Finding “the perfect day” from American Time Use Survey data

A recent study looking at how Americans spend their time led to this model for the perfect day:

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That’s Best Day Ever = 6 hours with family + 2 hours with friends + 1.5 hours of extra socialising + 2 hours of exercise + 1 hour of eating and drinking with less than 6 hours of work, indulging in only 1 hour of screen time, and a 15-minute commute.

That sounds like a busy day. Imagine this list of activities were given to a random sample of Americans: how many would see it as perfect or close to that? Or is this list more of a collection of things Americans tend to like but not everyone would see as a great combination?

So imagine instead a company or destination that promises to put together perfect days for different types. A day for the book-reading introvert. A day for the 8 on the Enneagram. A day for the hard-charging athlete. A day for the ENTJ. A day for the aspiring social influencer. And so on.

Or imagine a movie that featured numerous people in different settings living out their perfect days. Perhaps such a movie would need more drama but the contrast between the different perfect days could be interesting to see.

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