Making the Most of Your Weekend
As a working mom you probably fall into one of two camps when it comes to weekends:
Busy
Passive
Busy weekends are full of all of the things that you didn’t get to during the week - chores, errands, projects, as well as play dates, activities, and outings. But when the weekend is over, you feel exhausted rather than refreshed.
Passive weekends are full of surviving. This is the default among families with young kids where the parents are tired and don’t have much energy for anything outside of survival. But when the weekend is over, you feel like you wasted the time rather than making memories, or at least making progress.
I’d like to offer a third camp. One where at the end of the weekend instead of feeling guilt for doing too much or guilt for not doing enough, you feel content. You feel appreciative of the time that you had and satisfied with how you spent it.
How do you create a weekend that sounds so amazing? It starts with a question…
How do I want to feel?
Weekends are harder to plan
When I think back to when I first started my journey of taking control of my time, to-do list, and schedule, the work week came together fairly easily.
It makes sense. I have childcare during the workday and so those hours are largely within my control.
And to this day, I have a system that works amazingly well with helping me stay on track and get the most important things done.
But the weekends were always much harder. They're a different beast, especially when you have young children. So much of your time is spent taking care of them.
Weekends often go one of two ways:
You do something fun but then feel guilty for not having crossed enough off your to-do list OR
You spend all your time on household projects and chores and feel guilty for not doing anything fun.
You just can't win!
In my experience, my husband and I would be bickering by Sunday evening, already feeling the stress of the upcoming workweek, and frustrated that we hadn't done enough to set ourselves up for a successful week.
It felt terrible. Something needed to change.
WEEKENDS THAT WORK
Get instant access to this free on-demand workshop where you’ll learn the exact framework I use to flexibly plan your weekends so you can have a little bit of everything: a little fun, a little productivity, and a little relaxation.
You’ll get to the end of your weekend feeling refreshed and ready!
A different approach
I realized I was trying to structure my weekends the same way I did my work weeks - with structure and predictability. But weekends are completely different!
The same time management and planning strategies don’t apply, especially when you have young kids and can't exactly plan by the hour.
So instead of a huge list or an over packed schedule, start by asking yourself a quick question:
HOW DO YOU WANT TO FEEL THIS WEEKEND?
How do you want to feel?
Do you have lots of energy and motivation and therefore want to feel productive? Great! Batch cook some meals for next week or tackle a house project in between naps.
Are you feeling less focused and more fun and so the goal of the weekend is to feel spontaneous and silly? Awesome. Plan an outing or prioritize some intentional playtime.
Are you coming off of a really long, stressful week and so you want to feel relaxed? Good to know. Have a Disney plus marathon, eat some comfort food, and slow down.
Starting with the question of how you want to feel helps you create a weekend that’s exactly what you need, instead of forcing something that’s going to feel like a struggle.
It can help you work with your energy, mood, and current circumstances to create a weekend that supports you.
It also helps you think about what would feel good come Sunday.
but you still have chores to do
One question that comes up frequently is “what about chores and errands and all the things that you HAVE to do?”
For me, and most of my clients, even if I don't explicitly put it on a list - laundry or cook dinner - those things are still going to get done. I'm not going to go without clean clothes or let my kids go hungry.
I don't need a huge list to still do the minimum, but I can cut back on unnecessary things.
If the goal of the weekend is to feel relaxed or playful, then I’m going to delay a project, or push back an errand if I can.
Maybe I’ll do it on a future weekend when I have more energy instead. Maybe I’ll squeeze it in during the work week instead. Maybe I’ll realize that it wasn’t really a must-do task like I thought it was!
When I started taking this approach and experimenting with what could be delayed, I started noticing some patterns and trends.
I realized that doing laundry little by little throughout the week is not as big a deal as I thought it was and it freed up time on the weekends.
I learned that I actually like picking up groceries on Monday evening instead of Saturday morning. Saturdays are now for coffee and cartoons.
I also found that keeping the kitchen and living room clean and tidy throughout the week meant that I didn’t need as much time for cleaning on the weekends anymore.
honoring the answer
Those learnings presented themselves to me because I focused on the things that would help my weekends feel better FIRST and fit the chores in around that. I don’t think I would have experimented with changing things had I not started with the question - how do I want to feel - and then honored the answer.
There will still be some weekends where you don’t prioritize how you want to feel. For some reason or another you slip back into your old ways or circumstances beyond your control don’t allow you to.
But hopefully those outlier weekends will remind you of why planning your weekends this way is so important and you’ll get back to it the following weekend.
Making the choice and planning activities and a schedule that supports what you want, feels so much better! And your family will feel it to. (mine did!)
So, as you head into your next weekend, think ahead to Sunday evening. When the weekend is over and you’re reflecting back on the last few days, how do you want to feel about how you spent your time?
And if you want to go even further and learn the exact framework for flexibly planning your weekends to honor how you want to feel, watch my free on-demand webinar - Weekends That Work.
WEEKENDS THAT WORK
As a working mom, your weekends are precious. They're when you get life done.
But they're also when you spend time with your family, relax, and have fun.
In this workshop, you'll learn the framework that will help you combine it all so you can end your weekends feeling refreshed and ready!