A schedule packed to the edges leaves no room for anything surprising or good.

Full booking removes opportunity as well as rest, because interesting things almost always arrive unannounced and need somewhere to land. A life with no slack can only carry out what was already planned. Margin is what makes you available to your own luck.

Leave one evening and one stretch of a weekend genuinely open, and defend them as though something were already scheduled there. Do not decide in advance what they are for. See what turns up once there is room for it.