Are We Actually Having Fun Anymore?

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by Saskia Wickenden | 25th Aug 2026

There is a sentence that has quietly become one of the most common phrases of adult life: “I haven’t got time for that.”

We say it about all sorts of things. The hobby we used to love, the book we keep meaning to read, seeing friends, going for a walk, learning something new, or simply having an afternoon with nowhere to be. It is usually said without much thought, because there always seems to be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Work is busy, the children need something, the house needs sorting, there is a list of jobs waiting, or we are simply too tired.

And then, without really noticing, months can pass.

The slightly uncomfortable question is whether we are genuinely short of time, or whether we have become very good at filling every available space with something that needs doing.

We become very good at managing our lives, while quietly becoming less good at enjoying them.

This isn’t an argument against being busy. Life is busy, and for many people there are periods when there really isn’t much room for anything else. But there is a difference between having a full life and having a life in which almost everything we do has a purpose.

We have become remarkably good at turning everything into a project.

We don’t just exercise. We track it.

We don’t just sleep. We analyse it.

We don’t simply go for a walk. We count the steps.

We don’t just go on holiday. We plan it, optimise it and try to make sure we don’t miss anything.

Even relaxing can become another task on the list: I really need to make time to relax.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. Tracking your running can be motivating, understanding your sleep can be useful and knowing how active you are can be genuinely helpful. The problem comes when we start to feel that every part of our lives needs to be measured, improved or justified.

What happens when we stop treating every spare moment as an opportunity to achieve something?

There is some interesting science behind this. Research into recovery from work suggests that one of the things that helps us recover from stress is psychological detachment, being able to mentally switch off from the demands of work and everyday responsibilities. Simply stopping work isn’t necessarily enough if our minds continue to rehearse tomorrow’s problems, check what we haven’t finished or worry about what needs doing next.

This is one reason enjoyable activities can be more important than they first appear. When we become absorbed in something we genuinely enjoy, our attention is temporarily taken somewhere else. We are not necessarily trying to improve ourselves or achieve anything. We are simply engaged in something that matters to us in that moment.

That might be gardening, cooking, playing music, swimming, drawing, walking, fishing, reading, making something, meeting a friend or doing absolutely nothing in particular. The activity itself isn’t especially important. What matters is that it gives us a chance to step outside the constant feeling that we should be doing something else.

Perhaps that is one of the things we lose as we get older.

Children are generally much better at doing things for no particular reason. A summer afternoon can disappear while they make something, play a game, explore somewhere, sit outside or become completely absorbed in something that an adult would struggle to describe as productive. They don’t need to justify the afternoon afterwards.

Adults seem to find this much harder. We have responsibilities, of course, but we also develop the habit of measuring our time by what we have achieved. A free afternoon can feel like an opportunity that should be used properly. If we haven’t exercised, caught up with someone, finished the jobs around the house or done something useful, we can feel that we have wasted it.

But perhaps we have misunderstood what wasted time actually is.

There is a difference between wasting time and spending time on something that has value simply because it makes you feel good.

A hobby doesn’t have to become a skill. A walk doesn’t have to become fitness training. A holiday doesn’t have to be maximised. You don’t need to become good at the guitar before you are allowed to enjoy playing it. You don’t need to read twenty books a year for reading to be worthwhile. You don’t even need to be particularly good at whatever it is you enjoy.

This matters because stress isn’t only created by the big things in life. A constant sense of demand can build quietly when there is never a real break from having something to organise, solve, achieve or think about. Making room for enjoyable, unstructured time won’t remove the pressures of life, but it can provide something that is increasingly difficult to find: a period in which nothing is being asked of you.

There is also a useful question hidden inside the phrase “I haven’t got time.”

Occasionally, it means exactly what it says. But sometimes it can mean “I haven’t decided that this is important enough to make time for.”

That is a more difficult thing to admit, particularly when the thing we are missing is something we love.

We might tell ourselves that we will get back to it when life settles down, when work becomes easier, when the children are older, when we have more money or when we are less tired. The problem is that life rarely reaches a point where everything is neatly finished. There is nearly always another deadline, another appointment, another job or another reason to wait.

Perhaps we don’t need to completely change our lives. It may simply be worth looking at the things that have gradually disappeared from them.

What did you used to enjoy before it needed to be useful? What did you do before you worried about being good at it? Who did you used to see? Where did you used to go? What did you do that made an ordinary Tuesday evening feel slightly different?

The answer doesn’t have to involve taking up a new hobby or finding hours of free time. It could be something very small: sitting outside with a coffee instead of immediately moving on to the next task, going for a walk without tracking it, calling a friend rather than sending a message, putting some music on, picking up something you haven’t done for years, or simply leaving part of a weekend unplanned.

The point is not to add another item to your already busy schedule.

It is to remember that not everything has to earn its place in your life by being productive.

Perhaps that is something worth considering as we move through another busy month. We spend a huge amount of energy trying to build better, healthier and more organised lives, but it is surprisingly easy to become so focused on managing life that we forget to enjoy it.

So maybe the question isn’t whether you have enough time.

Maybe it is this:

Is there enough enjoyment in the time you already have?

Because not everything we do needs to make us fitter, healthier, richer, more successful or more productive.

Sometimes it is enough that we enjoyed doing it.

And perhaps that isn’t time wasted at all.

Perhaps it is part of what makes the time worthwhile.