We all have the same 24 hours in the day, but leaders know how to use their time more effectively and generally find more happiness along the way.

Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where she is an award-winning teacher and researcher. Holmes’s work on the intersection of time and happiness has been widely published in lead academic journals and featured in such outlets as NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and more. Happier Hour is her first book.

A few years ago Cassie found herself so exhausted and overwhelmed that she wondered if she would ever catch up with the pressures of life. She found herself wishing for more hours in her day, but quickly realized that increased discretionary time in her day does not always result in increased happiness.

It’s not about becoming time rich, it’s about making your time spent more rich. We can feel fulfilled and satisfied at the end of each day by investing our time more carefully. The perfect balance is found somewhere between having too much and too little to do. Being time-poor can have just as detrimental an effect on our happiness as not having enough to fill our days up. There was a time when Cassie thought that finding two hours of discretionary time in her day was a dream she would never be able to achieve. While scrolling on TikTok for two hours will never bring satisfaction, that same amount of time spent with children or on a passion project can be the most important hours that we spend in the day.

Cassie shares the research, examples, and cautionary tales that will push you to think about how you are living, and how you want to be remembered. Her message will inspire you to spend your hours well, because they add up to your days, your years, and ultimately, your life.

Interview Links:

Cassie Holmes

Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most

Resources:

20,000 Scaleups

Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.)

Bill on YouTube

Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.

Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.

We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

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Cassie Holmes — Happier Hour

Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher