Making the Most of Your Weekend
As a working mom you probably fall into one of two camps when it comes to weekends:
Busy
Passive
Busy weekends are full of all of the things that you didn’t get to during the week - chores, errands, projects, as well as play dates, activities, and outings. But when the weekend is over, you feel exhausted rather than refreshed.
Passive weekends are full of surviving. This is the default among families with young kids where the parents are tired and don’t have much energy for anything outside of survival. But when the weekend is over, you feel like you wasted the time rather than making memories, or at least making progress.
I’d like to offer a third camp. One where at the end of the weekend instead of feeling guilt for doing too much or guilt for not doing enough, you feel content. You feel appreciative of the time that you had and satisfied with how you spent it.
How do you create a weekend that sounds so amazing? It starts with a question…
Weekends are harder to plan
When I think back to when I first started my journey taking control of my to-do list, my schedule, and my time, the work week came together fairly easily.
It makes sense. I have childcare during the work day and so those hours are largely within my control.
And to this day, I have a system that works amazingly well with helping me stay on track and get the most important things done.
But the weekends were always much harder. They're a different beast, especially when you have young children. So much of your time is spent taking care of them.
Weekends went one of two ways:
I would either do something fun but then feel guilty for not having crossed enough off my to-do list OR
I’d spend all my time on household projects and chores and feel guilty for not doing anything fun.
I just couldn't win! And by Sunday afternoon my husband and I would be bickering, already feeling the stress of the upcoming workweek, and feeling like we hadn't done enough to set ourselves up for a successful week.
It felt terrible. Something needed to change.
A different approach
Why, if my weekends were structured completely different than my work week, was I trying to apply the same principles in terms of my time management and planning strategies? Especially when I have young kids and I can't exactly plan by the hour.
So instead of a huge list or an over packed schedule, I started asking myself a question:
How do I want to feel this weekend?
How do I want to feel?
Do I have lots of energy and motivation and therefore want to feel productive? Great! Let's tackle a house project in between naps.
Am I feeling less focused and more fun and so the goal of the weekend is to feel spontaneous and silly? Awesome. Let's plan some adventures and intentional playtime.
Am I coming off of a really long, stressful week and so I want to feel relaxed? Good to know. Let's have a Disney plus marathon, eat some comfort food, and slow down.
Starting with the question of how I want to feel let’s me create a weekend from there, instead of forcing something that isn’t what I need. It helps me work with my energy, my mood, and my current circumstances to create a weekend that supports me.
It helps me think about what would feel good come Sunday.
but i still have chores to do
One question that comes up frequently is “what about chores and errands and all the things that you HAVE to do?”
For me, and most of my clients, even if I don't explicitly put on a list - do laundry or cook dinner - those things are still going to get done. I'm not going to go without clean clothes or let my kids go hungry.
I don't need a huge list to still do the minimum, but I can cut back on unnecessary things.
If the goal of the weekend is to feel relaxed or playful, then I’m going to delay a chore, or push back an errand if I can. Maybe I’ll do it on a weekend when I have more energy instead. Maybe I’ll squeeze it in during the work week instead. Maybe I’ll realize that it wasn’t really a must-do thing like I thought it was!
When I started taking this approach and experimenting with what could be delayed, I started noticing some patterns and trends.
I realized that doing laundry little by little throughout the week is not as big a deal as I thought it was.
I learned that I actually like picking up groceries on Monday evening instead of Saturday morning. Saturdays are now for coffee and cartoons.
I also found that keeping the kitchen and living room clean and tidy throughout the week meant that I didn’t need as much time for cleaning on the weekends anymore.
honoring the answer
Those learnings presented themselves to me because I focused on the things that would help my weekends feel better FIRST and fit the chores in around that. I don’t think I would have experimented with changing things had I not started with the question, how I want to feel, and then honored the answer.
There are still some weekends when I don’t prioritize how I want to feel. For some reason or another I slip back into my old ways. And I am reminded of why I made this change in the first place. Making the choice and planning activities and a schedule that supports what I want, feels so much better! And my family feels it to.
So as you head into your next weekend, think ahead to Sunday evening. When the weekend is over and you’re reflecting back on the last few days, how do you want to feel about how you spent your time?
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