What To Do On The Weekend…
6 Ways to Have a More Productive Weekend
- Make the Most of Your Mornings. An extra cup of coffee, sleeping in, or another 20 minutes of scrolling the ‘gram from bed are easy starts to the day. … But don’t let your weekend morning slip away! It’s been shown that waking up at the same time every day is better for your sleep, so if your internal alarm clock already has you up, make use of that time. Get out of bed and do a quick workout or do a little bedside yoga. Tack on an extra 15 minutes while walking your dog. Workouts at home are a great use of a few minutes to yourself in the morning! Getting them in before the rest of the house gets up ensures you’ve locked in some self-care before other things fill your day.
- Don’t Save Everything For the weekend… If you’re the person who saves every life task for the weekend, those two days will get crowded! Try moving your major cleaning to Thursday nights, or break it up throughout the week into smaller tasks. Going into the weekend with fresh linens, a vacuum run, and a clean kitchen can do wonders for the psyche of having a relaxing space to enjoy.
- Use Timers for Key Tasks…Set two alarms — one to remind you to pick up a book and one 30 minutes later. That time will fly by, and you’ll probably even want to keep at it! For less fun weekend tasks (cleaning out the garage, updating your home budget), set that same 30 minute timer and promise yourself to give it your all of that stretch. Once 30 minutes hits, reward yourself with a break for something fun and come back to it the next day if needed. I set timers all the time! Do the same thing for meal prepping in the kitchen! 😉
- Hit All Three Buckets…Try to think of every weekend in three buckets — Must Do, Must Not Do, and Learning to Do. The Must Dos are just the essentials. Even when we enjoy catching up with family, running the kiddos to practice, or doing things around the house, they are still things on the calendar. Must Not Do means that every weekend should have a little slice of doing nothing. This can be whatever “nothing” means to you, but it should be whatever self-care or restorative activity brings you peace.
- Take Fridays Seriously…Friday, you’re the best. Especially in summer, it can be easy to mentally call it a day sometime after 3pm. But that may make it more likely that you don’t effectively wrap up your week, and have work or other to-dos trickle into the weekend. Use the last few hours of Friday as your weekend power hours! Before you check out and get into full weekend mode, take some time to prep for Monday morning. Clean up your desk or workspace. Leave yourself a Monday to-do list. Take a few minutes on your networking efforts and forward along an article you think a colleague would find interesting. Closing out your Friday thoughtfully tees you up for a more productive weekend!
- Give Work a Structure…Nowadays, it’s inevitable that many of us have to check in with work over the weekend. Be it email review or major projects, some things simply don’t get done in the 9-5. If this is your situation, just give weekend work some structure. Tackling a major proposal? Don’t pick away at it all weekend — you’ll just end up feeling like you didn’t get a break. Block out some serious time of a few hours and hammer through. If email floods in, let fellow co-workers know that you review emails at a settime, say, from 2-4 on Sunday afternoon. (We’ve all fired off a weekend email that we don’t necessarily expect a response to, so it’s okay to expect others to feel the same way.) Also think about setting up an auto response on the weekends stating you will get back with them first thing Monday morning or some other designated time.
Think you all can try one or most of these tasks for the weekend? Baby steps to a more productive weekend! 🙂
Have a Happy One!
Work Hard, Eat Clean, Be Blessed
