Planning events make them seem like work.

• Position: Leisure - Brief article

Nothing ruins a potentially fun event like putting it on your calendar. In a series of studies, researchers found that scheduling a leisure activity like seeing a movie or taking a coffee break led people to anticipate less enjoyment and actually enjoy the event less than if the same activities were unplanned. That does not mean you cannot plan at all: the research showed that roughly planning an event (but not giving a specific time) led to similar levels of enjoyment as unplanned events.

"People associate schedules with work. We want our leisure time to be free-flowing," says Selin Malkoc, coauthor of a study in the Journal of Marketing Research. 'Time is supposed to fly when you're having fun. Anything that limits and constrains our leisure chips away at the enjoyment. Scheduling our fun activities leads them to take on qualities of work.

"If...