Buy back your time
Spend money to outsource tasks you dislike, freeing hours for what matters.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Spend money to outsource tasks you dislike, freeing hours for what matters.
- Why it works: Disliked, time-consuming chores impose a steady stress and crowd out higher-value or restorative activity. Paying to offload them converts money into discretionary time and reduces end-of-day time pressure, which is the lever that links the spending to greater wellbeing.
- Evidence: Backed by randomized trials / meta-analyses.
- Avoid: Outsourcing a chore and immediately filling the freed time with more work, which erases the wellbeing benefit the time was supposed to provide.
Why it works
Disliked, time-consuming chores impose a steady stress and crowd out higher-value or restorative activity. Paying to offload them converts money into discretionary time and reduces end-of-day time pressure, which is the lever that links the spending to greater wellbeing.
How to do it
- 1List the recurring tasks you most dislike and that eat real time.
- 2Outsource one (cleaning, delivery, errands) and notice how the freed time feels.
- 3Reinvest the freed hours deliberately — protect them rather than refilling with more work.
What the evidence says
RCT / meta-analysisResearch found that spending money on time-saving services was associated with greater life satisfaction, and a small experiment found buying time increased positive affect more than buying material goods.
Honest caveat: The experimental sample was small and the survey component is correlational; effects are real but modest, and "buy back time" only helps if you actually protect the freed time.
- — Whillans et al. (2017), buying time promotes happiness, PNAS
Common mistake
Outsourcing a chore and immediately filling the freed time with more work, which erases the wellbeing benefit the time was supposed to provide.
IX Coach helps you identify which tasks are worth buying back and, crucially, plan what the freed time is for so it is not silently reabsorbed by work.
Practice this with IX Coach →