The Happiness Arc: Three Phases of Experiences

Most of us only focus on one-third of an experience. Here’s how to make sure you don’t miss the rest.

You’ve probably heard it: buy experiences, not things. The research is clear, the advice is everywhere, and most of us nod along. But here’s what you may not know: the experience itself is only one-third of the happiness it produces.

There are three distinct phases to the happiness arc of any experience. And when we treat the middle one, the experience itself, as the whole story, we’re leaving a significant return on the table. Here’s how to collect all of it.

Throughout each phase, we'll look at how the Do/Drop/Delegate framework applies because getting more out of your experiences isn't just about mindset. It's about being intentional with who does what, so the right things get your attention, and the rest gets handled.

The Happiness Arc: A Three-Phase Framework

Before we break down each phase, here’s the map:

Anticipation → The Experience → The Memory Dividend

Each phase produces its own form of happiness. Each one is worth being intentional about. And understanding all three changes not just how you plan experiences, but how you live them.

Phase One: Anticipation

We tend to overlook anticipation. The research doesn’t.

Studies by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, authors of Happy Money, found that happiness often spikes in the weeks before a vacation, not during it. Looking forward to a sunny beach while sitting at your desk can be nearly as pleasurable as the beach itself. The mechanism is that anticipation is a largely untapped source of happiness, one most of us don’t take seriously enough.

The French even have a verb for it: se réjouir — the experience of deriving pleasure in the present from anticipating the future. Dunn and Norton argue that we tend to derive more joy from things coming to us than from things already received. Credit card culture has trained us to do the opposite: consume now, pay later. Reversing that trend — paying now, consuming later — reaps the rewards of anticipation.

Planning something and letting yourself look forward to it isn’t indulgent. It’s already producing returns.

Apply the Do/Drop/Delegate framework

Do: Be the one who decides what the experience is. That vision — what you’re looking forward to, what it means to you — is yours to hold. Let yourself daydream deliberately. Block time to look at photos of the place, read about it, build the anticipation consciously.

Drop: The guilt about wanting things to look forward to. Anticipation isn’t frivolous. It’s a documented source of wellbeing. You don’t need to earn the right to be excited.

Delegate: The logistics. Research, booking, itinerary planning... if these tasks drain you or eat into the joy of anticipation, hand them off. To a travel agent, a detail-loving friend, a partner who loves a spreadsheet. The goal is to protect the emotional return of this phase, not to do every task yourself.

Phase Two: The Experience Itself

This is the phase we’re most typically the most present for — and it’s worth being deliberate about that presence.

Research on savoring by psychologist Fred Bryant shows that consciously engaging with an experience while it’s happening — noticing it, naming it, slowing into it — meaningfully increases the happiness it produces. Savoring isn’t passive. It’s a practice. And it’s easy to skip because we’re too busy moving through the moment to actually be in it.

But here’s something worth remembering: the moments that feel hard in the middle — the missed flight, the rained-out day, the restaurant that was closed — often become the ones we remember most. Challenges add texture. They’re frequently what makes an experience stick. So if it’s not going as planned, that’s not a sign it’s failing. It might be the part you’ll tell the story about.

Apply the Do/Drop/Delegate Framework

Do: Be present. Notice what’s happening. Name what you’re feeling in the moment, even if just to yourself. This is the savoring practice, and it’s yours to own.

Drop: The pressure for it to be perfect. The comparison to how you imagined it. The impulse to document everything instead of experiencing it. Some of the best moments happen when the plan falls apart.

Delegate: Decisions that don’t require you. If you’re traveling with others, share the ‘what do we do next’ decisions. Let someone else pick dinner. Collaborative planning during the experience means you’re not carrying the whole thing alone and often leads to moments you wouldn’t have chosen yourself.

Phase Three: The Memory Dividend

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Author Bill Perkins, in Die With Zero, argues that experiences don’t just produce happiness in the moment; they pay memory dividends for the rest of your life. The logic is essentially an investment argument: the earlier in life you have a meaningful experience, the longer the memory dividend pays out. A trip you take at 40 gives you potentially 40+ years of memory return. The same trip at 70 gives you fewer years — and possibly a diminished capacity to fully participate in it.

Experiences are assets. Timing is part of the calculation.

But duration isn’t the only variable. How you capture and revisit an experience matters too. A journal entry, a photo book, a voice memo on the drive home, these extend and deepen the dividend. They give the memory somewhere to live.

Apply the Do/Drop/Delegate Framework

Do: Capture something. A few sentences in a journal the night after. A voice note. A single photo that actually represents how it felt, not just how it looked. The memory dividend grows when you tend to it.

Drop: The idea that you have to do this perfectly or comprehensively. You don’t need a scrapbook. You need one honest record of what it was like to be there.

Delegate: The photo book. Seriously. If making a photo book sounds like a task that will never happen, hand it off to a service, to a family member who loves this kind of thing, or to a friend who’s been asking what they can do to help. The return is worth it either way.

Putting It All Together

Plan things. Plan them earlier than feels necessary. Daydream about them — let the anticipation be part of the experience before the experience begins. And when you’re in them, actually be there. Capture something after.

The happiness arc is longer than you think. And the dividends? They pay out for the rest of your life.

Time wealth isn’t just about protecting your hours. It’s about investing them in things that keep giving back.

Want to Go Deeper?

If this resonated with you, the Mindful Delegation Workbook is a good next step. It’s built on the Do/Drop/Delegate framework and walks you through being honest about where your time and attention are going — so you can protect more of it for the adventures, experiences, and moments that actually matter.

Want help figuring out what to Do, Drop, or Delegate? The Mindful Delegation Decision Tree is free and takes less than a minute. Run each phase of the experience through it to figure out where it lands.

This post pulled research from 3 fantastic books: Happy Money by Elizabeth Dunn & Michael Norton, Die With Zero by Bill Perkins, and Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience by Fred Bryant & Joseph Veroff. I highly recommend them if you’re looking for a new read!