026: Make the Most of Your Weekend

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to Productivity Paradox. I’m your host Tanya  Dalton, and this is episode 26. Today, we are talking about making the most of your  weekend. We all look forward to the weekend, right? Except a lot of times we get to  Sunday evening and we think, “Where did my weekend go,” or “I spent the entire  weekend working and now I’m exhausted and I’m not ready for Monday.” I really want  to have you feel like your weekends are for restoring, and they can be. You can really  take advantage and make the most out of your weekend, but only if you plan for  them. I think the idea that you’re not going to work at all on the weekend is not  realistic. There’s going to be times when you’re going to need to work on the  weekend. It’s just something you need to do.  

 When people tell you, “You shouldn’t work at all on the weekends,” I just don’t  feel like that’s really real. It’s not really realistic. For people who love to work, like me,  it’s okay to find some time to spend on work tasks. It’s really all about the harmony. If  

you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know I believe balance is  bogus. It is because if it was really balanced, instead of having five days of work and  two days at home, we would spend three-and-a-half days working really hard and  three-and-a-half days relaxing and doing all the fun stuff at home, but we don’t.  Instead, we need to create harmony in our life by keeping our work typically in an  eight-hour work schedule per day, five days a week. That’s the compartment for  work.  

 The rest of our time is then compartmentalized into necessities, sleep, chores,  errands, and downtime. If we don’t make a plan for that downtime or we don’t use it  to push our goals forward, then we run the risk of getting out of harmony because we  allow work or necessities to bleed into that time. There’s a counterbalance that’s  needed here. It’s that same idea that we’ve talked about over the last few episodes of  looking at your weeks as 168 hours versus looking at them day-by-day in 24-hour  increments. Yes, you want to spend the majority of your weekends in home mode,  which is a combination of downtime and home necessities, but there’s going to be  working weekends and nonworking weekends. You just want to make sure that you  have that harmony overall.  

 Now, working weekends tend to leave you drained, and they don’t give your  brain the needed downtime that it requires to reset for the week ahead so that way  you’re ready to do on Monday morning. A nonworking weekend leaves you more  energized. You feel ready for the week ahead. You’re ready to tackle everything you  need to do during your work week. How do you do this? How do you find this  harmony? One of the things that I do because I do have periods in my work schedule  where I do need to work more on the weekends. One of the things I do is I bring my  

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family into the work sphere. I find that harmony by having my family work alongside  me. I try to make it fun for them.  

 Now, as you know, John is a part of my business. You hear his voiceover at the  beginning of this podcast, and he is the co-owner of Inkwell Press with me. I also  include the rest of my family in what I do. My kids come up to my studio. They help  make boxes. They work to do some prep work for some of the planners and things  like that. I make them a real, significant part of the business. That helps in two ways. It  helps me get to spend time with them, but then it also helps them feel like they are a  part of that business. They’re able to understand when I am really busy, they feel like  it’s their business too. That’s one of the things that I do. It’s really important that I  don’t work every single weekend.  

 Yes, I do have some times where I’m working Saturday and Sunday, but we  really need to make sure that we’re giving our bodies the time off it needs. You can’t  do that all of the time. We often say that we’re going to rest when we have a  vacation, but vacation is really only temporary. Studies show that the benefits of  vacation actually fade within two to four weeks, which suggests the importance of  regularly taking a break from work on the weekends. Why do our bodies need time  off? Well, your brain needs a break. It needs room to play. Work is obviously very  brain oriented, and just like any other muscle, you need to give it a break for a few  days. When you’re relaxing, your brain doesn’t stop working altogether, but the  downtime does replenish its attention span. It encourages productivity and creativity.  

 Not thinking about work can actually help you solve some of your problems.  Our brains get the best ideas when we’re relaxed and when it’s releasing dopamine,  which is triggered by things like exercise, listening to music, taking a warm shower,  

the things that we have time to do on the weekends. It’s really important to give your  brain a break. Your health overall is also really important, and high stress from  working all the time can result in so many different health issues. Your body needs  that downtime. We’ve all heard that saying that sitting is the new smoking. It’s good  to get out of your desk chair and get your body moving. It’s also important to make  sure that you are spending time with your relationships with other people.  

