Pushkin if you think about it, and I encourage people listening to try this. If you ask someone in your own life to share a story of past fun, just watch their face while they're telling you this story. There's really this amazing warmth and this glow that comes off of people, and it's very contagious. It really just lights people up.
As adults, most of us don't have the time or energy to prioritize having fun. It kind of feels like a luxury good. But when some free time unexpectedly opened up for science journalists Catherine Price, she discovered just how restorative and life giving fun can be.
That's what led me to write The Power of Fun. Was this curiosity about what is this feeling, how does it differ from what it says in the dictionary, what research is there on what this is doing for us? And then, perhaps most importantly, like how can I have more of it? Because it feels so good?
On today's episode how to Have More Fun, I'm Maya Schunker, a scientist who studies human behavior, and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. Catherine has spent years researching how people can live happy and meaningful lives in a world filled with distraction. She's written a number of books on the topic, including a
bestseller called How to Break Up with Your Phone. After taking her own advice, Catherine discovered that less screen time left her with a surprising amount of free time. The problem was she had no idea what to do with that free time. Catherine had forgotten how to have fun.
I remember there was this one afternoon when our daughter, at that point was a baby. She was napping, my husband was out running an errand, and I was sitting on the couch downstairs in our living room, and I was just lost. I was thinking, Okay, I have this whole hour in front of me. I can do whatever I want with this hour, and I don't know what
I want to do. So I ended up having a bit of a mini existential crisis of thinking, like, here, I am trying to live life fully, I can't even figure out what I want to do for an hour of free time. And so I ended up asking myself a question, and the question was, what's something you say you want to do but you supposedly don't have time for? And so my answer to that question was I wanted to try to learn guitar because I had been given a guitar by my grandmother when I was in college.
So I thought, well, I should learn to play guitar, and so I found this class. It was a class at a children's music studio, but it was for adults, and I signed up and I went to this class, and I just started to have this feeling when I was in the class, like this just happy feeling that stayed with me for the rest of the week. And we were not trying to become professional musicians we were in that session. I distinctly remember learning the theme song from Mauana, how Far I'll Go.
I literally was just saying last night, that's one of my top Disney songs of all time, which she has the key change midway through the song.
The modulation in my life.
Yeah, the modulation.
I'm like, oh my god, I know a good modulation will get you every time.
Yeah, like it's so good.
So yeah, well we didn't sound like that, I guess was at a point there we sounded very mediocre. But I just loved this class and I was trying to figure out what am I experiencing and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize, Oh, the best word to describe this is fun. I'm really having fun, And I think that speaks to how foreign this feeling can be too adults. And so I was like, this feels so good? How do I have more of this feeling?
And so then I kind of tapped into my science journalist self and I was like, Okay, well, I wonder what this is, like what is fun? And then I looked it up in the dictionary and it was said it was lighthearted amusement or pleasure something like that, and that didn't match at all the exuberant feeling I was experiencing.
Like the energy, life giving aspect of it.
Yes, So that's what led me to write The Power of Fun was this kind of curiosity about what is this feeling, how does it differ from what it says in the dictionary, what research is there on what this is doing for us? And then, perhaps most importantly, like how can I have more of it? Because it feels so good.
I absolutely loved reading your book, Catherine, because it occurred to me that I have never thought about fun. I've never thought to define it. I've never thought about whether I'm having enough of it. It just is never something that's crossed my mind in my adulthood.
You're definitely not alone in that most people I don't think have thought about fun. I'm just fascinated in general. I should start by saying, just buy these words and these concepts that we use all the time but don't really think about. And I think that part of the reason adults don't think about fun that much is that, like fun was drilled out of us as kids because it's not valued as an emotion or an experience or
a feeling. And so you know, it's like this get back to work that people erroneously think that fun and work can't exist at the same time. And so I think we kind of been taught to not value fun and to not even think about putting work in to have fun because it's not as important as answering our emails or you know, or like doing something with our kids, or taking care of a household, errand or whatever it may be. It really ends up at the bottom of the priority list.
Yes, you keep calling fun a feeling, right, which divorces it from any given activity that someone engages in. And you've also shared a definition you find insufficient when it comes to fun. How do you define fun the feeling of fun now that you conducted all this research about it.
