http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/ … ime_yo.php -

"Jim and Nora each attended summer camps that they enjoyed tremendously this past summer. When we picked up Nora from her camp, she was completely exhausted. Why? She and her new friends had only gotten 30 minutes of pretend sleep the night before. This was to fool their counselors before sneaking into a pre-determined room for a vigil during their precious last few hours together. Jim, it turned out, had stayed up all night his last night too, but without the pretense of tricking the counselors, who had by that time pretty much given up on enforcing a curfew.

Despite their exhaustion, we could tell that both kids had had a fantastic time. These, clearly, were weeks that they would remember fondly for the rest of their lives.

But perhaps the reason they enjoyed their time so much was precisely because it was limited. While a vacation in the tropics seems fabulous, getting stranded on a tropical island -- even with plenty of food and water -- can be terrifying. And while most of us live comfortable day-to-day lives with good friends and family, how often do we stop to appreciate our own good fortune? It's certainly plausible that placing limits on enjoyable activities can end up making us happier.

Jaime Kurtz tested that notion by asking 67 seniors at the University of Virginia at Arlington to participate in an introspective exercise about their satisfaction with their lives at college... "

This reminds me that I'd like to see more research into the effects of timeboxing. Or any research, actually. I can't think of anything right off the bat...

Original paper: Looking to the Future to Appreciate the Present: The Benefits of Perceived Temporal Scarcity

Abstract - Both psychological research and conventional wisdom suggest that it can be difficult to attend to and derive enjoyment from the pleasant things in life. The present study examined whether focusing on the imminent ending of a positive life experience can lead to increased enjoyment. A temporal distance manipulation was used to make college graduation seem more or less close at hand. Twice a week over the course of 2 weeks, college students were told to write about their college life, with graduation being framed as either very close or very far off. As predicted, thinking about graduation as being close led to a significant increase in college-related behaviors and subjective well-being over the course of the study. The present research provides support for the counterintuitive hypothesis that thinking about an experience's ending can enhance one's present enjoyment of it.

Last edited by ruiner (2009 September 02, 8:50 pm)