Things To Do This Week: Why Having Something to Look Forward to Changes Everything

There's a particular kind of week that most of us know well. The kind where Monday arrives, the diary is empty of anything genuinely exciting, and the days ahead stretch out in an uninspiring blur of routine.

Work, commute, dinner, repeat. Nothing wrong with any of it, but nothing to look forward to either.

Now contrast that with a week where there's something in the diary. Something exciting. Something you can't quite stop thinking about because you don't entirely know what it is yet.

The difference in how that week feels, from Monday morning to the moment the experience actually arrives, is remarkable. And it's something What Next is exceptionally good at providing.

The Science of Having Something to Look Forward To

This isn't just anecdotal. Research into wellbeing consistently finds that anticipation is one of the most powerful contributors to happiness, often more powerful than the experience itself. The act of looking forward to something generates genuine positive emotion across the days preceding it, lifting mood, reducing stress and giving ordinary days a quiet undercurrent of excitement.

In other words, booking something good for later in the week doesn't just improve the day of the experience. It improves every day between now and then.

What Next is built around mystery - and mystery is, almost by definition, the perfect anticipation generator. When you don't know what you're doing until you arrive, the mind fills the gap with curiosity and excitement rather than fixed expectations. That low-level buzz of wondering what's coming is part of the What Next experience, and it starts the moment you book.

Making This Week Count

Bournemouth is genuinely one of the best places in England to have a great week. The town's activity scene, particularly once you get beyond the obvious attractions and into the world of independent operators and specialist providers, is richer and more varied than most people realise.

The challenge isn't whether there's something brilliant to do. It's finding it, booking it, and actually following through rather than leaving it as a vague intention that never quite materialises.

What Next removes every obstacle between that intention and the reality.

One Decision. One Great Week.

The booking process is straightforward: choose a date that works this week or next, complete your booking, and receive all the practical details you need. Time, location, what to wear, what to bring.

The activity itself stays a mystery until you arrive, which means from the moment you book to the moment of the reveal, you have something genuinely unknown and genuinely exciting sitting in your week.

That's a powerful thing to have in your diary.

For Every Kind of Week

Part of what makes What Next so well suited to the "things to do this week" mindset is the breadth of what's on offer. Whether you're looking for something to do solo, planning a midweek evening with a friend, organising a proper group day out or looking for a date night that's a step above the usual, there's a What Next experience that fits.

Previous activities have spanned everything from physical and team-based challenges to creative, hands-on experiences that slow the pace and engage the mind in a completely different way. The variety is the point, and it means there's always something in the roster that's right for where you are and what your week needs.

Having Things To Do This Week - The Lift Is Real

There's something particularly valuable about having a What Next experience mid-week rather than saving everything for the weekend. A Wednesday activity breaks the week in the best possible way, it gives Monday and Tuesday a horizon to aim for, and it means Friday arrives already carrying the glow of something good that's just happened.

Weekends are great. But a week with a genuine highlight built into the middle of it? That's something else entirely.

Don't Let This Week Be Forgettable

Every week has the potential to contain something memorable. Most weeks, that potential goes unrealised, not because the opportunities aren't there, but because the default is always to leave it for another time.

What Next makes it easy to stop leaving it for another time. A simple booking, a date in the diary, and the knowledge that somewhere in the days ahead is an experience that's going to surprise you, delight you, and give you something genuinely worth talking about.

This week could be the one where that actually happens.

Browse upcoming What Next experiences and give your week the highlight it deserves.