Top 8 Tips on How to Make the Most of Your Weekend before the Working Week Starts

While you sleep for approximately 24 of those 60 hours, there’s still another 36 hours during which you’re awake, meaning that you should have enough time to relax—and most importantly—to recharge your batteries. In our increasingly competitive, cut-throat world, working on the weekend seems to be the secret of success. We hope to use our weekends in order to help us get back into our groove for the week of work that follows. The following ten tips will help you use your weekend effectively:

1. Make plans.

Office workers are often forced to maintain a hectic schedule from Monday to Friday, meaning that, by the time the weekend arrives, they don’t want to do anything. However, it’s impossible to simply “do nothing”. No matter how intent we are on doing nothing, we inevitably end up wasting time on trivial matters of little importance, and then ask ourselves on Sunday night, “Where did my weekend go?” It’s much better to plan in advance. As any child who has spent the days leading up to Christmas staring at their beautifully wrapped presents will know, anticipation is an important component of happiness. Therefore, make plans to help you figure out how to spend your weekends. Although planning may make the moments leading up to weekend seem slower, you may still derive a sense of enjoyment from it.

2. Don’t try to make your weekends too jam-packed.

Just because you’ve decided to plan your weekend, doesn’t mean your weekend needs to be as hectic as your weekdays— try to make a plan within 15 minutes. Make a list of three to five big things, such as jogging, learning to cook, or eating with friends.

3. Break out of your bubble every now and then.

The weekend’s here: taste your freedom while it lasts! Make a list of activities. You never know: perhaps only a two-hour drive is all that lies between you and a bike ride on a romantic boardwalk, or a camping trip to a national park. Regardless of what you may choose to do, keep in mind that you don’t need to wait for the holidays to lead a healthy lifestyle.

4. Reserve some time to relax.

One of the particularities of anxiety is that, even when we’re at home with nothing to do, we constantly check our inboxes, or flick back and forth between TV channels. The best way of resolving this restlessness is to first make sure that you’ve done everything that you need to do so that you can reassure yourself that you can completely relax. If there’s something you’ve forgotten to do, get it done straight away instead of procrastinating.

5. Don’t allow yourself to get caught by the Sunday evening blues.

Even those of us who love their jobs may find themselves reluctant to go back to them come Sunday night. In order to make your Monday morning commute less painful, you can organize some interesting activities to keep you occupied on Sunday afternoon, such as a social gathering or a massage.

6. Help others to complete their plans.

Contribute some of your free time to your family or your partner: if they have a time-consuming hobby or task, try and help them complete it.

7. Don’t do too many chores.

Household chores can easily consume all of your free time. Try to only do chores during moments where you have nothing else to do. Just how many chores you do, and how much time you spend on them, should depend on the amount of excess time you have. Learn to appreciate life, instead of devoting all your time to doing dirty laundry.

8. Don’t be a workaholic.

Of course, a lot of successful people have made a ritual of working on the weekend; however, they also understand that the weekend is primarily for resting your brain. Although you may not be religious, challenge yourself to follow the principle of the Sabbath : for a whole 24 hours, don’t do anything related to your day job. Afterwards, you may even find yourself anticipating going back to work.