Yeah, the reason I say it's a feeling is exactly what you're hitting on is that you can have the exact same activity and sometimes it's incredibly fun, and then sometimes it's just mediocre, but you're doing the same thing. I sent a survey out to people on my mailing list, and I asked people to share with me three stories
of past fun experiences that stood out to them. This was not very scientific, but I said, tell me a story that was quote so fun, and I capitalized so because I couldn't think of a better way to phrase it.
And I got thousands of stories from people around the world describing these fun experiences, and first of all, it would clear that something deeper was going on than that Dictionary definition of just lighthearted pleasure, because when I read their stories, I would find myself smiling and also feeling very emotional. They were really tapping into something that was like profoundly human and moving in a way that was
very unexpected. One that I always remember as someone who said that one of their memories that was so fun was when they were with their grandfather and they deliberately went out during a rainstorm without umbrellas and they let themselves get soaked in the rain.
Yeah, oh wow. I feel moved by that just hearing it.
It's just these little, precious moments. Some of them involved trips and stuff like that, but a lot of them didn't. A lot of them were quite mundane and didn't involve
a lot of money. But you know what I noticed in these stories is there was just this similar feeling that was behind all of the stories, even though the details were very different, and there was this sense of almost euphoria, and a lot of them this sense of profound connection, this sense of just time standing still, of losing themselves in the moment of their inner critic going silent, and just of being really fully alive. And I encourage
people listening to try this. If you ask someone in your own life to share a story of past fun, do this experiment, but with somebody else. Just watch their face while they're telling you the story and try to pick up on the energy that they give off. There's really this amazing warmth and this glow that comes off of people, and it's very contagious. You know, if you're going to have a contagious emotion or feeling like fun is a really good one to be around. It really just lights people up.
You also say that fun is a core part of our well being and a significant contributor to happiness. But it's so easy for us to see fun as this frivolous, nice to have thing. Can you share a bit more about the research here, like why why should any person listening to this think, yes, it's worth my time to invest in having more fun.
Well, first of all, because you deserve to have fun and it's a wonderful state to be in.
But you're making a deep philosophical point, which is some things we deserve just by virtue of existing as humans and being here on this earth, and we shouldn't need to justify something like fun. I think that's as simple as the argument goes, right, Yeah, yeah, it is.
A really deep point.
It's like, fundamentally, I do want to just stress that we deserve to enjoy our own lives. And honestly, if you are having more fun, it will energize you in a way that will help you more good in the world and be better to other people and I think I feel that very strongly.
I know that certainly personally.
When I'm having enough fun, I'm a much better partner to my husband and a much better parent.
Yeah, in your book, you distinguish between fake fun and true fun. So what's fake fun?
So fake fun is a term I came up with to describe the activities and products that are marketed to us as fun, but they don't lead to this nourished feeling of true fun. The most quintessential examples of fake fun are social media, for sure, where you turn to it for entertainment or because you've got a moment of boredom, or you want to escape your own thoughts or whatever, and you get caught in a doom spiral and or doom scrolling, and then you look up forty five minutes
this past. Even if you like think you enjoyed it and maybe there were some memes that made you laugh or whatever, it doesn't leave you feeling nourished. If you're struggling to try to figure out how to distinguish between things that are fake fun and true fun, one way to think about it is what leaves you with memories,
you know, even if they're tiny, little memories. So in all the years I've spent talking to people about fun, no one has told me about the memory that they had of scrolling for an hour and a half on Instagram. As opposed to these little moments of true fun that might be very mundane or just like unexpected, where it
creates a memory that you can hold on to. Fake fun is kind of like the junk food of leisure time, I think, where like, maybe it tastes really good at first, but then when you do it for too long, then you're like, oh, actually, I don't feel like that was a.
Good use of my time.
And then you have on the other end of that spectrum these the feeling of true fun, which to me is like I can't get enough of that.
I know, I don't want this dinner party to end. I don't want that. Yes, this wedding, like this is such a fun wedding. You know you don't want the experience to end. That's a really good temperature tech of whether having a true fun round if you truly don't want it to end. How do we think about individual differences when it comes to our propensity for fun? So I think a lot of people are like I'm just not like a super fun person, Like I'm just not
that's fun. I mean, I would say that about myself even, like I feel like a happy person who has fun, but her bar for fun is so low. Like I don't drink. I go to bed at ten pm every night, and a perfect day for me is like doing the same things that I do every day, because I'm a creature of habit and I lack an adventurous spirit. It just seems like in my life I've come across people who feel like fun madness Catherine, Like they just they gravitate towards fun, but they also make fun out of
ordinary situations. And I just wonder whether some people just have an easier time having fun than other people. Asking for a friend.
