Well, depends how far back into history you want to go, but men and women have always wasted time. Not that it is anything particularly wrong with that in itself - it's not necessary that we are productive 100% of the time.
Sheer survival has taken up a lot of time in the past. Producing food, storing food, taking care of your house, your animals, your family - people who will take care of you once you get old.
The fact is that a lot of these things became unnecessary in the modern days. You can shop for food any day of the year, apartments are well built, when you are old you can go to a retirement home and let other take care of you. As long as you have some money, things are simple. And you can, generally speaking, earn this money in about 40 hours per week, leaving you with another extra 128 hours per week to waste. Of course, you have to use some of this hours for necessities such as sleep, commute, basic physiological needs etc, however even after you substract all of that, you still end up with a lot of hours you can waste.
And people did that. And do that.
Don't feel like you
have to be continuously, always, productive. Spend your time by doing what you like to do. Go for a walk. Meet people that you care about. Paint, sing, dance, play music. Go to an exhibition, a concert or a theatre. Play with your dog. Read a book. A relaxing book, not a scientific one. Or, if reading a scientific book makes you happy, do that. Take your bike out of the garage and cycle to a nearby lake. Have a chat with your neighbour. If it is snowing, go out and make a snowman. And then, go in and make a mug of hot tea (or hot chocolate, if you prefer).
Basically, there are numerous ways of spending your time
meaningfully. And I think this is far more important, than productivity. Just don't waste it. Do, what makes you happy.
