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Upgrade Your Weekends

And I know that the phrase is time management and great weekends don't seem to go so well together people tell me no you can have my weekdays but you can't have my weekends well I certainly don't want to spoil anyone's fun the reason I want to talk about weekends is that I think I can help you have more fun I think I can help you have truly satisfying weekends that not only make you love your life they rejuvenate you they help you recreate that's the root of recreation recreation so we can hit monday ready todo because that's really what we need weekends for right if you think about it it's a little strange that we go go go go for five days and we do something completely different for two days everyone lives this cycle you know we all live this cycle so we don't really think about it I mean if you interview for most kind of white collar jobs you sort of assume that I'll be working monday to friday right and certainly is more of us work differently work flexibly we could think of things...

in a different way we could work five hours a day for seven days a week instead of seven hours a day for five days a week but the five days on tuesdays off ideas is pretty ingrained and I think that there's actually a reason for that I think that we need to hit reset we need time to recharge our batteries and the busier we are during the week the more we need to recharge our batteries and that's kind of the way that mike huckabee put it one of the one of the fun things about writing a siri's about how successful people spend their time is I got to interview people who are kind of big names and various different walks of life and those of you who may remember is that huckabee is the former arc you saw governor who ran for president in two thousand eight and he is now a fox news personality and you don't have to agree with his politics to see that he's kind of a busy guy so he records a three hour daily radio show he's written about ten books and he records his tv show on saturdays where he was when I was talking to him so that really guaranteed him pretty much a six day work week so what made it all possible for him? Sundays that's what he told me he said that's pretty much my day to try to rest and have what I call some mike time it's almost like running a marathon so justice he's, also a baptist minister so envisioned the baptist minister saying this next phase it's almost like running a marathon you know think I know the finish line is out there you start visioning the finish line most days of the week I start visioning sunday is the day I can kind of catch my breath I'm not on someone else's schedule and I don't have to turn on the mike at a certain time all great right except the problem if you're as busy as someone like huckabee is is that you don't want a waste any of your limited time off and so is how could be put it about his day off, he said don't enter into it with such a lack of structure that you don't do anything because you spend all day thinking about what you want to do. Good weekends present a bit of a paradox if you're really busy during the week you got back to back meetings you're traveling when you hit the weekend you often say I want to do nothing right we say I want to dio nothing but doing nothing isn't really rest ful it's actually impossible to do nothing doing nothing means doing something but not necessarily it's something we would have chosen if we thought about it. And so we risk hitting monday feeling disappointed rather than energized and that's a shame because weekends account for a pretty significant chunk of our lives. So huckabee has a pretty short weekend, but for most of us you think about the time between say that six p m friday beer six am monday morning alarm clock that's sixty hours okay, that's sixty hours between that six p m friday beer and that's six a m monday morning alarm clock if you sleep for twenty four of those hours eight hours on three nights, that still leaves thirty six waking weekend hours that is kind of a lot of time it's probably the bulk of your available leisure time during your hundred sixty eight hours and if you feel like you never have time for fun in your life, those thirty six waking weekend hours probably a good place to start looking the time is there, but weekends require thought and in fact I think they actually require more thought, more careful thought, then our weaknesses because creating great weekends is the key to a full life, and I really do think and this is a quote from huckabee that you have to set an appointment to go off the grid, a shirley as to go on it. So for remembering our phrases from each of the three sessions today and session one, we said I don't have time means it's not a priority session two if it has to happen, it has to happen first and today this session we're saying you have to set an appointment to go off the grid as surely as to go on it, so with that build up there, what are we doing this weekend? I'm serious what are we doing this weekend? Anyone here have have plans? We have our microphone let's hear what people are doing this weekend from the chat room who says abby lynn says weekend dream sleep late as they want tio quiet time workout then time to do all the fun things I enjoy yeah we're going to come to our weekend dreams in a few minutes but what we actually have on the schedule for this weekend hopefully she'll do all of those various legal yeah what what what do you have on the docket this week? And the only thing on my schedule is a birthday party at eleven o'clock on sunday okay, but I'm thinking by the time I get home I'm going to have a lot more scheduled onto that count are signing who else has has plans of thinking? Yes, I've