Right, exactly, Certainly some people have an easier time having fun than other people. But I would say that's more about the ability to let go or silence that inner critic than anything else. And I actually ask people in this very long survey that people kindly filled out for me, I asked them to describe someone in their life that they would call a fun person, and then I asked them, like,
what made that person fun? And I think that coming into that I have thought what you just said is like, Okay, they must be the life of the party.
They must be the class clown. They must be the person who's getting everyone on a I don't know, like a boat. I feel like there's boats involved from that, right, there has to be vote, There's got to be a boat.
Yeah. So, but that wasn't the case at all that they said things like the people that they knew who they considered to be fun, they would laugh easily, they made other people feel comfortable in their presence, they were often up for trying new things. It was really much more of an attitude towards life and an attention to how they made other people feel than it was any kind of personality trait. And it certainly wasn't like genetic.
It wasn't like certain people are just fun. I mean, you certainly can have certain people who are more extroverted than others, which I think we often also erroneous the associate with being fun. But you have lots of people who definitely are introverts, who are able to make people feel comfortable in their presence and create this safe environment
for fun. I think a lot of it does have to do with the ability to make people feel safe so that they can down their guard and be a little silly, be a little playful, you know, let out other sides of their personality that if they felt more self conscious, they wouldn't be able to. So I actually found that really interesting.
That is super interesting, and I'm having a bit of a moment because as someone who self identifies as like conservative fun person, as not the kind of stereotypical version of a fun person that you see portrayed in movies or whatnot, you're building my fun self confidence, which is I am really easy to like smile and laugh, and I love animated discussions and conversations and hearing from other people.
So you're helping me realize that that allows other people to do the primary thing required to have fun, which is to break down some of the barriers, some of the walls that stand between them and other people, and to enter this situation with a little bit less fearfulness, with a little more fearlessness.
Yeah, to your point, I think it's actually really important and this was a big breakthrough for me as well, as like, don't focus on these stereotypes.
Instead ask yourself, like, what makes you feel.
Alive after the break, Catherine reveals how we can all bring more fun into our lives. No boats required. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. Catherine Price says that no matter who you are or what activities you enjoy, the recipe for true fun usually calls for three ingredients playfulness, connection, and flow.
When I say playfulness, a lot of adults clench up.
I can like feel it. They're like, I can't play like I'm playful.
And I think that's because we often think that it means you have to be silly, because it's not that. Yeah, it's not like let me tell you a joke, you know, or like. By playfulness, I'm really talking about your attitude. It's about having a lighthearted attitude towards life or towards the situation. Okay, it's finding ways to laugh, it's finding humor, it's silencing your inner critic. And that's where I think
the vulnerability of fun shows up. There's something vulnerable about allowing yourself to be a bit playful, yeah, you know, about finding a way to laugh with the other person, not taking yourself too seriously.
You write in your book that it's the spirit where you know you're doing an activity just for the sake of doing the activity. You don't care too much about the outcome. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that.
Yes, one of the other really important things about playfulness is that you go into an activity without worrying too much about what the result is going to be, which is very rare in adult life.
And I think all of us can think of.
A memory in which you were playing some kind of game or sports or whatever with someone else and it was fun, and then they start someone started taking it too seriously, and then all of a sudden it wasn't fun, you know, like a board game night and suddenly someone really wants to win taboo or whatever it is. It doesn't mean you can't care about the outcome, like you might want to win, but it's like there is this line where it starts to turn into something bigger than just enjoying the moment.
Yeah, okay, let's talk about the second element, connection. Why is that a critical element? And what do we mean by connection?
So connection refers to the feeling of having a special shared experience, and this was something that came up again and again and again and again in people's stories, regardless of whether they were introverts or extroverts. Because I specifically said, like, is there anything that surprised you about your answers? And there were a number of people who said, I'm a self proclaimed introvert, but all the stories that has told you involved another person.
Wow.
Interesting.
I think that the difference between introverts and extroverts there was that like introverts, it might be in a much more intimate setting.
Yes, people they know, Yeah, people.
They know, versus someone who is the quote life of the party and who is kind of deriving energy from these bigger groups of people. They're also, interestingly a number of people who had moments of true fun with their dog. There were not as many cat stories, but it was very interesting if you think about it, because what's a dog if not playful?
Right?
So anyway, people, some people had the sense of connection with their dogs, but the vast majority of stories involved another person, And I just thought that was so interesting.
