Episode 35: How to Make the Most of Your Weekends: Balancing Fun & Productivity
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
How do you make the most of your weekends as a busy, working mom? So many women struggle to find the balance in their weekends. You're either overpacking your schedule with chores, commitments, and tasks, or seeking to fully relax but then feeling guilty about what’s left undone. The key is to set your intentions in advance so that you feel good come Sunday night about how you spent your precious time as you head into another work week.
In this episode, I share strategies on how to plan your weekends in a flexible way that leaves you feeling fulfilled, whether you’re tackling projects, enjoying downtime, or spending quality time with family. You'll learn how to balance fun, rest, and productivity by checking in with yourself and your family ahead of time so you can set realistic expectations. Plus, I'll introduce you to my simple, yet flexible, "block planning" framework to help you organize your weekend time with room for structure and spontaneity. Tune in to learn how to make your weekends work for you.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
Why being intentional about your weekend makes all the difference: Being intentional about how you spend your weekend can lead to a more fulfilling experience, whether you prioritize rest, productivity, or family time. It's about consciously deciding in advance what you want.
The two extremes that you want to avoid when it comes to weekends: Many working moms either overpack their weekends with tasks and commitments or aim to relax but end up feeling dissatisfied for not getting enough done. Striking a balance between relaxation and productivity is key to avoiding this cycle.
How to plan a weekend where everyone has a say: Check in with yourself and your family about what everyone wants to accomplish or experience over the weekend. Discussing your "weekend vibe" together helps set realistic expectations and prevent frustration and resentment.
The Power of Block Planning: Use a simple block planning method to organize your weekend allows for flexibility while ensuring you have space for both planned activities and unexpected moments.
The first thing you should prioritize each weekend: Schedule fun and relaxing activities at the start of the weekend, rather than holding them until after tasks are done.
Weekend planning doesn't have to mean overly structured: Weekends don’t have to be strictly planned down to the minute. Allow for flexibility in your schedule to accommodate the ebb and flow of life, especially with kids involved.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
Apply for the next cohort of Beyond Balance (group coaching for working moms)
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am excited to talk about weekends with you. I don't know when you're listening to this. It drops on a Tuesday. So there's plenty of time before the end of the week for you to take what you learn here today and apply it right away to your upcoming weekend.
If that's a Saturday, Sunday for you or some other combination. This is what's next. Such a great topic and I decided to record this today because we just completed the lesson on this very topic in Beyond Balance, my small group coaching program for working moms, and we had such great conversation around our weekends, what they feel like, how they differ from the work week, what we're able to accomplish, all of the things
And so I'd love for you to think about some of your recent weekends as you listen today to
understand where you currently fall in terms of your approach. So from what I have experienced personally, what I have seen from my coaching clients, and even just heard in conversation with listeners and community members and my own friends there seem to be two ends of the spectrum if a pendulum were to swing from one side to the other when it comes to weekends.
But either approach tends to leave you in one way or another feeling dissatisfied. at the end of your weekend. So I'm picturing a Sunday night. Here's what I mean. Maybe you are on the one end of the spectrum where your weekends are full.
It is your time to get caught up on the things that have maybe accumulated physically around the house, the chores, the laundry, the cleanup, and the mail that I know is often piling up in our house, the schoolwork, the paperwork. All of those things that we try to keep up with during the work week, but if we've had a really busy work schedule, or maybe the kids haven't been sleeping well, or there's just been so much happening that it tends to pile up, and so the weekends are catching up on those things while also doing some prep to get ahead for the next week, and maybe we also have commitments sprinkled in there, whether it's sporting events for kids or birthday parties or dates Or time to see friends or a workout class, all of the things that we could fit into a weekend.
And so you get to Sunday night, if that is the end of your weekend, like it is for me, and you are exhausted. You are exhausted from doing so much and packing so much into your weekend. So if that's one end of the spectrum, the other is wanting to really relish in that relax and chill vibe of a weekend.
And so wanting to become one with the couch or just kind of laze around as much as one can laze around when you have kids that need to be entertained or taken care of and schedules to adhere to. But you know what I mean, right? There's not a lot of planning. There's not a lot of catching up.
There's not a lot of proactive prep for the next week as well because we're just wanting to have that weekend vibe, that chill weekend vibe. But what happens here, similarly to when we're overpacked or overplanned on a weekend, is you get to Sunday night again and feel the same dissatisfaction. You're still looking around at the stuff that you didn't do because you prioritized Relaxing.