got a birthday party on friday night and then I'm volunteering at a pet fair on saturday how exciting great I'm going to a five k on saturday go you try tio saturday oh wow it's working ok okay, well saturday is a bookkeeping in laundry at her and sunday is the beach the beats nice nice that's the wonderful thing about california I don't think anyone's going to the beach on my neck with yeah laundry a dinner with a friend and watching breaking bad watching, breaking bad, ok I'm working working you're working this week and I write a weekend fun way we're talking lunch I'm actually going camping this weekend it's my first camping trip with my newly cub scout son a six year old they have the tiger tiger cub scouts for the little ones it's our first camping trip together I'm kind of looking forward to it we may have made this slight air of playing this game last weekend but we're all you know you're kind of up in the morning as a family and sometimes people jump in mom and dad's bed and we played a campers and bears the people under the under the covers where the campers and people outside the the covers where the bears and I was like well, you know maybe that was a bad game to play before taking a child on this first camping trip but we'll see I'm sure it will be fascinating I'm looking forward to it so it's it's a good question to ask right? What are we doing this weekend and it's one I think we should ask ourselves more often and I think it's one we should actually ask ourselves earlier wednesday today's wednesday that's a great time to be asking what you want to do this weekend there is a there's this book they came out fifteen twenty years ago was called the rules time tested secrets for capturing the heart of mr right unintentionally hilarious in many ways, but one of the things one of the tools I did think was a good ideas, they said never accept a saturday night date after wednesday, and the idea is that you wanted to plan your weekend by wednesday, you would make your plans at that point, and so you could look forward to it if it was something good or you know you were waiting around for someone to call you were going to make plans for the weekend on wednesday. Now it's thought that was kind of a good idea plan your saturday by wednesday and this weekend we're all going to hit that objective. We are going to plan our weekends, and by the end of the session, I hope to have help you helped to plan an utterly amazing weekend hope to give you the tools to build future great weekends to you don't have to fly to france, you don't have to spend a bundle, he just have to follow a few guidelines, but that sounds good for everyone. And so as we're planning our weekends, there are two philosophies that I want you to keep in mind two philosophies that are key to planning our great weekends, that I promise we'll get to because I know that people in the chat rooms are coming up with some great ideas of things that they want to do this we can so two philosophies as I was studying how people spend their weekend time first first is a little side story promise it's related I got the few idea a few years ago that I wanted to run a marathon if you run you're running your five k you know it's something people are so you don't a marathon I was like well ok I got to say at least once in my life oh yeah I'm I've run a marathon front one but I have run a marathon so I was going to do big sur this is out here in california in april twenty ten and I had my second child in september two thousand nine late september two thousand nine and well I'd run through the pregnancy I hadn't exactly in open marathon training especially the last bit of it and the few first weeks after and so I had to figure out how to scale up my running retain rights so that I could in fact run this marathon in six months well fortunately I came across this book that was called run less run faster how's that for a benefit statement run last and you're going to run faster but it advocated doing three quality training runs per week and then two sessions of cross training right and they were there pretty tough sessions of cross training but the idea was that cross training would be better for your distance running than mere running that you could boost your fitness but not get injured, so I tried it and I swam and I biked in addition to running, and I found that it really worked for me. I finished big sur, I finished it slowly, but I did finish it, and I was in good enough shape the next day to actually go hiking with my family, and so cross training had made me better at running than either more running or sitting on the couch and there's kind of a metaphor as we think about work and life. There's always a metaphor, as we think about work in life as we're talking about how successful people spend their weekends important, anything to keep in mind is that they really want to be better at their jobs, right that's kind of how they become successful, they want to be better at their jobs. Well, how do you become better at your job, the same way you become better at running you cross train that isthe other kinds of projects that use different parts of your brain and mind than your normal work? We'll be better than doing that all weekend, then checking your email or just sitting on the couch there's a great quote from a writer, though it put said that man is so made that he can only find relax station from one kind of labor by taking up another, I kind of like that quote seems kind of true, and as I interviewed successful people, I really found that this was the case. Coaching hockey makes you a better executive than checking email all weekend, right? You start thinking about leadership and different ways, or take the case of dominique sherman