How do we think about that though? Because there are people in my life I know who relish being in isolation, right, so not lonely, because I know loneliness is a state of mind that can be negative. But I think about my dad, for example, Like for him a dream would be like an Eggs Benedict brunch with a great book, sitting at a cafe, and like he would just have the time of his life. So surely we can't have true fun alone, right.
I think there are some people who can have fun, true fun alone, But I will say I think it's rareer than we think, because when you're describing that scene, to me, that's like maybe true enjoyment, like he's savoring it, he's really loving that. But to me doesn't feel the same as the stories in which people talk about true fun.
And I'd be curious of like psychio critical example, But if you ask your dad, like do you remember, like if you talked about ask him, does eggs Benedict alone with a book pop to the top of the list? And maybe it does, in which case, like more power to you. If that truly is fun, I think you can have a sense of connection with yourself and with the activity. But it's very interesting to me how infrequent that was.
The third element is flow. Can you just quickly define flow for us and what that means?
So flow is the state we get into when we're totally absorbed and engaged in what we're doing. We often lose track of time when we're in flow, but not in the sense of like I watched Netflix for seven hours and I lost track of time. That's very passive and it's a consumptive state. It's what would be known as like junk flow. We're talking about when you are
fully engaged in your activities. So the man who coined the term flow actually was studying rock climbers, and if you think about someone who's rock climbing, like you have to be entirely engaged in present in what you're turned.
So you don't fall off the rock face.
But yeah, it could be an athlete playing a game, musician playing a piece of music, really anything where you're in the zone and everything else seems to melt away. You're also at this sweet spot of feeling challenged but not overly so, which can happen in conversation, which I think is interesting. You might think that in order to have the flow state in which you're at this sweet spot of being challenged, that you need to be doing
something that's like hard. But if you think of just bantering with a friend, that actually requires a very high level of engagement to make the conversation work in the powder flow and like you actually are expressing a skill.
I would say, like when I think about things that bring me joy, I recently hopped on the Macha Latte train. I don't know where it had been all my life. I know it like I'm ten years late to the party, which is, by the way, very symbolic on brand. Yeah, very symbolic for my personality.
I also just started drinking watch A Lottes for whatever.
Yeah, I'm ten years late to every cool trend. But my morning walk now where I leave my home and I walk to a cafe and I just like taken the sun and the sights and the sounds, and I get my tea and I walk back drinking its delicious, and I'm just like centering, grounding myself. I find that to be like a deeply joyful experience, and I think I'm having fun, but I mean, yeah, it doesn't rise to the level of like true fun. Geez, Catherine oh Man,
I really really got your about this. But I do think let me put it this way, because I was reflecting on this a lot over the weekend, given that I've had periods of my life in which I've felt really acute anxiety. My definition of happiness and fun and joy has been totally recalibrated, such that I'm very easy to please now I have a very low bar, and I almost define wellness as the absence of anxiety, because it's so bad to have anxiety that when I don't
have that, I'm like, this is great. I'm living my best life. And so I do wonder am I maybe not pushing myself enough? Or should I maybe be stepping out of my comfort zone encouraging true fun a bit more well.
First of all, I think it's wonderful that you're driving so much enjoyment from these little things. I do think there's this big center bucket of activities that we enjoy that maybe aren't lighting you up to the degree of true fun, but they're certainly not fake fun. And a lot of those are things that are enjoyable on your own, so like going for a walk, doing a yoga class, like taking a bath, of journaling, doing art, maybe eating
expnedict alone while reading your favorite book. And I think of that as just like, those are great activities that you love, like they're your hobbies, but they're not necessarily generating in the same level of excitement for lack of a better word, or just energy as true fun. But
I say that just because it's really important. I think as adults who have very limited leisure time to think a bit critically and dorkily one might say about your leisure time and figure out which bucket you're in when you're spending free time, because if you're like, oh, this is actually fake fun, I actually don't want to be doing that, Well, that's really important because as we all know, you only have twenty four hours in the day, so you don't want to waste your precious leisure time on
stuff that you know actually isn't enjoyable in the moment or filling you up for later.
Yeah, but there's like lots of stuff.
If you're like, no, I'm really excited to sit here alone and read my book, you know, and like drink.
My cuff of coffee, like, more power to you.
I just think it's helpful for me at least to be a little bit meta aware of how I'm spending my leisure time so I can make sure that I feel good about what I'm doing in the moment and there's not something else I'd rather be doing with that time because.
