Research suggests that to have a satisfying life, you need to regularly feel three things: achievement (recognition or a sense of accomplishment), meaningfulness (a connection to something bigger than yourself), and joy (happiness or positive emotion) in the moment. How well are you doing on each of those fronts?

For the many ambitious professionals we’ve studied, the answer is typically OK to great in the first two areas but decidedly lacking in the third. While achievement and meaning often flow naturally from work and family, joyful experiences tend to be rare and fleeting.

Consider Maria, a private-equity-firm partner and married mom of three. (Note: All names in this article are pseudonyms.) By 9 AM on an average day, she’s already answered emails, reviewed reports, and seen her kids off to school. By noon she’ll have led several meetings, made some key decisions, tried to squeeze in a mentoring call, and coordinated a carpool via text. In the evening she will close her laptop and set her phone aside to have a family dinner and put the children to bed, but then she’ll log back on to work for a few more hours. Colleagues marvel at how she balances everything. And yet, while her calendar seems to incorporate every type of productive activity and obligation, it leaves no time for spontaneity or pleasure.

Tim has a similar story. A senior partner at a top-tier consultancy, he’s spent two decades laser-focused on going above and beyond for clients and colleagues. At the same time, he’s been a dedicated husband and father, noting that “nothing can beat the feeling of being needed at home.” Across both his personal and professional lives, he feels accomplished and purposeful. However, between the long office hours and frequent travel required to do his job well and the more-mundane aspects of parenthood—helping with homework, regularly chauffeuring his kids around—he, too, struggles to find moments of pure happiness.

Why is joy—this third pillar of life satisfaction—so elusive for so many?

Time is one issue. In a study we recently conducted with a group of busy professionals—1,500 Harvard Business School alumni with full-time careers and families (see the sidebar “About the Research”)—we found that our subjects spent an average of 50 hours a week on work and 12 hours a week on nonwork responsibilities. After sleeping, eating, hygiene, and commuting, that left an average of 26 hours a week—or just over three hours a day—for all discretionary activities.

When we analyzed the participants’ activities, we found, perhaps not surprisingly, that people experienced more joy in their free time than they did at the office or when engaged in housework, errand running, bill paying, and routine childcare. However—and this is noteworthy—how people spent those extra hours was more important than how many hours they had. To put it a different way, some of our study subjects did a much better job of finding joy in their limited leisure time than others did.