You are heading into a week without much planned or prepped. Like, what is even happening tomorrow on Monday? I'm not sure, because I didn't want to look. I didn't want to ruin the go with the flow vibe. And so, neither one is necessarily right or wrong. It is more about checking in with that feeling that you have at the end of the weekend.
And for so many of the women that I talk to, we want to head into our week feeling satisfied. We want to have done the things that we set out to do that weekend, whether it was resting and relaxing or being productive, it doesn't matter. It's just, was that your intentional choice? Now, when you think about doing anything intentionally, whether it is intentionally waking up at a certain time in the morning, or intentionally making this recipe for dinner tonight, or intentionally working on that project today when you're at your desk, it does require a little bit of planning.
And I think this is where so many people resist the idea of planning for a weekend. We've done that all Work week. We have lived by our calendar. We've shown up to meetings on time, or patient appointments, or committed to and met our deadlines. We've shown up to daycare pickup on time. We've been to soccer practice or piano lessons.
All of the things we have lived by our schedule, we have lived by our plan, probably down to at least the 30 minute increment, if not smaller. And we want a break. You want a break. There's so much planning during the work week that we want to just put that aside for a couple of days and not have to do it.
I teach planning your weekend in a very different way because I feel that too. I feel that too. I definitely want a very different vibe for my weekends than I have for my work week. But there is still the intention piece. There is still knowing or deciding ahead of time what it is that you want.
We are agreed that weekends do have their own vibe. And weekends also vary. , sometimes drastically from what the different vibes are from weekend to weekend. Maybe one weekend you're traveling out of town and another one you are resting because the work week was very exhausting or you traveled maybe for work during the week.
Maybe you have illness in your family over the weekend. And that's a very different vibe. Right now, I'm feeling the spring energy, the sun is shining more, the weather is warming up a little bit, and I'm feeling the urge on my weekends to be productive. I'm looking around thinking, what can I declutter?
What can I be cleaning? What What project do I want to tackle this spring? And then there are the weekends where there is just a lot on the calendar. There's some sporting tournament or social thing or family get togethers that just eat up a lot of the time. And then there are the weekends like I just had coming off of a weekend where it was largely about resting, relaxing, and just being, being together, being at home.
The reality is, for many weekends, it will be some sort of combination. A little of this, a little of that. And I think that's great, personally. I don't know how you feel about that, but I think a little combination is great. But either way, it is about asking the question ahead of time. What do you need from your upcoming weekend?
What would feel really good to have done, to have prioritized, to have experienced come Sunday night? Before you turn the calendar over to a fresh work week, what would feel really good? What would feel like enough come Sunday? Or what would leave you feeling satisfied with how you spent your time? Those are the questions you can ask yourself as you are heading into a weekend to get an understanding to listen to yourself about what it is that you need or you want out of these couple of days where you're not working.
So I said I had a resting relaxing kind of just being at home weekend this past weekend and that was by design. This is our last weekend before spring break, which brings a different schedule all together. And it is our last weekend before the chaos of soccer season, where I have three kids on three different teams.
We could play upwards of six games a weekend. It's the last weekend before that is in full effect. And I knew that going into this weekend. And so I thought intentionally about, well, what do I want to do at home? How do I want to spend my time at home knowing what's coming for us in April and May? So, I did a few projects.
My husband and I did a few projects around the house. I, for example, submitted all of our tax documents to our CPA, which, is not very fun, but definitely needed to be done. We did some spring break planning and looking at calendars. We ran to the store to get cleats that would fit my oldest since he's outgrown them and the others, thankfully, can use his hand me downs.
I did some of our regular weekend chores. I spread my laundry out over all seven days, so I had a couple of loads of laundry going in the background. I did our meal planning for this coming week. I sorted some paperwork. Just those things that I like to catch up on. But I also read. An entire book.
I read an entire book. I was so sucked in on Friday. Couldn't put it down. My kids watched a movie. I read my book while they watched the movie. I worked on a puzzle with my oldest. My youngest and I did some coloring. My daughter was with a friend, so I didn't have as much one on one time with her, but we even had a date night on Saturday night.
I also did a workout and a couple of walks and talked to my parents. It was An at home weekend that had the combination of fun and rest and togetherness with a little bit of productivity sprinkled in that I really wanted and needed. But my overall intention was to be at home. I was sharing with the Beyond Balance women last week that a couple of months ago my book club read the book Frozen River.
If you love historical fiction, highly recommend. I'll put a link to it in the show notes, which you can always grab over at themothernurture. com forward slash podcast. In short, It takes place in what is now Maine in the U. S., post revolutionary war, and as you can imagine, very cold, long winters by the fire, in the hearth.
