You’ve got a full hour until your next meeting. But you probably won’t make the most of that time, new research suggests.
You’ve got a full hour until your next meeting. But you probably won’t make the most of that time, new research suggests.
In a series of eight studies, both in the lab and real life, researchers found that free time seems shorter to people when it comes before a task or appointment on their calendar.
“We seem to take a mental tax out of our time right before an appointment,” said Selin Malkoc, co-author of the study and associate professor of marketing at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business
“We figure something might come up, we might need some extra time, even when there’s no need to do that. As a result, we do less with the available time.”
The study appears online in the Journal of Consumer Research.
In an online study of 198 people, Malkoc and her colleagues asked some participants to imagine they had a friend coming over to visit in one hour and “you are all ready for your friend to come by.” The others were told that they had no plans for the evening.
Read more at Ohio State University
Photo Credit: Myriams-Fotos via Pixabay