who's, the ceo of pope iris, the stationery store chain. So in addition to doing long runs and swims on weekends, she also gardens, and she doesn't mean she likes the plants. But she also said to me that it was a creative outlet and as she moved around her pox, just kind of studying the way that different colors and textures fit together. And if you think about it, it's kind of what she's having her car designers when her store managers d'oh during the week, so is what she did at work on lee. It had this tactile dimension to it, and she said, I found that really relaxing that's cross training for a writer reading could be cross training or playing music taking photos I'm for a photographer writing might be cross training. You want to stretch your brain in a different direction because it strengthens that and it relaxes it in the second guiding philosophy is that anticipation accounts for a major chunk of human happiness. Some fascinating research into this is we're studying what makes people happy, so in one study, people were told that they had just won a dinner at a fancy french restaurant. When do you want to go to it? What do you think people said? Well, they didn't say now that was the crazy thing they didn't say let's go right, you know, I'm here, I'm hungry, let's go, they didn't say that they actually wanted to wait about a week, and the reason is that they could look forward to their fine fair, right? They were mac organizing their pleasure by knowing that they'd be thinking about this wonderful dinner they were gonna have for a week, and another study compared happiness levels of people who took holiday vacations and people who didn't you will be hard hardly be surprised to learn that people who took vacations were happier than people who did not. But the interesting thing about this is win the happiness boost occurred, it didn't really occur afterwards after their vacations, people didn't come home with boosted happiness it didn't even occur during the vacation travel is sometimes stressful, right? Never listened to a train conductor with garbled instructions in a foreign language like thiss isn't actually all that fun right now the happiness boost occurred before their vacations as they savored the pleasure that with a about toe happen, so thinking about those little umbrellas they were gonna have in their drinks on the beach could give people a happiness boost in the middle of a rainy commute so it's kind of like seeing christmas presents under the tree I'm wrapping them takes an hour maybe, right? But seeing them under the tree can stretch out the joy for weeks and you want your weekends toe look on your calendar like the equivalent of those presents under the tree. You want to know that something good is going to happen? You can even see the outline of the one that looks like the bicycle, right? You know, something fun is goingto happen and you're looking forward to it. So how do you know you're gonna have fun? Well, you plan in your fun and that is what we're going to get to now we're going to plan an incredible but doable weekend, and I know the people at home have already been told to start thinking about this, so we're going to think broadly remember that list of one hundred dreams you made in session one? This was a completely unedited lis. Is there anything we wanted to do or have more of in life? Well, now we're going to make a slightly modified version of that this is a list of hundred hundred dreams that we can do this weekend all right, so a list of one hundred weekend dreams you might think of it as a bucket list of stuff that you can do that's less than two hours from your house okay? Things you could dio sort of daily kinds of leisure activities, family activities you do and would like to have more of in your life. So take a moment and start thinking of all the things that you like to do and that are feasible to d'oh on the weekend. I would love to hear some more that are coming in from the folks in the chat rooms just a comment while you're looking for that. Ruth kalinka says that she agrees about anticipation actually got super excited on monday deciding to an attempt to attend an event later this month and in y c the anticipation and making some prep notes on my google calendar totally boosted my day and helped structure my month exactly it's the wrapped presents under the tree right she's got this great event in new york coming up and she's thinking about it it's focusing her it's, giving her something to look forward to. We have people in here, we've got that microphone we can pass around if there are great lists of weekend dreams that we can, we can start putting a few of them up here yes, well I came up with the one that had to do with my cooking in morocco drew ok cooking in morocco dreams so one thing I like to do is go to the farmer's market will go to the farmers and it's sort of a dream of mine is to make this yummy, delicious meal for my husband and I maybe on sunday night so I thought that could happen. Okay, making a plan if I planet I have tio usually go to the farmer's market with no list so I can steal from farmers market fair. Okay. All right, that is a wonderful one. All right, great. What else we have? I want to go to this. You go to the zoo because we have ah, the annual pass for the oregon zoo and there's new baby lions and a lie ossa plea maybe out this week, okay? And it's probably going to be raining, which means nobody else will be there so you might be able to see that and the animals are all active is the best time to go perfect weekend. Okay, so see the baby lions at the oregon oregon zoo. I would also like to go to the zoo, okay, but exactly, but I'd also like to go to yosemite. I've been living in the central valley for like, my whole