Why You Shouldn't Plan Your Fun Too Carefully

Have you ever found yourself dreading a leisurely activity you had eagerly scheduled days or weeks in advance?

I first caught myself doing this a few years ago when I was traveling home to Turkey.

I had excitedly made plans to meet up with some old friends.

This post originally appeared onThe Conversation.

Was I an anomaly?

Or do other people feel this way too?

But can planning leisure activities also start to feel like work, too?

Why might they become a source of dread?

All Work, No Play?

It also decreases how much we enjoy them.

For example, inone, we asked participants to imagine grabbing a coffee with a friend.

We flagged down students studying for their finals and gave them one of two tickets.

The second simply told them that the cafe would be open during a two-hour window.

As expected, we found that those who had scheduled the study break didnt enjoy it as much.

So why can making set plans be such a drag?

We think that it has to do with how scheduling structures time.

Scheduling, at its core, is about allocating time to activities.

There are set beginning and end points.

As the saying goes: Time flies when youre having fun.

We told half the participants that theyd simply do two activates with a picnic in between.

The only difference was that some of the participants had strict schedules, while others didnt.

In other words, even an impromptu leisure event starts to feel like work once its structured.

But this doesnt mean that scheduling will take the fun out of everything.

After all, you cant do everything on the fly.

So next time you want to make plans, make them flexible.

Youll feel less constrainedand more likely to have fun, too.

Photo byStephen Monroevia Unsplash.