Psychologists confirm that a canceled meeting is good for you
Popular Science...
Cancelled plans—particularly a meeting at work—can feel like an enormous gift. Even if it’s just an hour, getting that ping that an afternoon meeting is off feels liberating. But why? Unexpectedly getting time back in our day alters our psychological perception of how time passes, which then affects how we spend it.
“An hour gained feels longer than 60 minutes, and that deviation from expectation creates a unique sense of opportunity,” Gabriela Tonietto, a Rutgers University market researcher, explained in a statement. Tonietto is also the lead author of a new study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research exploring why those cancelled plans make us feel so free.
Tonietto studies time management, which is critical for productivity. Her previous work examined the hidden costs of over-scheduling, the benefits of having nothing to do, and the sensation of a time famine, or constantly feeling like we don’t have enough time.
In this study, Tonietto and colleagues at Ohio State University, the University of Toronto in Canada, and Peking University in China to investigate whether time gained—what they call windfall time—subjectively feels longer and if it changes how people use unexpected free time.
The team created and conducted seven surveys measuring psychological and behavioral responses to gaining time. They recruited over 2,300 participants from the researchers’ campuses and through online platforms such as Prolific.
In the first four surveys, the respondents compared gained time like a cancelled meeting with other equal-length periods of free time. Their statistical analysis found that a gained hour feels longer than an hour that was free anyway.
“Gained intervals of time are uniquely judged against the implicit reference point of having no free time, leading to a contrast effect for subjective magnitude,” the team wrote in their study. “As a result, equivalent intervals of time feel perceptually longer when gained versus expected to be free.”
Next, they examined how people spend that gained windfall time. In the remaining three surveys, participants reported their intended and actual behavior when they had expanded time. People typically chose longer activities than they otherwise would when given extra time. For example, an office worker with an unplanned free hour may take on a 45-minute task instead of a 30-minute task, partially because time feels more abundant. Similarly, when given a surprise gap in their schedule, a worker may walk to the coffee shop instead of getting a rushed cup in the breakroom. Essentially, the sense of abundance made more feel possible.
According to Tonietto, a better understanding of how we think about and spend our day, may help organizations design schedules that enable flexibility without unintentionally encouraging procrastination. However, don’t expect your boss to just start randomly cancelling meetings. The more unexpected a gain in time, the more likely we are to be unproductive. Cancelling at the last minute can guide us more towards leisure and less towards work.
So the next time a meeting is cancelled, Tonietto advises, “take the gift and make the most of it.”
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