Benjamin Shea

Introduction

Have you ever wondered where the time goes in a day? Over a week I choose three days
(2 weekdays & 1 weekend day) to observe how I am spending my time. In this study I kept track
of time spent on leisure, personal, and work activities. Another area of time that I was tracking is
time spent alone vs. time spent with others. The penultimate subject that was tracked was
whether or not technology was being used. One final part of my time diary that I was keeping
track of was my emotions and stress levels during the activities. I rated my emotions on a scale
of negative five to positive five. Then I rated my stress level on a one to ten scale. While logging
the time you spend doing various activities, it can be beneficial to help understand your personal
time usage.

My Overall Time Use

Overall my time use on the weekend day was much different from the two weekdays. The
main reason for this is because during the weekend I spent zero hours of work time, compared to
an average of seven and a fourth hours of work time on the two weekdays. On the weekend day
most of my time was spent participating in leisure activities. On the weekend day I spent the first
three hours doing leisure activities. Then after that the next eight and a half hours were spent on
personal time. Then after that I spent the rest of the day in leisure time. The last part of my
leisure time lasted twelve and a half hours. In total for the weekend day I spent zero hours of
work time, fifteen and a half hours doing leisure activity, and eight and a half hours of personal
time. I am a little bit surprised how much time I spent doing leisure activity. Seeing that I spent a
total of fifteen hours on leisure activity is surprising because that is over sixty percent of my time
in a day. The stats on weekdays are vastly different from the weekend. On both weekdays I spent
ten and a half hours doing personal care. As previously stated I spent seven and a quater hours of
work time. Which means on average I had six and a fourth hours of leisure on the weekdays. I
was surprised by how much leisure time I had because throughout the day I felt like I was
always doing work. Whether it was going to classes, working on projects, or other smaller
assignments I felt somewhat overwhelmed. An element I was not surprised about was how much
time I spent on personal care. This is because sleeping takes up most of this time. On the first
weekday I spent eight hours sleeping. Then on the second weekday I spent seven hours sleeping.
Therefore the vast majority of my personal time was spent on sleep.

The comparison between Technology usage between the two days were slightly different.
On the weekend I had fifteen and a half hours of technology time. On average throughout the
weekdays I spent twelve and a half hours on technology. This is only a three hour difference,
which is not significant. This doesn't surprise me because on weekdays while I was in class and
working on homework I needed to use technology. On the weekend day I was using technology
much of the day; however, I wasn't necessarily using it the entire time. However I was still using
technology quite a bit. I was on my phone occasionally and while I was socializing with others.
Overall, I found it interesting to see how much time I was spending on technology.

There are some obvious significant differences between myself and the average amount
of time usage compared to others. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics findings, the
general population spends roughly ten hours on personal care a day. There is not much difference
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between the average per day I spend on personal care. On average I spent about nine hours and
forty-five minutes per day on personal care. However, those in the fifteen to nineteen
demographic average just under eleven hours and forty-five minutes per day on personal care.
That is almost two hours more than I spent. There is a major difference between myself and the
general population in work time. The Bureau estimates that the average person spends an
average of ten hours 20 minutes per day working. I have a much lower average of just 4.8 hours
per day. However, this includes the weekend day where I spent zero hours working. If one takes
the average of my two weekdays it would be seven hours and fifteen minutes on average. Even
though my average increased by nearly two and a half hours, I am still over three hours behind
the average of the general population. The average time spent working by fifteen to eighteen
years olds is six hours according to the Bureau.​This statistic is much closer to my number which
makes sense because I am a member of this demographic. The final category is leisure. The
average working citizen spends three and a half hours per day on leisure according to the Bureau.
On average I had nine hours and twenty minutes of leisure time. However, again this is including
the weekend day. If you take that day out, the average drops down to six and a quarter. This is
still two hours and forty-five minutes higher than the average. The average fifteen to nineteen
year old has six hours and ten minutes of leisure per day, according to the Bureau which is
almost exactly the same as mine.

My emotions and stress varibles

Throughout the week I experienced different levels of stress. This could be due to various
reasons such as relaxation time, sports, school, and homework. My stress levels on the weekend
were extremely low. Throughout most of the weekend I was with others. I also went to a football
game on this day, so the peaks in stress were mainly due to the uncertainty of the game. Overall,
I was very relaxed throughout the weekend day. Throughout the first weekday I had an average
stress level of four out of ten. I peaked at seven and had a low of three on this day. On the second
weekday I also averaged a four out of ten rating. During the week I experienced low levels of
stress. I will now review and evaluate my emotional level. I used a minus five to positive five
scale. My emotional state was extremely high on the weekend day. My level never dropped
below zero and peaked at five, the maximum score. On the weekdays this changes a bit as my
emotions go as low as negative three and only as high as three for the first day. On the second
day it was much different with a peak of five and a low of negative one. I was initially surprised
there was a change in my emotional state from one day to another.