life and I've ever been, and people travel over the world to come see it so yeah. That's that's it's funny how when we live near major tourist destination, we never wind up going tio tourist destination I have all the philadelphia stuff declaration of independence right by my house on my hand and I've gone and seen it what else do we have? I want to reinstitute my supper club lover it's kind of a pop up here. I don't tell people necessarily what they're having, but they're gonna enjoy it. Andi, I have loved the cooks the supper club with friends beautiful, beautiful. I'm doing my crafts democrat. Yes, craft time. I also have been dreaming of really taking advantage of my sundays and sunday evenings where I do prepare for the week and I make meals for the week. And I'm just those people who can have a little tupperware's for each day out to do that. Okay, so so more cooking. Okay, working this is my work weekends I'm kind of like stuck, but what's, what would be another weekend together we can do is probably ah, we've been talking about taking the kids up to the redwood. Uh for us train is a train that goes to the redwood trees that we've been looking for that so that this is the redwoods by train that better unique and right present, actually doing it, actually doing it and being right it's just being friends relaxed and being part of a wonderful to have any coming in from online we do we had go hot air ballooning tariq hot air ballooning okay, what else we got? Fall risk wants to go roller skating. Okay, jesse l says explore some new areas near my house with my dog when I get back home give my dog a bath and crash out for a snooze naps that naps on this exactly so hot everyone exploring exploring neighborhoods that's that's another good one. Um so these are these are all these are all wonderful, wonderful ideas and just a few of mine since everyone else got stuck sharing and here I love strawberry picking an apple picking depending on the season it isthe we goto orchard around our home and do that with the kids it's always a lot of fun. Um in the summer I like going and eating lobster at this restaurant on the jersey shore that's right on the water. I like to watch the boats come in that's one of my favorite things to do on weekends. I like biking the lehigh gorge trail near jim thorpe, pennsylvania. We might be doing that in a couple weekends. There's actually a really great thirty five minute trail loop run it's like a five k run that's on a trail through the woods right by my house and I love to do that any weekend that I get the chance also like eating fancy restaurants any time I get a chance to get in a fancy restaurant, I like to do that, so we've got a pretty big broad list here, lots of great things on it, lots of amazing weekend ideas, and now we're going to do what I call setting anchors, so we're going anchor some of these fun events. Teo the big spots of the weekend. All right, so if you think about a weekend there's a couple of broad, big sponsors friday night, there is saturday day there, saturday night, sunday day and sunday night so that's five spots and you obviously don't have to hit all of them, but think of maybe three to five things that you could slot into those times. All right, so three to five things, maybe off your list or other things that are just coming to you now three to five things that you can put on that list in the major spots. I find that three to five things is good because we don't want to pack every minute, of course, but we also want enough in the weekend to make the weekend fill full and like it's, something that we're looking forward to as you're thinking about this a couple things to keep in mind you're your anchor events can be whatever you want, of course, but here's some interesting research. So one study of texas working women that was done in two thousand four asked them to keep track of their time through the day and how they were feeling through the day and what their moods were. So, not surprisingly, people were happiest when doing what the researchers termed intimate relations. They were also happy when they were relaxing and when they were eating. So all of those are great ideas for weekends, but the next two categories were kind of more intriguing from our perspective. So these these three categories actually scored higher on the happiness scale than watching television. Ok, they were exercise shocking. I know people are actually happier exercising, then they are watching television socializing and spiritual activities. So it's three categories, they're exercising, socializing, spiritual activities. So as you're making as you're setting your anchors, those three to five spots during the weekend, maybe could try choosing one thing from each of those three categories. Okay, so exercising socializing, spiritual activities. So with that in mind, does anyone want to tell me how they've constructed a weekend this is actually gimme my weekend this is going to be a little perfect artwork has done so hard and it had this party that's been planned for u s so that's good saturday is when I volunteered the pet fair saturday night dinner with friends I thought like I'll just put that together today also hey you want to go to dinner and figure out where we're going great sunday days the farmer's market and I forgot a heaven and occasion like tiki workshop sunday to perfect right by the farmer's market yeah happens to be so that's good that worked out you think of that and then sunday night cook yeah I'm just thinking and just just hang at that point and I put my spiritual into the workshop because it's sort of spiritual sort of exercise d'oh yeah it's virtual actually there I'd say that the volunteering that you're doing it's all would also fit in that