this.

You know coming out of 2020, where our whole family was sheltering in place. My wife was working from home, I was working from home and both of our daughters were distance learning. And having the whole family here, there was a lot to negotiate and work out and, you know, some bumps in the beginning.

But It was interesting because, while we were here all the time, we were busy and we were, you know, kind of in the mode of just transactional like, you get it done. Have you done this? And, you know, getting the kids situated \And you know, I realized that We could be here all the time together, and we could actually not be spending so much time together.

Dacher Keltner: I’m Dacher Keltner, welcome to The Science of Happiness. This week we’re revisiting a favorite past episode – about a practice called The Gift of Time.

To do it, you just carve out a little piece of your day, no matter how busy you are, and then dedicate it to another person.

Studies show that when we give our time to others, it actually changes the way we perceive time and– we feel like we have more of it.

James Beard winning chef and author Bryant Terry felt like his schedule was completely out of control — so he tried this practice for our show. We hear from him, and also about the science behind why this practice works, and what happens when we spend time on ourselves, versus others.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: Maybe by slowing down, stopping to help others, it could make us feel like we had more time.

Dacher Keltner: More, after this break.


Welcome back to The Science of Happiness, I’m Dacher Keltner.

So many of us feel pressed for time – but unfortunately, scientists still haven’t figured out a way to squeeze more than 24 hours out of a day.

What they have discovered is a way to make it feel like you can. Today we’re circling back to a past episode about a practice called The Gift of Time, where you do something above and beyond what you’d normally do for another person. It could take 5 minutes or an hour, as long as the goal is to show your love.

Our guest is Bryant Terry, a James Beard Award-winning chef and author who tried this practice when his schedule was piling up with promotion for his incredible book Black Food, and he wanted to recommit to spending quality time with his family.

Here’s some of our conversation.

Bryant, thank you for joining us on The Science of Happiness.

Bryant Terry: Thank you so much for having me on.

Dacher Keltner: You chose to try theThe Gift of Time practice, even though you’ve been feeling really busy lately. And what you do for this one is pretty simple, you just pick someone you care about, and you devote some time to them — either by doing something with them or for them on your own. Why did this practice stand out to you?

Bryant Terry: Just in 2020,I decided that I needed to spend time with both of my daughters separately to give them some love. And so this practice, it was right on time and in alignment with what I’ve been doing informally. But it was nice to just have a reset, and I’m glad that I did it because I’m holding it now as something that I want to, you know, at least once a month. And I refer to this and be very intentional about spending time with both of my daughters, and that’s how I split it up. I was like, I’m going to do this. I’m going to be very intentional about spending time with Zenzi, my seven year old, and Mila, my 10 year old.

Dacher Keltner: And what was it like? Like what you guys do? And what did they think about dad spending some extra time with them?

Bryant Terry: I let them lead. You know, I wanted to do whatever they wanted to do. Whatever they they felt would be a joyful moment with me. And so with my youngest daughter, Zenzi, who is a really talented visual artist and singer, we drew together. That’s what she likes to do. She’s like, Baba, come draw with me.

We were in her room. She started by drawing a unicorn with wings. And so that was like the process that we often go through when we’re making art together is kind of a back and forth, and I like to let her start and then I’ll, you know, pepper in what I want to do. And we just kind of like, continue in that way. So she drew a unicorn. And then I put text on it PMA. Positive mental attitude. And then she colored the wings pink. And I think I, you know, colored the head pink and green and yellow. And then she got a magazine and started cutting out some stars and other celestial bodies. And so, you know, it was cool because it was one of those things that I didn’t want to stop. I was having fun and, you know, time was just kind of flying by it just felt a little metaphysical. And, you know, we were doing this. I mean, it’s a unicorn, for God’s sake. And then we had the unicorn flying in out of space, and it just the whole thing just felt kind of cool and it was fun.

Dacher Keltner: Awesome. And how did you spend time with your older daughter?

Bryant Terry: My oldest daughter is a musician as well. So we started her at cello when she was three. So she’s been playing cello since she’s three. She’s 10 now and then. She started piano when she was eight, and she started weekly tutoring with the producer down in L.A. And she’s learning about hip hop, beat making and music production. And so she’s been very secretive about it.

