Report: Weekends on my terms
Posted on August 24, 2009 by LJ
Back in May, I talked about how I could get to my ideal weekend (see Life Design 101: Getting To My Ideal Weekend). I talked about how I was going to have weekends on my terms. This involved some shifting of activities, and conscious choices on my part, but I was determined to give it a fair go.
What My Weekends Look Like
Friday evenings are spent making pizza with the family, and then we will either watch movies or play Wii games together. After my daughter goes to bed, my husband and I will either watch a movie or PBS.
Saturday morning I get up early, enjoy a cup of coffee on the deck (weather permitting) and then hit the computer for some uninterrupted writing time. I have a weekly meeting at 10, and Saturday afternoon is usually spent in doing something with my daughter or relaxing. Saturday night is game night for the family, and we play board games after dinner.
Sunday I get up early, and take some time to reflect on my spirituality, then head to my desk for writing time. The afternoon is family time, or just time to relax and work on my “other” projects – gardening, crafts, music – the things that rejuvenate me.
What It Took To Get There
In order to make this weekend schedule work, I had to remove all the standard stuff from the weekends. That means no errands and no cleaning. Taking them from the weekend means that I have to do them somewhere else, and it wasn’t easy to find the time and energy to do this.
Cleaning
I do three sorts of cleaning: daily pickups so that things don’t get out of hand; weekly cleaning of the kitchen and bathrooms; and deep cleaning of a particular area of the house (loosely based on Flylady’s zones).
The deep cleaning takes 15 minutes per day. I used to wait until the weekend and knock out all 75 minutes. Now I have to focus and get it done during the week. What this generally works out to is 30 minutes on Tuesday and 15 minutes on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The weekly cleaning used to be done on Saturday mornings. This moved to Thursday afternoon, and some tasks got dispersed to my husband and daughter. The daily stuff, of course, remains daily, but on weekends I don’t put things away unless they are mine. I put things in the Saturday basket (see How To Organize with Small Children) instead.
Errands
This was the difficult one to deal with; I had been used to spending at least my Saturday afternoons running hither and yon to pick things up, drop things off, purchase things. It never seemed to end and could completely take a up a weekend.
The first step was I had to let my family know that errands were run on Fridays, with the exception of library runs made during the school year (which I consider more of a family outing). Every other Friday is grocery shopping, and if it isn’t bought then, we do without. The alternate Fridays are for other errands.
It makes for a bit of a crunch on Friday afternoons, particularly when school is in session. But by having Friday be our pizza night (a very simple dinner that the whole family makes together), we have much later to get things done before dinner prep must be done. I expect this will adjust again in September, when my daughter starts at a new school and returns home an hour later every day.
Overall Results
I am very pleased with the results. My weekends are very relaxing now, and I find myself in a good frame of mind to go back to work on Mondays.
Photo by wonderferret
Related posts:
- Life Design 101: What Do I Want My Weekend To Look Like?
- Fitting in Exercise
- Life Design 101: Getting To My Ideal Weekend
- What Would Your Ideal Day Look Like?
- How To Be Productive…Even While Not Working
Comments (1)
I love this idea. Imagine your ideal weekend, juggle things around, and make it happen. My weekends are good – but now I’m thinking that they could be even better.
Thanks for the inspiration.