category so you've got time with friends you're socializing, you've got your party and you've got dinner that you're going to make right that they were going to have the party on then you've got your exercise class and you have the volunteering so that is a wonderful full weekend that is an awesome weekend does anyone else want to share it want to share their is that they've just constructed so friday night I have a friend that lives three blocks away hi kate on and our daughters her daughter is one year and one day younger than mine on, and then she has a younger boy, too. And so going over to her house, maybe and letting the kids play having dinner there just kind of give each other break, I think yes, saturday day, going to the zoo final saturday night, making pizza and watching a princess movie in gurukul sunday day, actually going to church with my daughter and my parents, as opposed to just setting her often working and then sunday night I want to do breakfast in bed because we're never all awake at the same time. So doing breakfast in bed at night. Yes. So you've got lots of social activities. You had spiritual activities in there. That's a wonderful weekend and the school is walking. Yeah, so that's the exit was a zoo is walking. That is true. We have anything people want to share from online or I yes, I can talk through. Laleh says dream weekends include getting lost in the woods or streets of a romantic city. Nice. Well, hopefully she's got one less than two hours from her house so she could get there. Absolutely. So I was just you know, coming up with a few you had a one that I was about to describe pretty much as a perfect weekend if you think a young single tight might do maybe friday night karaoke e at a bar with friends saturday maybe a volunteer shift at a soup kitchen saturday evening concert in a park sunday day a long run to a local farmers market I wrote down and take the bus home with your stuff sunday evening yoga class so something and those would have a few spiritually activity volunteering I count in the more spiritual activity character category carry ok at the bar with friends would be socializing the long run could be exercising as with the yoga class so that's an idea we had a family maybe we could consider a good weekend for a family friday evening might be friends over for game night s o that's socializing saturday family beach trip had her feet of those saturday evening family dinner at a restaurant near that beach sunday day worship services sunday evening a family bike around the neighborhood so that would hit all three as well that would hear hits socializing, exercising and spiritual activities so you know I keep thinking about this question keep thinking about weekends that would have those three categories and would have things pegged to those five spots during the weekend all right so friday evening saturday day saturday evening sunday day sunday evening and get your friends and family to do this to me, right? Because it's usually not just you on the making its friends and family who are also that you're spending time with and we can see want them to come up with these lists to maybe they'll decide tio have great parties and invite you on then that could be an anchor of it for your weekend, and as you're doing this, I wantto share six strategies, I guess if it's in my be strategic line here at six strategies for making your weekend even more awesome. So if we've got our anchor set here but even more awesome weekend strategy one dig deep as you're making your list of weekend dreams dig deep just because you haven't done an activity since childhood doesn't mean it's not worth considering so people often limit themselves is there making this list is like well, I want to climb a tree, but that sounds nuts well, maybe or maybe you could try it right? Maybe you could find a place to go climb a tree like if you want to go climb a tree, go climb a tree it's your weekend or if you want to take piano lessons people think about, well, that's something that a kid would do on the weekend, right? Well, it could be something that you do to like if you want to get music back into your life, that's something that you could do, I mean, you could play soccer, you don't have to be a kid to play soccer on the weekends lots of kids to play soccer on the weekends, but you could too. You could join a soccer league as well, so dig deep and don't necessarily write things off right away really think about it. Whether it might be worth trying strategy to use your mornings, no one will be surprised to hear it. For those of you who are with us in the last session, you know that mornings are a great time for getting things done and weekend mornings in particular our time that almost no one uses. I can tell you that from looking at hundreds of time logs that that is the time of week that people have the hardest time seizing, but if you d'oh, it is seriously like manufacturing time. You have time that nobody else has access to if you use your weekend mornings as you could knock out some pretty serious priorities before the rest of the world is eating breakfast. So just as an example, if you are let's, say training for a marathon and you have to do a three hour run if you get up and do it between, say, seven and ten a m on saturday owning it's done it hasn't taken over the rest of your weekend. You still have a full weekend in front of you yet teenagers, they may be just starting to stir around this time, but it's done so you don't have to think about it or people who are going to school, right? I get a lot of questions of people who are going back to school and also working. Where do I find time to study weekend mornings? Right? You can get up and study on saturday morning, and then you