It’s like, she’s making all these beats and learning all this stuff, but she doesn’t really share it with us often. And so it was very cool because I just felt like the closeness, you know, us connecting and feeling, you know, more of a bond than we have over the past several weeks, maybe months.

She was just open to sharing, so she had played me a few songs that she composed, one that she said she’d been working on for three years. She’s been working on this song for three years and she played this beautiful song with me. So it’s just the moments were just very simple but special.

Dacher Keltner: You know, I think one of the struggles of the science of happiness is to just to capture, you know, Bryant, what you just describe, like you’re sharing this time and you’re looking in each other’s eyes and hearing the voice and there’s this, almost, it’s this transcendent state and you just feel something different. Time stretches out how would you describe that? What do you make of it?

Bryant Terry: I agree. I found that even when I went in with an intention of, you know, my set time, we’re going to we’re going to spend 10 minutes together because I got to jump on this other project or whatever. Oftentimes it would extend to half an hour, or an hour. It did feel like just time was melting away because we were being so present with each other. I found that just really being present, you know, because I could. I think we can all relate to this as parents. You could be with your kids, but you’re thinking about the work assignment that you have or you’re thinking about what you’re making for dinner. And I was really intentional, just like, let me just shut out all the distractions.

What I have, the tendency to do is if I’m with them and we’re hanging out, when I think of that thing, then I’ll get up or I got to go. Email David, or I got to like, add a note to that recipe. And it was just so nice, just feeling like I didn’t need to do anything but just being with them.

Dacher Keltner: You know, I have to tell you one of the things I do with my older daughter, Natalie is we go backpacking and we went on this trip and I was out of shape and, you know, coming out of COVID, she was blazing ahead and and we had our goal on one thing and I didn’t quite make it because I was out of shape and I got so tired and we just sat on this rock by this lake and and just had time, you know? And I, it was the most important experience I had in the last few months. Just, you know, just sitting like you said and connecting and finding time.

Bryant Terry: Yes. Like, if I’m not carving out at least half an hour to just connect with my children, then what am I doing all this for? I think it just helped me prioritize and understand that I have agency and control over my schedule, and if it’s something that’s important to me, then I need to just carve it out. And that was I didn’t mention this, but you know what, I actually did. I put it in my calendar. I was very clear that I need to schedule this in and not just kind of like if it happens. And so scheduling it in among the many meetings and interviews and everything that was so crucial and I almost felt like I need to be doing that just in general, not just for the practice that I did for — the for this conversation, but I do that with everything else. I’m scheduling my haircut, I’m scheduling it. Hey, you need to start packing for your trip tomorrow at this time. So I need to be just having standing times where I’m just hanging out with my girls.

Dacher Keltner: one of the really interesting discoveries in anthropology is like one of the most sacred things you can give as food because in our history, food scarcity was real. And when you gave food, you gave life, right?

Bryant Terry: Bingo.

Dacher Keltner: And Bryant, I know you got many dishes up in your recipe book, but what’s your dish that you like to give to people to give them time?

Bryant Terry: Oh, let me tell you, this is the one I like. So let me just say that I often encourage people to think about cooking as an opportunity to practice mindfulness.

Dacher Keltner: Wow. No way.

Bryant Terry: Yeah. And I talk about cooking as meditation. But a complaint that I’ve heard from many people over the years about my body of work is that, oh, the recipes are too complicated. They take a long time and I admit many of them are labor intensive, but it’s because I’m really trying to encourage people to make everything from scratch. And so one thing that I encourage people to do is just think about when you can carve out time to actually just go slowly and be present with the process of making food. I get it.

I know sometimes at the end of the day, you know, you’ve got to get food on the table, you’ve got to do everything. I get it and I get people work a lot. But when you can carve that time, I just think that it’s so beautiful when we can just engage in cooking without any rush and just be like, I’m just going to sit here and just slowly dice these onions.

