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How to Rescue Your Weekends
Saturday can feel like Tuesday in quarantine, but it doesn’t have to
Laura Vanderkam, the time management expert who wrote Off the Clock and Juliet’s School of Possibilities, is here to answer your scheduling questions. Check back every week for more advice, and send your own productivity problems to asklaura@medium.com. (Your name will not be used.)
Dear Laura: I’m working from home. The kids are home from school. There’s nowhere to go, so weekends don’t seem too different from weekdays. I wind up checking email a lot or just doing work or chores. Any suggestions for making these days feel special?
Without the usual markers of time, days start to blend into each other. That might not be a problem if you’re vacationing on a tropical island somewhere. But when you’re just in your house — as many people have been through this pandemic — Tuesday and Saturday can both wind up featuring hours of inefficient work, home responsibilities, and anxiety. You don’t get much done, but you don’t feel relaxed either.
Fortunately, there are ways to make weekends rejuvenating, even while social distancing.
Just as in busier seasons, the key is to think through your weekends ahead of time. Think about what activities you and your household would like to do, think about when these can happen, and then make a plan for any not-so-fun activities so they don’t take over your days.
Even the best-planned weekend will likely feature laundry and vacuuming. You may need to catch up on some tasks from your job, too, especially if during-the-week homeschooling and childcare duties have shortened your workdays. But you can keep all kinds of work under control by designating a specific window for these things. Check email for an hour on Saturday morning, for example, and after 8 p.m. on Sunday. You can do a family chore blitz for a couple of hours after brunch and before watching a movie together. A short window forces prioritization. It can also help you relax when you’re doing the fun stuff.
Plan for that fun stuff in advance, too. On Wednesday or Thursday, talk with your family about what they’d like to do over the weekend. Come up with some ideas of your own. Maybe there’s a place you can hike or bike while…
