"Leisure" might not mean exactly what we think it means today.

I think it'll be obvious to anyone who's worked in a manual labour job e.g. construction, farming, etc, even with today's tools, you can't physically do these at anything but a "leisurely pace" and a limited amount of hours a day, with breaks for rest, food etc.

Specially in warmer climates. Claiming that this means that life was easy is a little bit dishonest here.

There's a limit to what's humanly possible, digging ditches with shovels for 8 hours a day is not equal to sitting in an office for same 8 hours. No matter how many breaks you have, and at how "leisurely pace" you're digging.