An hour of free time feels much shorter when you have an upcoming task or appointment, new research proves.

Through a series of studies, researchers at The Ohio State University found that time management before a scheduled event is often less productive than it could be.

“We seem to take a mental tax out of our time right before an appointment,” Selin Malkoc, associate professor of marketing at OSU’s Fisher College of Business and co-author of the study, said in a statement. “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 is published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The Research

In one study, Malkoc and a team of researchers conducted an online survey of 198 people. They asked some of the participants to imagine that they had a friend coming over to visit in one hour, and that they were completely ready. The other participants were told that they had no plans for the evening.

The participants were then asked how many minutes they felt they could both “objectively” and “subjectively” spend reading during that hour.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that both groups said they objectively had around 50 minutes to read.

“That’s an amazing finding right there. Most people didn’t think even objectively they had a full hour to read,” Malkoc said in a statement. “People are putting a little ‘just-in-case’ time into their schedules when there is no real reason to do that.”

There was a difference though when it came to assessing how much time they felt they had to read, i.e., measuring it subjectively.

The participants, who were told to expect a friend, felt they would have to spend 10 fewer minutes reading than those who were told they had no plans.

“We consistently find that the time before another scheduled appointment/activity feels shorter,” said Malkoc. “There are many – and valid – reasons to why we might objectively need more time when transitioning to another task. An upcoming appointment might require actual preparation or we might want to take a mental break between two tasks. While these may be true, we find that people further ‘tax’ their time – it feels shorter even after accounting for such factors.”

In a different study, researchers asked participants to provide their actual schedules for the next day. They were told to list the start time for a scheduled appointment, and how long they would need to prepare beforehand.

The participants were then offered the opportunity to take part in a 30-minute study that paid $2.50, or a 45-minute study that paid $5.

For some participants, the researchers scheduled the survey in the hour before a listed task, while others were scheduled surveys that weren’t near their listed appointment times.

The researchers found that participants who had an appointment in an hour were much more likely to chose the 30-minute study instead of the 45-minute study, even though there was a clear financial incentive and they had plenty of time.

The Explanation

So, why do we feel so limited with our time?

“We believe that when a given time has a strict endpoint – like an appointment – people think about the ending of their time,” said Malkoc. “This focus on the end in turn makes their time feel limited and insufficient.”

For example, in another study involving 158 college students, a researcher told participants who arrived at the research lab that study sessions were running faster than expected and that she wanted to wait for more participants to arrive.

Some participants were reminded then that they had about five minutes before the study session started. Others were simply told they had five minutes to do whatever they want.

At the end of the five-minute wait, the participants were asked to write down what they did. Those who were reminded of their limited time did an average of 1.86 small tasks, such as sending a text, checking social media, or checking email.

However, those who weren’t reminded of the upcoming task performed more activities — an average of 2.38 tasks.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that upcoming events actually make us less productive.

“People tend to think that their time management problems arise mainly because they have too much to do and not enough time to do it,” said Malkoc. “We find that while that may be true at times, the fault also lies in our own perception of what we think can be done with the time we have.”

Conclusion

Malkoc explains that this “mental taxing” of time can be a difficult habit to break, but there are some tricks that could help with productivity.

“These effects are difficult to turn off. If your goal is to create time for longer tasks, a trick would be to schedule back-to-back and leave larger chunks of unscheduled time,” she said. “If you have a long period, like several back-to-back hours, your unscheduled time will feel longer and more sufficient for substantial tasks – even after you ‘tax’ it.”

Of course, that’s not always possible. If that’s the case, Malkoc suggests a simple reminder that things aren’t as limited as you think.

“I try to remind myself of these results and tell myself ‘This is not as short of time as it feels. Get on with it and if you need to stop, you will.’ It is not a perfect solution, but it surely helps!”