#6 Invest in Yourself
“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you’ll find, you get what you need,” ~The Rolling Stones
Recently, The New York Times declared the quarantine killed the weekend.
I agree. Starting in March, I lost our weekends. They used to be unique and refreshing, but then time lost meaning. The line between work and time off was blurred, and quarantine memes stopped being funny.
These are strategies we’ve used to reclaim our weekends. I hope they will help you reclaim your time so that your well-lived weekends will add up to a more well-lived life.
Plan your weekend before it starts
Now that you have the awareness that you want to do something different, start planning during the week. Start with brainstorming what’s missing from your weekends and what things you want to add. Write out a list of things you could look forward to and plan some mini-adventures. For example, we can get advance tickets to museums in our area, and we prepared for a couple of day trips to state parks.
The weekend sections on our store-bought calendar are tiny, so I started a shared Google Doc. A full-page, three-block structure for the morning, afternoon, and evenings work for us.
Restrict your weekend workload
It’s no longer okay for us to do too much on our weekends with working from home. Our bosses are on the same page, so setting limits has gotten easier. Today, when I think of something I want to communicate, I schedule the email for Monday to not interrupt other people’s time. Getting burnt out will not make you a good employee.
Improve Your Mindset
It’s good to spiral up and focus on what you can control. It takes practice. It takes awareness of your attitude and language. It means setting boundaries with the Negative Nellies in your life.
Recognize when you’re awfulizing your situation, and focus on the things you have to be grateful for. You can break “compare and despair” thoughts by focusing on ways to…