There were multiple trends that I observed while analyzing the data collected. During the
weekend I was with people throughout most of the day. On this day I had a very low stress
rating. I was also completing activities that I enjoyed, which was definitely keeping my stress
levels low. On days that I had to follow a schedule I was more stressed out. The middle parts of
the day seemed to be when my stress levels were the highest. There could be multiple reasons for
this. It could be built up stress, the activity I was doing, or unpleasant interactions. When
reflecting on my emotions, it seems that the mornings were when I was feeling the worst. This is
mainly due to me being tired and not wanting to get up and go to class. The time of day where I
was in the best emotional state was late at night just before I was going to sleep. This is due to
the fact that I am usually doing a relaxing activity before I go to sleep. It seems that I was at my
best emotional state later in the day while being the least stressed in the middle of the day.
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There were multiple activities that resulted in high stress. An activity that I was doing
that resulted in high levels of stress was homework. While doing homework I experienced an
above average level of stress. I rated this activity at roughly five and a half out of ten. My
average stress level throughout the two weekdays was a four out of ten. On the first weekday,
however, I averaged a six out of ten. This is completely normal behavior because according to
Benenden Health researchers exams and studying are one of the top ten most stressful moments
in your lives. One of the lowest moments of stress and highest moment of positive emotions for
me was while playing basketball. This is because it is an activity that I enjoy. Typically when you
do an activity you enjoy you feel less stress. As stated earlier I wasn't very stressed during this
time. However there were still activities that gave me anxiety.

Leisure’s connection to my overall health and wellness

There were many areas of leisure that support my health and wellness. One of the
activities I did that helped me feel my best was playing basketball. This is not surprising because
it is a sport that I enjoy playing. In an article on Halifax Health’s website it is stated that
“Exercise positively impacts levels of serotonin, a chemical that helps regulate mental health,
and stimulates the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which improves mood.” This shows why
playing basketball was great for my mental health. It is a leisure activity that I enjoy doing.
While playing basketball I rated my stress level at two and my emotions at five. Both of which
are basically as good as it can be.

Along with areas that support my health and wellness, there are areas that harm it. One
area of leisure that can act negatively toward health and wellness is procrastination. According to
the National Institutes of Health “Results show that leisure activities are associated with factors
of procrastination. As a matter of fact, the different factors of procrastination were related to
specific types of leisure activities, depending on the weekly frequency of the activity or its
duration.” This is definitely true for me because sometimes I will partake in a leisure activity
knowing I have work to do. This could result in me not getting the assignment done till the last
minute. The reason for this could be enjoyment of the activity mixed with not wanting to do a
more difficult task. For me personally, this is definitely the biggest downside to leisure time.

With that being said, there is something I would want to change about my days to better
my health. One area I could improve on is spending more time with others on weekdays. Over
the two weekdays I spent a total of nine hours with others. That number might not seem too low
however, most of that time was spent in class. If class time is taken out, then that brings the total
to two hours across the two days. The more time you spend with people the better for your
mental well being. Over the next few weeks I would like to increase the time I spend with others.
I will try to find people to eat lunch and dinner with. I could also spend more time playing sports
or other similar activities. Success would look like less time spent in the dorm room and more
time socializing with others. If I start to make more connections and eat dinner with people that
is how we would know the goal is completed.
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Conclusion

While logging the time you spend doing various activities it can be beneficial to help
understand personal your time usage. While doing this assignment I was able to gather data that
compared myself to the general population. I was also able to see that I was experiencing a
relatively low level of stress during the week. In the end I was able to set goals for my health that
will get accomplished. Over the next few weeks I will work to achieve my goal.
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References

Pestana, J. V., Codina, N., & Valenzuela, R. (2020, January 10). Leisure and procrastination, a
quest for autonomy in Free Time Investments: Task avoidance or accomplishment?.
Frontiers in psychology.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6968777/#:~:text=Results%20show%20t
hat%20leisure%20activities,the%20activity%20or%20its%20duration.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). Charts related to the latest “American time use survey”
news release | more chart packages. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/activity-by-sex.htm

Walker, C. (n.d.). The top ten most stressful life events revealed. Benenden Health reveals top ten
most stressful life events.
https://www.benenden.co.uk/newsroom/top-ten-most-stressful-life-events/

Wohlford, A. (2022, September 8). Strong body, strong mind: Benefits of Teen Sports. Halifax
Health.
https://halifaxhealth.org/strong-body-strong-mind-the-physical-and-mental-benefits-of-te
en-sports/#:~:text=Sports%20are%20associated%20with%20lower,resilience%2C%20em
pathy%2C%20confidence%20and%20empowerment