3 tips for ensuring a happy weekend

Most people work about 5 days a week and can’t wait to get a break on the weekend. But, when it’s all done, did you have a happy weekend? Do you wonder how you really could have ensured a happy weekend as a springboard to a great week?

success_before_breakfast_book_cover

An article in Business Insider gives 13 tips for creating a recharging weekend. Some of my favorites that you can apply this weekend are:

  • Make appointments with yourself: setting specific hours or minutes aside for activities YOU want to do
  • Planning actually makes weekends happier: “looking forward” to things, being in anticipation of joy, gives us moments of joy now.
  • Plan 3 – 5 “anchor” events: You don’t have to plan the entire weekend, but having 3 clear events on your calendar, and doing them, can create a memorable weekend, rather than an unfulfilling & unmemorable weekend.

One of the other tips Vanderkam shares is to write a list of 100 things you dream of doing so you can discover things you can do right now. When we rise above the mammalian obsession with food, sex, and comfort on the weekend, we can find a couple hours to put into our dreams.

Making and keeping an appointment with YOU is especially important for the exhausted parents out there! Your children deserve to learn how to pursue their interests every weekend rather than see a sacrificial parent teaching them that “dreams are not important”.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you about how you used one of the 13 tips this weekend.


Comments

2 responses to “3 tips for ensuring a happy weekend”

  1. tlatrice Avatar
    tlatrice

    I’m very guilty of not pursuing my dreams because I have a child. I never thought that I was setting a bad example by not doing things that are of value to ME. This was a great piece of advice!

  2. Thanks for your openness tlatrice!

    It’s important to do what our children need, not what they want. They may “want” us to stay around them every moment and entertain them, since they are egocentric, but what they NEED is someone to MODEL how to live a fulfilling life. Imagine never ever speaking around them. Imagine they never see an adult speak or read. Maybe as an adult they might find a school to teach them how to do these, but it’s very unlikely or incredibly difficult for them. This is like growing up around adults who never have dreams or work on them. As children, we’re MODELING how to be. We don’t listen to how we are “told” to be by people that aren’t doing the thing themselves.

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