don't have to think about it, right? You've done it, it's not taking over the rest of your weekend. People who do need to work on weekends, often getting up and doing it in the morning, then preserves the rest of your family time the rest of the weekend, so that might be worth considering the third strategy. We have create traditions, so it is really fun to have stuff that you always do on weekends, but that no one has to think about right. It's automatic, maybe it's pancakes on saturday mornings, maybe it's sundays on sunday night. Whatever it is, you know that these air kind of the things people remember about their lives growing up, I mean, we remember some of the big stuff. But it's, really, the repetition, the things that we always did that drive that time home. So, you know, maybe it's our family always had people over on sunday night. That's something we always did. Does anyone here have have any traditions that they have? Yeah, my dad calls me every sunday morning after church wonder both from the bridge from the bridge, from the bridge, standing on the bridge, standing on the bridge. So he called you every sunday morning that's a great tradition, it's anyone else have have any traditions that air? Yes, actually, my fiance and I, we have saturday flowers. We walk around the corner and we buy flowers, and they sit on our dining room table a week and it, lara macy, smiling said, so saturday, I can look at, look at him the whole weekend, perks you up the whole weekend, I bet you're looking forward to doing getting your your flowers. So these air great and the fun part of traditions, as they actually had to start at a certain point, which means that if you wish to create a tradition that is within your power to do so, right, maybe your your children will be doing it for the rest of their their lives, and maybe not really knowing why, but you've you've made them do it just by the power of habit that's that's kind of some serious power there. So let's let's think about this sermon I want you take out your pens and pencils of people who are at home, take out some paper and started thinking of your own family tradition that you could implement or something you might want to start or something that you're already doing that you'd like to play up or do a bit more consistently and really turn into a tradition so something you might want to play up or do more consistently to make a tradition I think the pancakes on saturday morning might be one for us it's anyone want to share any? Do we have any coming in people sending in tradition ideas? Yes, yes, actually regina says that her sunday tradition is gluttony gladney whatever they want whatever you want to eat on sunday you can watch it the rest of the week but sunday is glad this day I kind of like that that's a good one. Anyone here have one you'd like to like to start attrition you'd like to start? I'm saturday walks with my boyfriend we spend a lot of time being lazy on weekends, you know, doing something together but being active about okay, so something active to do with your family that's a great idea, yes I have one that coffee with a friend on saturday mornings. I usually do that on the weekdays on guy never feel like I get enough one on one time with my friends and it's that my husband works on saturday. So it's a perfect time to go see someone else. Yes, oh, further a short amount of short amount of time, but having coffee with a friend on the weekend that's a great tradition to start, and you guys will start looking forward to it, especially if it's a regular thing that you meet the same person over and over. I am thinking this breakfast in bed sunday, night's is going to be great because my husband can't go down the stairs to have breakfast, have food at the table, and so we never eat breakfast together, so if we have breakfast in bed sunday, night's, then we can all just snuggle and enjoy and get ready for the week. That sounds wonderful. So breakfast in bed on sunday nights that's a great tradition. What else are people thinking? They'd like todo safe for me to go outside and walk around? Because when I do work out, I do group exercise from like sixty eight on those days, so I'm working out with other people, but I kind of like want to fresh air just look at, you know, it's kind of weird like you appreciate you know, the nature and all that stuff, so I'd like to get more in tune with that. Yes, so maybe a specific time on the weekend that you say, oh, it's this time it's time for me to go for my walk be long, but you know, like ten minutes I think it's really refreshing, yeah, that would be a great weekend tradition. I'd like to combine a few things they used to go the farmer's market in sunday, then I switched to friday, but I'd like to reinstate sunday for farmers market then loaded my crock pot for dinner and then head to the beach. So when I come back after reading my book or listening to whatever I've got dinner, you've got dinner and I've got stuff for the rest of week. Yeah, that sounds so making sunday into farmer's market and crockpot day great rebecca rua's photography says every christmas we bake cookies, but maybe we can make this a saturday night thing who I like saturday night cookies that sounds like I want to be at her house on saturday night. Yummy is that implementing sunday walks at the beach and jim is talking about new york times on sunday morning a nice tradition to get up and read the paper on sunday mornings I love that one so these are all great traditions and it's just nice to have one thing you love to do on weekend that you always do and you don't have to think about right it's just what you do and by the repetition it becomes more and more a part of your life strategy for is to schedule downtime so this