About 50 miles from here is an old homesteader's farm from the 1800s that has been preserved. It's about 9000 feet above sea level, so the growing season had to be very short. People back then spent a lot of their time doing the things necessary to survive. As but one example, imagine how long it took to get enough firewood for a long winter. As for time to do other things like build furniture and sew clothes, I imagine they did that during the winter when they weren't farming. I suspect those elaborate Native American items were created in the "off season", too.

How much of what any of us do on a daily basis is actually related to the necessities of life? Odds are, extremely little. Instead of chopping enough wood to heat our homes through the winter, we work to earn money to pay the utility bill. Similarily, we work to be able to buy everything else we need. We might have to work for a week or two to earn enough to pay our utility bills for a year compared to spending at least a couple weeks stocking up the woodpile. Depending on where you live and how much you earn, it might be a wash, time wise.

One thing to consider is how much we consider "necessities of life" compared to the homesteader days. Our lives are filled with countless things that many people consider necessities but that we could well live without. The time we spend working to pay for these "necessities" could be available to do other things if we choose to live a simplier life. Over 20 years ago, my college physics professor told me that he could easily double his income if he went to work for an engineering firm, but he'd also have to double the hours he worked in a year. He believed his time off was more important than his salary. He choose a lower paying job that only required him to work for about 1000 hours a year, giving him a lot of leisure time. He's still there, so the choice seemed to work for him.