 The significant people in your life need time with you, your partner, your close  friends. Both of those types of people are really important. You need a supportive  partner at your side, but if you’re not supportive back, they’re not likely to stick  around and be supportive for much longer. Studies actually show that having a  conscientious partner not only pushes you to career success, but it also keeps life  outside of work operating smoothly and friendships are important too because they  make you happy. Social connection is one of the greatest predictors of happiness.  The other reason why we really need to take time off is my favorite, taking time off makes you more productive.  

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 A report from the Business Roundtable showed that working 60-hour weeks  for two months caused a decrease in productivity equivalent to just having worked  40-hour workweeks in the first place. Well that feels like a loss, doesn’t it? If you work  60-hour weeks, but really you’re only getting 40 hours worth of work done, those 20  hours is a lot of time that you could be spending in other ways. We talked about this  earlier in the season. Happiness brings about success. It’s not the other way around. It  can be hard not working on the weekends. I totally get that. I have a hard time  sometimes not working on the weekend. We do that because we think of it as a  productivity high. We feel like we’re maximizing our time and that makes us feel  happy.  

 Recently a study came out where they did a study on a group of 500  employed individuals, who were asked to describe four different experiences, a time  where they felt productive, a time they felt very busy, a time they felt unproductive,  or not busy at all. When people wrote about the time they felt productive, they  reported feeling at their best and happiest with life, more so than in any other  condition. This data suggests that by feeling productive, we feel like we’re making  some sort of difference, so we trick ourselves into believing that by not taking breaks  on the weekends, we’re becoming more productive. We also feel obligated just to  keep at it. We look around. We think everybody else is busy. We need to be busy too.  

 It’s not about the quantity of the work. It’s not about the hours you’re putting  in. It’s about the quality. Quality beats quantity every single time. The sad statistics  show that 81% of employed Americans check their work email on the weekends. 55%  of employed Americans check their email inboxes after 11 o’clock at night. One-third  of employed Americans say they respond to emails at work within 15 minutes. We’re  setting these expectations for ourselves and for our workplace. We really need to  step back and think about how we really want to spend our time. How do we make  the most out of our weekend? Well, as with all things that have to do with  productivity, it’s all about the prep.  

 Ending Friday well is the first tip I can give you, and we had a whole episode  last week, episode 25 where we talked about taking Fridays off or making it feel like  Friday was the day that you were saving up for those big tasks that you really look  forward to. I want to encourage you again to end Friday well. Take care of anything  that will help you start Monday off on the right foot. If you haven’t listened to that  episode, I would encourage you to give it a quick listen. It’s a 20-minute episode, and  I think you’ll get a lot out of it. The second thing we can do is to train others. We had  talked about how to handle an overbearing boss on the weekends, but if your  coworkers are also sending you work-related things over the weekend, it’s time to  start training them not to do that.  

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 Tell them in advance that you’re not available or you’ll only be available during  certain hours. People will respect the boundaries that you set, but they don’t know  better unless you set them. They don’t know about these boundaries, so they just  assume that it’s okay to shoot you a quick text or an email because if you’re  responding, you’re showing them that you don’t have boundaries. Here’s a quick tip,  set up a pre-written text. If you tend to get a lot of work texts over the weekend, just  save it in your notes, and then you can copy and paste it and hit send without having  to worry about it. Your little pre-written text could say something like, “Today’s a text free day for me. I’ll respond in more detail on Monday.” That helps them see your  boundary.  

 Once they see the boundaries, they’re able to really step around them. It might  take a time or two of doing it or three or even four times, but eventually they’re going  to see those boundaries and they’ll start to respect them. The third thing you can do  is enlist the help of your family. Sometimes we all need a gentle push in the right  direction. I know that I do. If you’re having trouble not working on the weekends,  even when you have the best intentions not to, try asking your partner or your  roommate or your friends to give you a little reminder when they do catch you  working. Not nagging, not getting into an argument, just a little training, just a little  tap on your shoulder like, “Hey, I thought you weren’t going to work this weekend”  and see if that’ll help.  