is getting back tio huckabee's quote that if you you have to set an appointment to go off the grid and as surely as to go on it and so sometimes people like to do things like nap on weekend right? We had our we had our naps that we want to take on weekends well, I think there would be nothing worse than not having your nap time because you can't figure out what it's going to happen, right? So think about when am I gonna take that nap and then make it happen at the time you're going to take that nap instead of puttering around billy go I guess I could have taken a nap right? I could have used that time to nap so schedule downtime you have to set an appointment to go off the grid as surely as to go on it. Strategy five is to make time to explore so you can go different places and then have open time in the schedule while you're there as a way to kind of push your boundaries a little we have a couple things here that was we're really getting at that exploring, right? That's, that's something you could do, you could go to the farmer's market, you're kind of exploring there, certainly, if you said it anchor to go visit the redwoods by train, there'd be all kinds of adventures that would happen within that spot. And I think it's important to talk about this because often people say I don't want a plan my weekends, I don't plan on weekends I would be open tio serendipity to whatever happens and serendipity is awesome, but there is so much space for serendipity within a plan, right? And so saying, we're going to go to the county fair on saturday afternoon well, I don't know what's going to happen there. I know something cool will probably happen there because it's a fun place to be, but you know, there might be a prize winning pig that I've never seen before magician doing tricks or a ride. I've never been on there's all kinds of amazing experiences I would have there, but that's really san deputy what's not serendipity is us sitting around in the house being like what do you want to do? I don't know what do you want tio what do you want to do? I don't know hey it's already three pm guess we're not going to make it anywhere this afternoon, right? That's what not planning leads to so there is plenty of space for serendipity within a planet is a false choice I think that when we talk about planning weekends we mean planning every second in a way that leaves no joy in your life that leaves no space for new things to happen if you set anchors then you have wonderful space for serendipity within that and finally the strategy six this is this is kind of my favorite one is maybe the most usable tip you get today in terms of changing your life in your weekends. So if you think about a usual weekend somewhere around sunday afternoon, sometimes just start getting a little bit of a and feeling right and here's the problem we're letting monday takeover sunday and there's nothing wrong with thinking about monday on sunday I think we should think about monday on sunday but you don't want monday to take over sunday because at six p m on sunday night you may feel like your weekend is over but you still have several hours of weekend left to go you still have a lot of time if you choose to use it so you know you don't want to waste that time you don't want to have your eyes on the end of it you don't want to be experiencing what we all call the sunday night blues there's a couple strategies to deal with it the ultimate way of course to deal with it is to have a job you love to go to on monday morning all right? T j I am it's monday I'm so glad but I also know that you know you also want to know what you're going to do on monday because a lot of that sunday night blues kind of comes from the fretting fretting about uncertainty I have a lot of stuff going on but I don't know exactly what's going on I don't know how to deal with it so you also want to make a plan for dealing with monday but you know even if you like your job if you love your job you may just be like she isn't thinking about my commute monday morning or I have a lot going on and that's robbing me of some of my enjoyment so the solution is to plan something fun for sunday late afternoon or early evening that way you stretch out your weekend and increase your enjoyment because you will spend sunday afternoon thinking about that fun thing that's gonna happen on sunday evening rather than thinking about monday morning so you still get several more hours of weekend joy and anticipation by planning something fun for sunday evening than if you didn't and it doesn't have to be something huge like I I probably personally would not schedule a formal twelve person dinner party on sunday night at eight o'clock that might be a little bit stressful in its own right at you know you probably want to be a little bit more relaxed than that so some families I know have a potluck dinner with friends every sunday night right? Sunday night is a great time for potluck dinners or maybe meeting friends a playground if you have kids the same age or taking that bike ride as a family or a walk is the family are all going out for ice cream together, but whatever it is you want it to be fun and you wanted to be something that will make sure that those last weekend hours our two slipping through your fingers right? So plan something of fun for sunday night so we're filling our weekends with things that deserve to be there. We have the outline of an excellent weekend we've put down on on our papers here but you say, what about the other stuff, right? What about all of that? So as we learned earlier today when we don't think something is a good use of our time if it's not nurturing our careers nurturing our relationships or nurturing ourselves, we can ignore it, minimize it or outsources.