How to have a good weekend

November 10, 2018 12:20 PM

Work has been busy/more chaotic than usual, and I'm having trouble disconnecting/relaxing on the weekends. What are your tips for having a good weekend, especially one where you feel like you've had a chance to decompress and feel rejuvenated entering into the new week?

Too often I find myself brooding over the work I "should" be doing, so that I end up thinking about work for waaay too long on the weekend, when I should just be enjoying the time I'm not at work! Other times I feel like I have a lot of activities (all of which I enjoy), but then feel like I don't have enough "veg" out time. And then, other times, I feel like I have no activities planned, but then the weekend passes in a unmemorable blur.

posted by ellerhodes to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (8 answers total)

Best answer: I tend to veg out a lot or work a lot on the weekend if I don't plan stuff, and then I feel disappointed that I didn't use my weekend to do weekend-only activities. So this approach might not work for you, but what I do is write a list of my weekend-only activities, and try to do at least one of those per weekend day. I find I feel better about my weekend after it's done if I did multiple per day, but one is my minimum.

My weekend activities are:

- Practising piano
- Drawing
- Working on side projects, but not normal work
- Baking
- Journalling
- Reading, especially a particular weekend-only nonfiction book right now
- Playing video/board games
- Working on a puzzle
posted by bellebethcooper at 12:36 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Best answer: My instinct is to curl up, oversleep, then veg. But my weekends are so much better when I get up only slightly later, go for a walk or jog outdoors after breakfast, and have one or two chores and fun things planned to kind of give the weekend a bit structure, but with open space for rest, socializing, whatever. I also feel better when even my chill-out time is planned out a bit (a movie I actually want to see instead of flipping channels, nice meal I look forward to rather than endless junk, etc..)

I have a few mantras when I start thinking about work, like “I’m not on the clock” and “I’m not thinking about this now, I’ll take care of it when I’m back like I always do” and “I’m not working for free, this is my time.”
posted by kapers at 12:53 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Best answer: My work week goes better if I schedule some time on the weekends to make life easier for Future Me. Clothes cleaned/planned, flat tidied, some healthy and tasty food prepared. Knowing that I'll wake up Monday morning with some things taken care of allows me to relax (and enjoy some fun activities as well.)
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 1:07 PM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If you're not already doing this, turn off phone notifications for all your work-related stuff as soon as you leave the office on Friday. Email, calendar events, etc. Turn that shit off so it doesn't try to make you think about it.

Also, I wear different clothes on the weekend. I have work clothes for work, and personal clothes for personal time. It helps me stay in a different headspace.

And then as often as I can I try to do some big fun thing on the weekend, which for means going on an all-day hike up in the mountains. Yours can be whatever is fun for you, but it should be something that engages you, something that you can look forward to and that will inspire fond memories later.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:38 PM on November 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Your work life is, I presume, fairly structured. So, do the opposite with your weekend. Do what you want to do when you want to do it, and more importantly, don't do it if you don't want to. What I mean is, don't put together a huge list of "this stuff will make my weekend fun" and then spend weekends attacking the list. Put together the list if you want, but then...do one thing off it and then spend a couple hours being a sloth on the couch watching TV or reading or whatever chills you out.

other times, I feel like I have no activities planned, but then the weekend passes in a unmemorable blur.

Embrace the unmemorable! Weekends aren't a competition, nobody's going to rate your weekend against theirs, or against your other weekends. There's too much pressure nowadays to Live Your Best Life or whatever woo catchphrase you want to use, when what your body, soul, and spirit might really need is exactly that unmemorable blur of a weekend.

TL;DR: if you need to chill, chill. It's kinda fun to do nothing every now and again.
posted by pdb at 2:35 PM on November 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

Best answer: My friend who wears fairly thick prescription lenses takes off his glasses to socialize. He says it cues his brain into fun mode.

Have a shower on Friday after work. Even better if that shower is linked to you doing something to welcome the weekend: have a special cocktail, or go for a walk through a park you like, or go for a jog, or take a yoga class.: Then the shower symbolically washes you clean of all the noise. Maybe try showering in the dark with just a few candles, for even more separation from your workday showers.

Clean the house on Thursday nights so you can start the weekend by coming home to a nice clean place.

And have nice groceries waiting with something you look forward to eating (mine is a $12 tray of pre cut fruit from the grocery store- a bit overpriced but I would never buy & eat three melons and a pineapple in one week so it's worth it and it makes the weekend nice to have an easy healthy snack waiting at all times, and fruit with my weekend breakfasts.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 4:11 PM on November 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Whenever I can, I designate one of my weekend days as internet sabbatical day, to be spent offline to the greatest extent possible. (Pro tip: put the phone in airplane mode if you want to keep it with you for music or alarms or whatever.) That alone ends up making that one day feel extremely satisfying; it subjectively feels like a much longer day, and I end up being better able to fit in chores and reading and exercise and socializing and whatever else I want, because I'm not losing ten minutes here and ten there to puttering around online.
posted by Stacey at 4:17 PM on November 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

Best answer: back when I did this sort of thing I liked to go out, or do whatever social activity, on Friday night. Then the excitement was had, and the rest of the weekend could be spent relaxing... the whole weekend felt longer.

Cleaning the house on Thursday so it's welcoming to return to on Friday is a wonderful idea.

No-Internet Saturday is fantastic.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:17 PM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]