 Sometimes we have these habits. We have these scripts we’ve told ourselves  that, “While I work on Saturdays, I do this,” and it’s hard to change. Sometimes you  need the help of someone else to give you that gentle nudge. Another thing you can  do is keep a running to-do list handy. When you’re going through your weekend and  these ideas pop up or these thoughts about what you could do about and work, you  can quickly note any of these items or ideas that you think of so they’re not taking up  brain space. That way, once you’ve had this brainstorm, this brilliant idea, you’ve  written it down, and you can move on. Then on Monday, you can look on it and move  forward on it. This will keep you from stewing on this idea or really thinking about it  all weekend long.  

 Then the last thing you can do is remember what it’s all for. Stop borrowing  from today to make tomorrow great. We tell ourselves, “If I work hard now, I’ll get to  enjoy myself eventually. I’m going to work like a dog for these first 10 years, and then  I’m really going to enjoy myself after that.” I want to encourage you to enjoy the  moment you’re in. The time you have with those you love is short, so take advantage  of it today. Don’t think that you have lots of time in the future. Really take advantage  of what’s happening today. Now, I will say, there are going to be weekends where you  have to work. I told you that I have working weekends sometimes and nonworking  weekends. I try to have a lot more nonworking weekends than I do working ones.  

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 What if you do have to work on the weekend? Well, if you must work and  answer email, try setting aside one hour or less for Saturday or Sunday to get that  done. Then you can unplug the rest of the weekend. Now, I would encourage you to  do that on Sunday evening rather than Saturday. That way, people don’t have time to  respond on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning and then you feel the need to  respond again and then you have this back and forth. I recommend setting aside a  little bit of time to respond to those emails, or don’t send the emails at all. Instead,  just write a draft and then hit send first thing on Monday morning. There’s even apps  that you can use to schedule those emails so they do shoot out on Monday morning.  That helps people understand your hours of availability.  

 I want to take a minute to talk to you about the hours of availability versus  your hours of business. Your hours of availability are the hours that you say you’re  available to be contacted. You can be contacted through a phone or email or  whatever it is that works for you. You’re typically working during these hours as well,  so these are also business hours, but people can easily get in touch with you during  this time if they need to, and you respond in a timely fashion. Now, hours of business  are times that you’re working, but you’re not necessarily available to others. If you’re  doing a split shift, say you like to work early in the morning and then late at night, this  could be the time you spend working. If you work for a block of time on the weekend  on your important tasks but you’re not going to be responding to emails, those are  your hours of business, but they’re not your hours of availability.  

 There’s a difference there, and I want you to really think about that. When are  your hours of business versus your hours of availability. They’re not the same thing.  Your hours of business should be the time that you’re being productive, but your  hours of availability are where you’re productive and really driving goals forward. This  is the time that’s set aside to work on important tasks and not be distracted by  responding to people who are emailing or calling. Now we’ve talked about how we  can create some strategies so you can have the time on your weekend. What do you  want to do with this time? How do you want to make your weekend more enjoyable? I  love what Laura Vanderkam says. She says, “There are 60 hours between that six  o’clock Friday beer and the six AM Monday morning alarm clock.” 60 hours for you to  spend the way that you want and really that’s what it’s all about. It’s really up to you.  

 What are the things you want to do? Who are the people you really want to  spend time with? What are the activities that bring you joy? Now, I know it’s always  overwhelming to start with an empty sheet of paper, so I have a download to help  you decide what you want to do with your weekends. You can access that at  inkwellpress.com/podcast and look under episode 26. In the resources section, you’ll  see the download that I have created for you to help you walk through how you want  to spend your weekends. I want to encourage you to do a couple things. First of all,  plan it around what’s important. Use part of your week to make plans for your  

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weekend. Anticipate them during the rest of your week, and then actually have fun on  the weekend. Instead of wondering where the time went or doing nothing, I really  want you to plan it out.  