And so anyway, all that to say is the recipe that I feel like is a gift to myself, but also to other people. I have this recipe in my book Afro Vegan. And it’s a slow-braised mustard greens with caramelized tomato onions. Oh, this is. It’s really in the spirit of my approach of cooking as collage. And so, you know, mustard a staple in southern African-American cooking throughout the diaspora. So the greens are simmering. I’m caramelizing, my onions. I add my sugar, my tomatoes, and that tops the greens and gives it some aggressive tomato and just the acid that we finish it off with I think it’s a habanero vinegar and dish this is it’s multilayered. The flavors are popping. The stories are powerful. And it’s just a really cool dish.

Dacher Keltner: I’m salivating, man. That’s too good. Thank you so much for your gift of time. Thank you for your recent book, Black Food. Thank you for your activism. What an honor to speak to you, and thanks for being on The Science of Happiness.

Bryant Terry: Thank you so much for having me on. It’s been a pleasure.

Dacher Keltner: Sharing our time with others can bring such joy. But when we feel really busy, that can be hard to do.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: If we gave some of our time, would we feel time richer? Would we feel like we had more time?

Dacher Keltner: More on the science, up next.

Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I’m Dacher Keltner. When we feel like we don’t have enough time in our day-to-day life, it can be hard to show up for the people around us.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: As I’m rushing around in my office like, Oh my god, I have too much to do. I don’t even stop to say hello to my colleagues.

Dacher Keltner: Cassie Mogilner Holmes is a professor of marketing and behavioral decision making at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: When we feel time-poor, we are less kind. We spend less time to help other people.

Dacher Keltner: Cassie and a few other researchers wanted to find out what happens when we go against those instincts, and instead spend our time helping someone else.

On a Saturday morning, they asked a group of volunteers to either spend ten or thirty minutes doing something kind for another person, something they weren’t already planning to do.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: We assigned the other set of folks, “Spend either 10 or 30 minutes today doing something for yourself that you weren’t already planning to do.”

Dacher Keltner: That evening they followed up with everyone to find out what they did.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: One person I remember spent the time to write a letter to their grandmother, whom they hadn’t spoken to in a while to make her feel better. Someone said that they helped their friend sort of pull up the tile on their bathroom floor. Another went down the street and at the park spent that 30 minutes picking up trash, to help the community look better.

Now, in terms of how people spent time on themselves, it was all these wonderful things too. It was people pampering themselves, taking a bubble bath, you know, relaxing on the couch, watching TV or reading a book, going outside, going for a jog/

Dacher Keltner: Next, everyone completed an online survey.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: How expansive is your future? How limited is your time in your future? Questions like that to get this understanding of how much time they felt like they had.

Dacher Keltner: The people who did something for someone else reported feeling like they had more time.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes: And that was irrespective of whether we instructed them to spend 10 minutes or 30 minutes. So irrespective of how much time, irrespective of whether they gave their time to someone they knew well or, you know, were kind to their neighborhood by cleaning up litter, we saw that those who gave their time felt like they had more time.

Maybe by slowing down, stopping to help others, it could make us feel like we had more time because it makes us feel very effective in how we spend our time. And that feeling of self-efficacy might make us feel like we have enough time to do all those things that we need to and want to do.

Haley Gray: Hey, this is Haley Gray a producer here at the science of happiness. Next time on the podcast, we’re exploring a practice that I’m 99% sure you were fantastic at as a kid. And that you could get a lot out of now, being playful:

Patricia Hayter: I believe I decided I needed more playfulness when my son told me that I’m not fun anymore. Cause in my head I was like, growing up I was so much fun!

So, that would be the moment I was like, I’m gonna show him, like, just how playful your mom is.

Haley Gray: We hear all about the science of why playfulness is so important, and how to create more of it in ourselves.

Dacher Keltner: Thanks, Haley. I’m Dacher Keltner, thanks for joining us on The Science of Happiness. Our executive producer is Shuka Kalantari. Our producer is Haley Gray. Sound design is from Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios and our associate producers for this episode were Kristie Song and Maarya Zafar. And our executive director is Jason Marsh. The Science of Happiness is a co-production of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and PRX.