Last weekend was a bank holiday with an extra day to relax, refresh and recharge. It was a time for hanging out with family and friends, for sleeping late or taking luxurious naps, for cooking recipes that there isn’t time for during the busier days of the week. Make a dent in your reading pile. Spending an hour or two writing to a friend. Come up with lists of places you’d like to visit one day.
Yet when I began to think about a three day weekend my first thoughts were around how much I could cram in and catch up with. To make things more difficult for myself I felt the need to pen a job list that was unachievable unless I gave up sleeping.
When you set an unachievable workload it means that you don’t enjoy yourself. You feel guilty the whole time you are with friends. Or decline a nap because you think you don’t deserve it. You cannot rest until you have dusted, mopped, filed, shelved and scheduled the entire world.
A new plan
So I’m working on a new strategy for weekends. I’m going to write it on a sticky note and refer to it when I get an itch that can only be satisfied by planning my weekend. Top of the list will be seeing friends. Then I’ll nap/read/cook. Finally, I‘ll do all the other stuff. The things that I feel the urge to cram in at weekends because I didn’t do it during the week.
Additionally, because September is the month of new starts (and to keep the guilt at bay) I’ll be looking at what I do during the week once again and attacking from two angles.
First I won’t let the jobs build up. They will be done as soon as scheduled. Then secondly I’ll question if I need to do it in the first place. A bit of job list declutter!
So this weekend spend your time wisely and merrily. Choose your activities carefully and then refuse to feel guilty about what you’ve chosen not to do.
Wishing you good ink and good times,
Annastasia