Remember how excited we used to get about things when we were kids? Christmas, birthday parties, sleepovers, family vacations. We'd count down the days, sometimes the hours. The anticipation almost as good as the event itself.
Somewhere along the way, our calendars took on a different purpose. Work meetings, dental appointments, parent-teacher interviews. The sleepovers we once eagerly anticipated became the drop-offs and pickups we had to coordinate for our own children.
Our calendars became tools for managing our obligations rather than anticipating our pleasures.
Well, I'd like to make a modest proposal to everyone who wants to thrive. Reclaim your calendar. Fill it with things you're genuinely excited about. Not necessarily extravagant things, or even particularly ambitious things. Just experiences that make you smile when you think about them.
I've become increasingly convinced that one of the pleasures of a rich life is having something wonderful to look forward to. And the pleasure doesn't begin when the experience happens. It begins when you start anticipating it.
The joy of making plans
Psychologists have a term called leisure crafting. It describes the deliberate effort people put into shaping their leisure time—finding activities that interest them, developing new interests, and creating opportunities to do things they enjoy. Research has found an association between this kind of proactive approach to leisure and greater well-being.
I can absolutely relate to that. My wife and I have developed a little ritual. Every so often, usually on a Sunday evening, we'll spend 20 or 30 minutes surfing the internet, looking for interesting things happening over the next few weeks.
Live music, new films at our local repertory cinema, plays, festivals, interesting lectures, or the occasional quirky event that we wouldn't normally think to attend. More recently, I've enlisted AI to help, asking it to send me regular suggestions for interesting things happening in Ottawa and Montreal. It's amazing how much is going on, even in a relatively modest-sized city, once you start looking.
We'll pick a few things that catch our interest, think about which friends might enjoy joining us, and start making plans. And then, boom, they're in the calendar.
Suddenly, an otherwise ordinary Thursday has become an evening we're looking forward to. A weekend that might have disappeared into errands and household chores now has a concert, a hike, or a dinner with friends at its centre. The activities themselves are fun, of course, but so is knowing they're coming.
The platinum-level stuff
Then there are the bigger adventures. A trip we've been dreaming about, a weekend away with friends, or some wonderfully elaborate event we've decided to organize. These are what I'd call the platinum-level entries on the calendar. And for me, getting them booked is only the beginning of the fun.
Take travel. My wife and I love planning trips almost as much as taking them. A month or two before we leave, we start immersing ourselves in the place we're going.
We'll find a novel set in the region, preferably something that gives us a sense of its people and culture. We'll research restaurants and unusual places to visit, especially those a little off the beaten path. And whenever possible, we'll find a local guide who can introduce us to things we'd never discover on our own.
By the time we board the plane, we've already spent weeks imagining ourselves there, and those weeks have been enjoyable in their own right.
There's some interesting research behind this. In a study of more than 1,500 Dutch adults, researchers led by Jeroen Nawijn found that people anticipating a vacation reported greater happiness than those without a trip planned. The researchers suggested that looking forward to the holiday might help explain the difference.
The study doesn't prove that planning a trip makes us happier, but it does point toward something I've experienced many times: the enjoyment of an adventure can begin long before the adventure itself.
A week away doesn't have to deliver only seven days of pleasure. The anticipation can extend that enjoyment across weeks or even months. That's a pretty good return on the investment of making a reservation.
And it isn't just travel. I love organizing dinner parties. The menu planning, choosing the wines, thinking about who will enjoy sitting next to whom, sometimes even coordinating what everyone might wear or dreaming up a few entertaining discussion topics. That, perhaps weirdly, really turns my crank.
The dinner might last four hours, but I've already enjoyed myself enormously before anyone rings the doorbell.
And the pleasure of anticipation is often something others can create for us as well. Last week, a good friend returned from a longer-than-usual work trip. He'd clearly put his time on the airplane to good use, because he landed with a long list of things he thought we should organize for the fall: trivia nights, snow shoeing adventures, spa afternoons, and cottage weekends.
My inbox started filling up with suggestions, and with each new message, I got a little more excited. Not because we'd actually done anything yet, but because suddenly the coming weeks seemed full of possibilities.
It reminded me that one of the nicest things we can do for the people we care about is give them something to look forward to.
Of course, there's a place for spontaneity. Some of the best experiences in life are the ones we never saw coming. And I certainly don't want to turn leisure into another obligation, with a calendar so crowded that we have to schedule time to recover from all the fun.
But I've noticed how easy it is to let life become reactive. We deal with whatever needs doing, wait for someone to suggest something interesting, and tell ourselves we'll plan that weekend away, organize that dinner, or buy tickets to that concert when we have a little more time.
Before we know it, another month has passed. Perhaps we should be a little more deliberate about creating things to look forward to, not because every day needs to be extraordinary, but because having something exciting on the horizon can make even an ordinary Tuesday feel a little more interesting.
When we were kids, we didn't need much encouragement to count down the days until Christmas or a birthday party. Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped giving ourselves things worth counting down to.
So here's my suggestion. Open your calendar and look at the next few weeks. Is there something on there that makes you genuinely excited? If not, perhaps it's time to put something there.
Give yourself something to look forward to.