It's so precious.
So all that is to say, if you're able to extract that much delight and enjoyment out of these little moments, that's amazing. So I guess my question would be back to you is like, is there anything that you actually are curious about doing or trying? Like when you're talking about should I be having more true fun? And I'd also ask like, do you have Maybe we should start with this. It turned the tables on your mid interview.
If I asked you to share, like an experience of that stands out to you as having been true fun or so fun?
What comes to mind for you?
Okay, So one experience where I felt like I was having a lot of fun was my husband and I and my best friend we all went to watch The Devil Where's Prata two over the weekend and I thought it was such a delightful movie and I was laughing a lot, and it was very, very cutely done, and it just made me very nostalgic for like the nineties and how humans used to be and now you know, it's just such a different, different world that we're living in.
And gen Z commentary ats that are so that's really fun. And then afterwards the three of us got pizza and we we did a total recap download of the movie, and that was incredibly fun because one food, of course, but then two just like bonding over what we loved or didn't love, commentary on the different actors and actresses. So yes, that was a recent memory of having a lot of fun.
So it's interesting.
I know that this is going to be audio for most people, but I'm watching you tell that story and like you're lighting up, Like I can feel that through the computer screen. And I'd also be curious to ask, like, do you think you would have found it as much fun if you've done the exact same thing about on your own?
Oh no, And I know I never am under the illusion that I was gonna I'm gonna have more fun by myself. My dad yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my dad.
Yeah.
But then on the other and then there's other moments. I was joking with my producer and editor as we were preparing for this interview, I was like, you know, I recently went to it. This is really embarrassing that I am saying this to breed camaraderie among the people listening who again also have very low bars for happiness. But I had a contact lens fitting appointment, and wait for it, I had a really failed try with the contact lenses in the past, so I just assumed that's
never going to happen. And then I went to a different eye clinic and it was a lovely experience with Hannah. She was so nice, so fun, She coached me through the process. We were bonding, and I got the contact lens in and the feeling of joy and accomplishment and pride that I'd been able to get the contact lens in. I'm telling you, Catherine, I don't know if it's true fun, but it definitely met the fun bar for me because it was just as like I went on this little
mission of can I do this thing? So it felt like explored, like I don't know, I just lit me up a little bit, but that is my life, that is who I am.
I love that I had a story about how I had true fun getting a.
Shoulder injection God, which was incredibly.
Painful and not fun at all, but I had this like laugh with the people in the room, and I remember the publicist for the Power of Pune was like, yeah, that's a weird story. Maybe go tell that one, but no, But I love your story. I'm glad you did share it because I'm also wondering. I'm assuming you, like Hannah, kind of knew like a bit of the backstory. You were like probably sharing a bit of like this was a failing before girl.
You don't even want to know what my last experience was, like they I had to use eye drops afterwards because an eye infection was created. It was whole thing, and so it just felt like we were on this joint mission together and then we had.
A special shared experience.
Yes, exactly, like exactly, And she probably went home.
Was a bit of a smile on her face because she felt a sense of accomplishment, and she also had that kind of pump.
Sure you weren't like I need to get this contact lens into my eye, you know.
It was like a playful kind of thing, even though you did have a goal and you really did want the contact lens to work for you, right, Like, Yes, I actually think it's a perfect example. I really do encourage people to try to let go of these shoulds. There's no shoulds. I mean I would say maybe if there is a should, it's like maybe you should explore the idea of what fun means to you because it probably will make your life better if you if you go through that process. But like in the book I
talk about, I mean again, it's really dorky. That's why I feel like I'm in a safe space right now.
But you know it's like in the safest space. Don't you worry my friend's space.
Yeah, but it felt like if you're telling people to have fun, right, the fund's good for you, which we haven't even got into, but it really is a very I believe, very good for us mentally and physically. But if you're telling people to have fun like that is so hand wavy and not a helpful piece of advice because you do that.
And almost self sabotaging. You like overthink it and you're yeah.
Yeah, exactly exactly. You can't force fun. We've all tried to force fun on ourselves or other people, and it rarely ends up where we wanted to. So my next thought was, Okay, well you can fill your life with more playfulness and connection and flow, which is a piece of advice I think is helpful. So I think that I think that what you're doing is actually fantastic, And I wouldn't put pressure on yourself to feel like you
should find fun in various things. I would just ask yourself, like, is there is there anything that you're just curious about? Like an example for my own life, I'm like, I'm really trying to focus on this obviously, that's why I wrote the book, and I'm still trying to do it. And it's like going on six years since I started that project. But it's like trying to prioritize putting myself in situations where it's likely to occur.
