Why you especially shouldn't be looking forward to the weekend

Are you counting down the minutes until five o'clock on Friday afternoon and thank god it's time for sleeping, beer, and sleeping?

Not so handy. You'd better not look forward to the weekend that much. Here's the thing. If you look too much forward to those two days freedom and fun , then you're only setting yourself up for disappointment. Unknowingly and unconsciously, you set the bar quite high: the idea that it must also be a party and a ball on that Saturday and Sunday. And you guessed it: high expectations often lead to disappointment. Because there's a good chance that not everything in those two days will be incredibly fun and joyful and full of rainbows. There's a good chance that sometimes it's just, well, boring. And if you had high hopes for a nice weekend, it quickly feels like failure.

Not only can your high expectations ruin your weekend; if you're really looking forward to it, you're probably also planning too much. You want to have fun in those 48 hours, so you go for a coffee here, a lunch there, a party, a drink, a catch-up, and a family day. You're exhausted by Monday, but hey, that's how it goes, because you can indeed see 81 people in one weekend. If you're looking forward to the weekend, you plan more on those days because you want to make the most of your free time.

But research shows that we as humans need to do nothing a bit more often. Just stare out the window a bit more and let ourselves get bored. Just laze on the couch. It's precisely that which makes us a bit less stressed in these oh so busy times. It makes us happier. If you just plan nothing for the weekend, you'll see how nice that ultimately feels.

Boring is the new partying. Time for yourself is the new socializing. Go get it.

And don't look forward to Monday morning too much, okay? Then it's a lot more fun right away.