The majority of us spend the majority of our time inside.
If we take the EPA's estimate that, on average, we spend 87% of our time in buildings and another 6% in vehicles, that leaves about 7% of our time outside.
That's about an hour and 40 minutes each day.
That number varies wildly, of course, depending on your work, hobbies, where you live, the season and plenty of other factors. But in general, it's safe to say we spend most of our time inside walled or contrived environments, disconnected from the natural world in ways that might not seem obvious or apparent.
It may not always feel obvious because, much of the time, we can still see the outside from the inside. We might be sitting on the couch watching Netflix, looking out the window at the trees and the street, and still feel connected to the world around us.
But there's a difference between seeing outside and being outside.
I don't know exactly how much this affects us, but I have a hunch that it does. Numerous studies have shown that walks in nature can reduce stress and improve overall wellbeing. A 2026 meta-analysis "representing 3,870 primary studies, over ten million estimated participants" found that nature-based activities consistently result in lessened anxiety and negative emotions, and greater positive moods.
If we're disconnected from that type of environment 90%+ of the time, what does that mean?
Living inside has become a sort of default setting that we likely don't think about most of the time. So much of our work, school, entertainment, and home life happens inside that being indoors simply becomes the invisible background of everyday life.
Even Henry David Thoreau understood the pull of being inside as a sort of baseline state that's hard to resist.
"I was going to sit and write or mope all day in the house," Thoreau wrote in his journal in August 1851, "but it seems wise to cultivate animal spirits, to embark in enterprises which employ and recreate the whole body."
This was a man who famously wrote that he'd need about four hours a day of walking "to preserve my health and spirits." And yet, the appeal to be indoors, to "mope all day in the house," tugged at Thoreau just as it does anyone today.
In "Walking," Thoreau observes his Concord neighbors who "confine themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years almost together."
If Annie Dillard is right that "how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives," then Thoreau was right, too: we spend years confined indoors.
Maybe that's just how modern life works. And maybe it's not an issue. But maybe this is a setting we're not always aware of—and if we were, we could choose where we spend our time more consciously.
For Thoreau, the antidote was walking. He walked everywhere, and noticed everything. Walking, still, remains one of the best ways to spend more time outdoors, to reconnect with the environment around you without making a show of it. You don't need an app, a device, music, a productivity plan. Just go for a walk. Breathe, walk, move outside.
And if a walk isn't in the cards—if your schedule, location or circumstances make it difficult—sometimes just taking a break outside is enough.
I work at home, on a computer, and spend much more time indoors than I'd like. Between calls and projects, I hop outside and shoot hoops in the driveway. It's enough to reset, breathe in fresh air, and break up my indoor time, even if it's just for a few minutes.
I don't think the point of all of this is to hack your way to an optimal outdoors percentage. I think it's about noticing this default environmental setting in our lives and recognizing that how we feel, think, and act in each place—indoors and outdoors—may differ.
Then, we can decide where we want to spend our time with more awareness.
Consider: How much of your day do you spend indoors, and how much outside? Is there a noticeable difference in your attention, mood or well-being in either environment? Have you considered the indoors being a default setting rather than one place among many?