Want To Have Fun This Weekend? Scientists Wants You To Ditch Planning
If you want to experience pure, unadulterated fun this weekend, avoid sabotaging it by not making plans. This is the latest discovery on the art of having fun as reported on Business Insider.
Apparently, making plans for the weekend increases the chances of you not having any fun at all. How exactly is that, you ask? Well, the finding is based on 13 studies conducted by two scientists who apparently have stopped making plans for their weekends. In one of their studies, they asked participants to imagine grabbing coffee with friends. Half of them were told to imagine planning the meeting in advance. The other half were told to imagine that they are deciding to grab a coffee on the fly. Guess which group felt more fun and relaxed? The group asked to do it on a fly reported feelings of pleasure, while the other group that was told to schedule the meeting, even though it was as simple as grabbing coffee with friends, felt the activity was obligatory and required more effort (Bustle ).
The experiments highlighted scheduling as the main culprit that robs us of fun. Scheduling is about structuring time and allocating it to activities. There are starting points and end points, and we have to constantly check our watches. This reminds us a lot about work. On the other hand, doing things on the fly requires no effort on the working brain and so it's more relaxing and leisurely. We are free from the claws of time. We associate this with more freedom and therefore produces more fun experiences. This aligns with the saying that time flies when we're having fun.
In conclusion, the latest studies tell us to ditch the planning on activities that are supposed to be fun. Instead we should try to be more flexible. But then again, if you'll start to feel anxious with unplanned activities, then it's better to just stick with how you like to do things. You should just do whatever makes you comfy.
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