So I signed this.
Coming Friday, I'm going to an adult ice skating workshop.
Wonderful. I love that.
Yeah, that's so fun.
We'll see that is so fun.
Yeah, I mean we'll see, we'll see.
It's certainly gonna be funny, right, So, like, I think that's the other thing.
Is there anything that you're like that it'd be funny.
It's not going to be funnier than what's happening naing Thursday night in my household, which is what my husband Jimmy watched lay Miz with me at the theater on Friday. Has now decided he's a quote theater kid. This guy's a software engineer and has signed up for his first voice lesson on Thursday, Yes, and has asked me to attend, so I will be there and that will be funny.
Yes, Yes, Jimmy.
I love that, Like, no matter what happens on Thursday night, Jimmy's gonna wake up on Friday like a better singer than he was on Thursday night.
Absolutely, And that's so cool.
You don't get that that much in adult life, especially if you're already a certain level and then you're like trying to level up a tiny bit. It's not as satisfied as starting something.
That's a great point. It's a great point.
Yeah.
So let's say that I really want to introduce more true fun into my life, but I don't know what feels fun for me anymore, Like, I'm not sure where to start. How do I identify the sorts of things that might check these boxes for me as a person.
Well, first of all, I always say, don't try to have more fun, Like, don't aim at it too directly, because it will backfire.
Yeah, it's kind of anti fun to think too hard about fun.
I know, won't believe me write a book about fun. Let's see version. Yeah, try to pin it down in words. No, I would say, as we were discussing the focus on the playfulness and the connection and flow as ingredients, but I would suggest, as like a first step, do what I call a fun audit, speaking of things that aren't fun sounding at all. But ask yourself, what are three memories, three to five memories that stand out from your own
life as having been so fun? Okay, you know, and don't be horrified if it takes you a while to think of anything.
It is hard. I happen to have gone to a movie. I was lucky when you asked me you were prepared, because if you if it hadn't been last Time'm like, I don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe I wouldn't leave with the contact lens fitting appointed. That's for sure.
To kind of build up to that one. Yeah yeah.
One thing I actually recommend to people is that you start to pay tension in your daily life and look for moments, even if they're tiny, of playfulness or connection or flow, and actually write them down if you're that kind of person, because you know, our minds are automatically going to focus on things that cause anxiety and fear, because that's like a survival strategy. We were just evolved to notice threats. It actually takes effort to focus on
positive things. Yes, I think that's an important point to make for people who think that it's frivolous or irresponsible to focus on fun. It's like, well, no, actually, we need to like wrench our brains back from what they want to be doing, which is doomscrolling the news and be like no, no, no, like, let's focus on the macholatte, Like,
let's focus on the good things as well. And I think if it is kind of creating a metaphorical necklace, like you're collecting beautiful little beads that you then can string on the necklace, and each of those beads might be quite tiny, you know, and you might not notice it even on its own, And then once you start to proactively pay attention to them and label them as such, be like, oh, that was a placement, that was a
moment of connection, that was flow. Then you can kind of have more ideas for how to generate more of those moments.
Even if it's not conscious.
You might just find yourself behaving a little bit differently, Like one thing that really gets in the way of fun or any of those elements is having your phone out all the time of keeping yourself distracted, because if you're not open to what's going on in the world around you, or the people, or the experiences or the details,
you're not going to have a moment of connection. You won't have opportunities for playfulness really, and it is inherently a distracting device, so you're not going to be in flow. It also can be a fun thing to talk about with a friend or a loved one. Is like, let's actually like a fun conversation fodder for dinner tonight. Might be like, let's actually think about some past fun experiences, and so once you start thinking about them, they tend
to come more easily. Like you might then be like, oh, yeah, like this is a fun memory I have, whether it's from college or for when you're a kid, or last week.
Whenever it might be.
And then once you have your collection of stories, I would then suggest that you read through those stories and try to identify what I call your fun magnets. And that's the term I came up with that refers to the people and the activities and the settings that generate fun for you personally. Okay, as we were talking about earlier, activities are not always fun. Fun is a feeling, it is not a specific activity. But we each do have a collection of activities there are more likely to lead
to fun for us than others. So you might have some ideas off the top of your head, just from me saying that. You might be like, oh, yes, one of my fun magnets is I don't know golf or like whatever it is.