 Sometimes it’s really the thinking about the events to come that’s half the  enjoyment, right? Think about when you have a vacation coming and how much  anticipating that vacation really encourages you to push while you’re at work. One  thing that I do is I set aside time on Thursday nights for weekend planning. John and I  sit down. We talk about what we want to get accomplished during our weekend,  what are our priorities for that weekend, and then we plan it out. Don’t fill every  single minute. I want you to think about planning for three, maybe five events that  you look forward to. Five’s a lot though. We think we want to do nothing all weekend  long, but it’s not possible to do nothing. Boredom starts to kick in, and then we don’t  know what else to do, so we work. Then on Sunday, we wonder, “What happened to  our weekend? I spent my whole weekend working.” That’s what I want you to avoid.  

 By planning it out and giving yourself three to five events you’re really looking  forward to, you’re going to avoid that trap. Try thinking ahead. Maybe make a bucket  list of activities you’d like to try that are within a two-hour radius of your house. This  

could be things like biking or camping, going to a nearby park, taking a class,  whatever it is that you think would be fun that’s within a two-hour radius of where  you live. Then when you’re doing your planning, choose a couple things from that list  to do this weekend and make your plans. You might want to consider making new  traditions or special activities that you only do on the weekends. Things like Sunday  morning pancakes or Friday night pizza night, movie night, getting brunch after  church, family nap time. Hey, I like that one.  

 Think about what are things you want to do, and you can even avoid that blue  feeling that a lot of people get on Sunday nights by scheduling something fun during  that time. You can start a new tradition of having a big Sunday night dinner with  family or having a class, doing a volunteer activity, something that you look forward  to. My family usually does a nice Sunday dinner, and then we have Sunday family  meeting where we all work together to plan our week. We all pull out our planners.  We talk about what everyone’s doing. It’s a touchpoint for my family to work  together so that we are all keeping each other on track for our goals. My kids are  involved in that, and that really helps us all work together to keep on track with  where we want to be as a family and helps us push our family mission even further.  

 I want to encourage you too to take the time on your weekends to make and  strengthen your connections with people. We know social connections are the  greatest indicator of happiness, so make a commitment to the important people in  your life and leave time open for them on the weekend. Try making a list of the  people you really want to spend your time with on the weekends. Spoiler alert, it’s  

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probably not your boss or the things you’re having to do for work. That’s going to be  part of the download too. It’s all about being present. Plan out your blocks to work  during the week, and on the weekend, find the time to do the fun activities because  it’s really important that you find the things that are important to you. There will still  be chores. There will still be things that you have to do on the weekends that aren’t  on your fun list, but just create smaller blocks of time for that type of work so you  can fully relax and be in the moment during your work-free blocks of times.  

 Try compressing chore time into these little, smaller blocks of specific time. My  assistant, Liz, is really smart, and she does something that I think is really clever. On  the weekends, she generally puts her chores and errands on Saturday mornings  because then she goes and rewards herself by grabbing a nice lunch to eat at home  while catching up on a show that she enjoys. She gives herself a small window that  motivates her to get these things out of the way so she’s able to move on to the fun  things. That’s what I want for you. That’s going to be possible if you prep and plan  ahead. Now, I want to encourage you to get the download. You can find that at  inkwellpress.com/podcast under episode 26. We’ll walk you through how you can  really maximize your weekend. It’s going to be a fun little worksheet that you can  work on by yourself or work on it with your partner or your roommate or your family  because I want you to really think about spending the time on what matters most to  you.  

 Now, episode 26 marks the end of season two, and season two as you know  has been all about editing and streamlining. I am beyond excited for where we are  going for season three, and we will have that for you starting next week. In the  meantime, I would love to connect with you. You can find me on social media, using  the username at Inkwell Press. You can find me at inkwellpress.com/podcast as well.  All right, until next time, happy planning. 

**This transcript is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

Tanya Dalton is a productivity keynote speaker and time management expert. She is a woman on a mission to help other women set goals, find purpose and live with intention.