Are you wasting your weekend?

July 1, 2013

Weekends. We look forward to them all week, and then before we know it, it’s gone. Monday rolls around and we have a vague recollection of what filled the downtime, which leaves us going into the next week feeling unrested and unrewarded.

Don’t let this time warp fool you! Weekends are longer than you think. From happy hour 6 p.m. Friday to that 6 a.m. Monday morning alarm clock, you have 60 hours of time to spend at your leisure. This is plenty of time for fun, relaxation and recharging. In the competitive professional world, successful people know that weekends are the secret to workweek success. Weekends should leave you feeling refreshed, not exhausted, so come Monday you are ready to go.

“A decade ago, I let my days just sort of all blend together,” says James Reinhart, who’s San Francisco-based online clothing resale platform ThredUp.com has grown from 30 employees to 140 in the past year. After starting the company, though, he realized that “it’s the quality of my decision making that ultimately makes the company successful.” Without the time to go into refresh mode, “you never end up with the space to think.”

Successful people use the weekend as a secret weapon, but guess what? Now you can too. Turn your weekends into a productivity generating time instead of draining 60 hours.

Author, Laura Vanderkam concluded that successful people know time is too precious to be totally leisurely about leisure. “You’re not going to waste that time by failing to think about what you’d like to do with it, and thus losing the weekend to TV, puttering, inefficient e-mail checking, and chores. If you don’t have a busy workweek, your weekend doesn’t matter so much. But if you’re going from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, it certainly does.”

So how do create a weekend that is both fulfilling and rejuvenating?

Ask yourself how you would like to spend your time.

Weekends can easily turn into a long list of “have-to-dos”. Hours devoted to children’s activities, errands, chores and inefficient work. Instead, bring a book to your child’s piano lesson, run all your errands in one trip, stop checking your e-mail every 5 minutes because your smartphone allows you to and don’t spend your weekend cleaning. There will always be those “things” that have to get done, but completing them more efficiently will leave you with more time for activities you enjoy. Fill your free time with things you would like to do or have in your life. Start by making a list, the longer the better and dig deep, it can be anything. Get creative, but make sure they are doable. You can’t travel across Europe in a weekend, but you can try a new hiking spot.

Make a plan.

Instead of filling your weekends with mundane, unproductive tasks try to cross some items off your list. This does not mean however that you should plan every minute of the weekend. Anticipation is a major component of happiness. In our fast paced, hectic world (which I encouraged you last week to get away from) we fail to make plans and then spend our weekends on the couch in front of the television. Plan for yourself or you and your family to complete three to five items from your list and put them in the big weekend spots. Think outside the box and incorporate activities from categories that make people the happiest such as socializing, spiritual activities and exercise.

Honor the Sabbath.

I don’t mean this only in a religious sense. I think anyone can appreciate how beneficial 24 hours of rest can be. There will always be tasks in your personal and professional life that need to be completed, but try to keep these contained in a small block of time set-aside specifically for that purpose. Spend at least one of your weekend days focused on family, community, inspiration, gratitude, and the larger questions of life and Monday will come in a different frame of mind. When Sunday night rolls around, don’t start to dread the week before it even starts. Plan something fun like a barbeque or a pedicure so you can keep your mind occupied instead of focusing on the Monday blues.

Take this secret weapon used by successful people and incorporate it into your week. By recharging on the weekends you will feel more motivated to take on your week.

“A successful person is usually one who has achieved a measure of happiness and fulfillment in their work, family, and spiritual life (however that is defined for the individual). Most successful people need to feel a sense of accomplishment and are self-motivated to tackle the next challenge.”

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Keri Murphy and the Inspired Living team is on a mission to empower people to use their unique talents in a way that allows them to Dream, Live and BE all that is possible through speaking, coaching, celebrity interviews and original on-line content. Get Inspired at inspiredliving.tv