I don't know what your fund magnet is.
Or you can think to yourself, oh yeah, I do have that friend I always laugh a lot when we're together, like we always have a really good time. Well, that person is one of your fun magnets or is there a setting that consistently gets you into that state where you feel like you have fun? If that's hard for you to think of, you can use these stories that you have just collected to begin to get some ideas.
There be like do I notice any themes?
Or ask the person that you're having the conversation with, do any themes jump out to you about what I just told you, because they might notice things that you might not in terms of characteristics. And then speaking of characteristics, the next thing I would do is take it a next level and ask yourself about your fun factors, which is a term I came up with, which refers to as the characteristics of the people and the settings and the activities that generate fun for you.
Give me examples.
Maybe one of your fun factors is risk. Maybe it's not risk at all. Maybe it is novelty. You love new things, you love traveling for example. Maybe it is being in big groups.
Maybe it is feeling emotionally close to people or laughing with people. That for me is a big one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you can come up with, like, what are the characteristics that seem to be associated with these fun magnets. And I think that's also a really useful exercise because it can help you let go of some of this pressure or this feeling that I'm not doing fun right because you don't like certain things.
Yeah, And it's like.
Well, no, no, maybe that's just because that's not a fun factor for you. It's like, yeah, sure, a lot of people really like the novelty of traveling or this sense of adventure or unpredictability. For some people, that's a really big fun factor. So some other people don't find that to be a fun factor that actually stresses you out and is not enjoyable, So there's no need to
beat yourself up over that. That's like actually really useful information that you then can use, going back to your original question, to take this information and say, okay, well what themes do jump out?
What ideas does this give? Me?
Either for like, maybe it's things you used to do and people you used to hang out with that you can actually prioritize, or maybe it'll generate some ideas of things you want to do or try. Now that's a very engineered way of looking at funds. So what we're talking about right now, I think is the kind of like you're not forcing fun, but you're certainly trying to engineer a situation in which it's more likely to occur.
Because once you figure out what some of those potential activities or people or settings are, you actually can carve out time on your calendar and put that in as a block. It's not guarantee that you're gonna have fun, but it's going to be a lot more likely because you've actually prioritized.
A fun magnet.
But I would say the flip side of that is that so much of fun is spontaneous. It's these moments that you didn't expect to have, and that, going back to the very beginning of our conversation, is something that is much more available to kids in many cases. And I think also is why it's such a shame to give kids screens or devices at too young an age, because you're shutting them off from the opportunity for spontaneous fun.
But an example of spontaneous fun would be the example you told me about being in the contact lens fitting with Hannah, right like that was because you brought a mindset into that room where you were open with her, sounds like you were a bit playful about it. You kind of created almost in a strange sense of game, even though I know we were talking about how you don't have to play a game, but it kind of was like, are we going to succeed?
Fun little challenge?
Yeah, a fun little challenge.
Is Maya going to get these contact lenses into her eyes successfully?
And that is.
Very much you wouldn't be like, all right, you know what I'm going to do next Sunday, I'm going to put an hour block to go hang out Hannah and dry to get contact lenses, and I totally that's probably not gonna be fun, but it was because you walked into that room with an attitude and you were open to the possibility of having this human connection and this spontaneous interaction that resulted in this feeling of fun that now you remember, and it actually is a memory that
you will carry with you. And the more of these memories we have, going back to the idea of having a necklace of memories, like, the more delightful and rewarding everyday life will feel will feel, and also the more you'll be able, the greater your reserves will be when
you're having a down day. And I write about that in the book as relates to part of Frederickson at unc has a theory called the broaden and build theory of positive emotion, which people don't need to remember the name of, but it basically is the idea that when you have a positive experience in the moment, it increases your reserves, It helps you whether future periods of stress, increases your resilience, and so the more you can deposit into your fun bank, even if it is something as
unexpected and seemingly mundane is a contact fitting, the better you'll be able to get through future periods that are challenging because you'll have these memories.
To call upon. Yeah, you've obviously written a whole book about breaking up with your phone, because distraction can be a fun sabotager. Can we just do a rapid fire of like top tips for breaking up with your phone, just for people to have them if they're looking to improve this.
The top tip I normally give for breaking up with your phone is actually to start philosophically and ask yourself what do you actually want to pay attention to? And I say that because you're only going to experience what you're paying attention to. So this exercise WWW is short for what for, Why, Now?
What else?
