According to the visionaries, life in the year 2001 was supposed to go something like this: you'd get up in the morning, fix a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, watch a little TV, and then go back to bed. 

Sounded good. In fact, futurists only saw one problem-what to do with all that free time? What to do, what to do? Hmmm...yes, a confounding question. You could practice the golf swing. Or maybe you should wash the flying car.

Social scientists engaged in prolonged debates about this issue: what would happen when people worked less, retired early, and had loads of free time on their hands? Improbable as it now seems-especially in our time-obsessed age of instant deadlines-these folks were dead serious.

One of the most prominent, and serious, was Alvin Toffler, whose bestseller Future Shock riveted book readers with its detailed description of social changes in the near future, including the phenomenon of free time. "The work week has been cut by 50 per cent since the turn of the century," wrote Toffler, "It is not out of the way to predict that it will be slashed in half again by 2000."

Toffler was worried about all that free time. We might need "leisure counselors" to deal with all the inertia and inactivity. Maybe a new hobby would help-a pastime. Either way, we were going to have lots of time to think about it.

"By the year 2000," the New York Times assured us, "people will work no more than four days a week...in an annual working period of 147 days and 218 days off."

Exactly how would this be accomplished? With no sweat whatsoever. Our 147 days off would be spent at home relaxing in our space-age bachelor pads. "We may not have to go to work. The work would come to us," claimed Walter Cronkite on the CBS documentary series The 21st Century broadcast in 1967.

Thanks to computers and robots-or so went the logic-there would be less focus on our jobs and more time to contemplate the finer things in life. 

"People will start to go to work at about age 25," a spokesperson for General Motors promised in a 1966 BBC documentary. He added, "six month vacations would not be out of the question."

Automation was critical. "By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy," wrote Time magazine in 1966. And thanks to our independent wealth, we could retire! The book Futuremics forecast the average retirement age would be 47.

"How to use leisure meaningfully will be a major problem," wrote Time.  "This is not so far off that we can shrug the implications aside," concurred Toffler. "A man who doesn't need to do anything," added behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, "will not actually make very much use of his potential as a human being."

The all-too-human traits of idleness and sloth would be exacerbated by the power of the machines. We would be satiated in the bubble bath of life, happy to do nothing while technology took care of the chores. We would grow lazy and indolent and lack all ambition-at least that's what futurologists warned.

A few of their arguments remain persuasive. Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey maintained "our descendants" in the real 2001 might be "faced with a future of utter boredom, where the main problem in life is deciding which of the several hundred TV channels to select." His essay "The World of 2001" was written for Vogue magazine in 1968 and is still a visionary take on late 20th Century life.

As for the golden age of unlimited leisure, it's a mirage, a long-running dream with roots that go back to Plato's Republic.  Back then, a well-earned rest went hand in hand with good will, harmony, civic virtue, and abundance for all. And, by the way, utopia means "no place."

But, hey, so what if the prophets of leisure got it all ass backwards? Relax. Savor that cup of coffee. Kick your feet up on the desk. Now admit it, it just doesn't work, does it?