And the idea is that you ask yourself these three questions when you pick up your phone in order to make the time you spend on your phone more intentional. So to take a step back, I actually recommend that you start by putting something around your phone. It could be a hairtie, it could be rubber band, maybe a sticker on your phone, just something that you're going to notice when you pick up your phone. And try this
for just a couple of days. Because right now most of us reach for our phones on autopilot and we don't even notice we've picked them up until we've already gotten sucked into something. If you put some kind of physical thing on the phone, your brain's gonna have a moment of being like, why is there a rubber band around the phone? And that can be a trigger or
prompt to get you to do these wwws. You could also put, like your lock screen image, you could take a picture of a piece of paper that says WWW if you wanted to. Anyway, once you notice you've picked up your phone, you ask yourself these questions. You say, what for why did I pick up my phone right now? What was the purpose? What was it for? You know, it could be something specific like you were calling someone, or you were protecting someone, or you needed to actually
send an email, or you needed to buy something. But in a lot of cases you're going to realize you didn't really have a purpose. But regardless of what your answer is, you then move on to the next question, which is why now, why did you pick it up in this particular moment?
And I think this is where things get really interesting.
Because again, it could actually be a time sensitive reason, but in most cases, in my experience, it's going to be an emotional reason, and it's going to be something like, oh, I felt anxious for a moment and so I pulled out my phone, or I was bored, I wanted a break from my work project. If you can identify what your brain is after, then that's when you actually can ask yourself the final question, which is what else, Which is the question of what else could I do right
now in the moment to get that same reward. So if you realize you actually wanted a distraction or you needed a break from what you're doing, you could ask yourself, well, what else could I do right now? Like you could just deliberately decide I'm going to do nothing in this moment to give my brain a break from the onslaught of information that is coming in at all times. And I try to do this, like if I'm in an uber, I'll try to just look out the window at clouds.
And I've definitely had drivers ask me if I'm okay when they see me doing.
This, because so funny, I guess I look very unusual and I'm like.
Literally like, look like, why aren't you on your phone? Why aren't you listening to something? Yeah?
Yeah, it's pretty nuts.
And then the last possible answers, you could be like, I actually genuinely want to be on my phone right now, even if you didn't have a specific purpose, and even if you know that it's probably not going to make you feel good, you might just be like, no, no, I actually want to be doing this right now, and I really stress that, Like that's okay, Like don't beat yourself
up over it. It's just a matter of making sure that when you are going to spend time on your phone, you feel good about it, that you made the decision to do it. It wasn't because you've been habituated to constantly check your phone and then you got sucked into like an algorithmically driven loop where you're you're not in
control of your own actions. So those would be my first tips would be identify how you actually want to be spending your attention, and then once you have identified that, then get into the practice of asking yourself what for, why now? And what else when you pick up your phone.
It's such a good set of prompts because again, I just do the mindless thing. I Sometimes we'll get to my phone, I'm like, there's something I wanted to do with this. I walk in a room and you're like, You're like, what is that looking for again? Yeah, and I just completely forget. If there's one thing you want to leave listeners with who've just heard this conversation, which by the way, was a lot of fun for me, Thank you very much, me too, What would it be?
I think I would say, take fun seriously, Like, actually take some time today to do some of the things that you and I talked about, Like reflect on a past fun experience, brainstorm a couple of things you could do or try, you know, think about the last time that you did something that really filled you up or.
Let you up, you know, and that you felt alive.
What would make me happy from a listener who has tuned into this conversation is for this to inspire them to reconnect with something that makes them feel alive.
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you like this conversation, check out our episode called The Art of Gathering. It's all about how we can intentionally bring more connection, playfulness, and flow into our lives. And if this is your first time listening to a slight change of plans, We're so glad you're here. Check out the episode description for a list of some of my all time favorite episodes.
It features a mix of incredible personal stories of change and practical, cutting edge behavioral insights that can help you live happier, healthier lives. We'll be back soon with another episode of A Slight Change of Plans. I'll see you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change Family includes our showrunner Alexandra Garratin, our editor Daphne Chen, our lead producer Megan Lubin, our associate producer Sonia Gerwit, and our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries. So big thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
I don't want to stayup past ten pm? Why would you do that?
I have no idea.
I don't know either. What do they do?
I don't know? And then the next day, oh boy, they're not well rested.
Fun.
We don't like that.
No, no again.
I've been an octogenarian since the time, I was like fifteen, so yeah, I was born at eighty five