And the main character kept a meticulous diary or log of her time, and she would write day after day, January 15th or whatever the date was and the year. I have been at home. The next day, January 16th, I have been at home. And so I thought about that as I was heading into this weekend where my main intention, my main priority was to be at home, just like Martha in Frozen River.
Anyway, setting your weekend intentions is a great way to get on the same page as others in your home. So it's a great question to ask your partner, your spouse, if that is your situation, your roommate, , anyone that you might be spending your weekend with, what's your weekend vibe?
Right? Like, what are you feeling for this weekend? What's coming up for you? Or as your kids get old enough to have an opinion or have their own ideas, what's one thing you want to be sure we do this weekend? And I love when the answers that they give me are. Small, easy things, I would love to play a family game, or I'd love to work on our puzzle, or I really want to go rollerblading, or riding our bikes like we were doing as the weather has warmed up here.
But, what is one thing that you wanted to do this weekend? Or I'll ask my husband, what's the one thing you want to accomplish? Oftentimes he'll want to head down to his wood shop and do a little bit of building, but I can't accommodate that if I don't know that that's something he wants to have some time for.
If your kids are still young, as when mine were young, I would think about, well, what's something for the kids? There's obviously chores and some projects and things that I want to do that I need to take care of for the household, for the family, but even if they can't quite answer, maybe what's one thing that you want to do for the kids or with the kids?
I know that we talked about this in Beyond Balance. this last week as well and agreeing in advance again that time for each of you. If you have a co parent, if you have a partner, if you have a spouse,
what does time by yourself or for yourself for each of you look like? And can you agree on that in advance? Right? I'd love to Run this errand by myself. I'd love to take a walk with a friend. I'd love time at the coffee shop to just read my book or to collect my thoughts or whatever it is. I'd love to go to this workout class.
Sharing those hopes, those things that you want to be able to do in advance so that you can look at the weekend together saves you from any frustration at the end of the weekend that you didn't get the time that you wanted. It saves you resentment if one of you gets it, not the other one. So it's just a great practice to get into checking in with the other people in your home, asking about what are your vibes, what do you want to accomplish, or what's one thing that you want to do this weekend.
Then once you know what's the vibe, what are we trying to get done, what's our aim here going into the weekend, then it is simply about comparing those expectations, what you need or want out of the time, and comparing it to your calendar. So checking those scheduled events and commitments, the time of the birthday party, the date night hours, the soccer games, or baseball, or basketball, or the piano recital, or the family dinner, whatever is on the calendar.
Looking at the commitments there and seeing if what your expectations are, do they actually fit together? Is there enough space and enough wiggle room? And does it overall have the vibe that you want? There have been weekends where all I want to do is relax and instead I see that we are booked. And it's just a challenge to myself then to ask, are all of these things required?
Are they necessary? Is there anything that we can decline? And if not, how can I bring the vibe that I want along for the ride? So if I'm going to sit on sidelines for all day Saturday, but I'm really wanting like a cozy vibe, well, I'm going to wear my sweat pants and I'm going to bring a book and a little blanket.
And I'm just gonna, you know, I'm going to be there and I'm going to watch of course, but I'm also going to support myself in that way. Or I'm going to bring my thermos full of tea or whatever it is. Right. So. Is there a way to accommodate the vibe that you want with the schedule that you actually have?
Now I use a block planning layout for weekends. It's what I teach in Beyond Balance as well. I find that it gives that flexibility that so many of us crave after a work week of planning in 15, 30, or 60 minute increments. It gives that more relaxed vibe while still helping you see how it all is going to fit together.
It gives you some guidelines, some road marks along the way as you travel through Saturday and Sunday to think about, am I tracking, is this meeting my expectations? I love the block piece as well because things can shift within the block. Certain projects or activities can expand and take longer. Anything that we do with our kids is likely to not be super efficient, especially the younger they are.
And so, again, it gives you that space to allow things to ebb and flow a little bit with less structure and less rigidity. So I set up a morning, afternoon, and evening block for Saturday and Sunday. So if you were looking at a table or a grid, that would be six blocks in total. And it was interesting as I was teaching this in Beyond Balance, one of the women said, it actually looks like a lot of space.
There are six whole blocks to play with. I have the same feeling when I look at those six blocks. I was just glad to hear I wasn't the only one. , because it is. It's six whole blocks that you get to play with.
But also, If it looks like there's plenty of time or a lot of space, you have to resist the temptation to put too much into each block, to overpack or overfill. the blocks. Remember that kids will be kids. They will often be in their own moods, on their own timelines. We cannot always control that. Remember that rest is important, and so is fun and connection.
And sometimes those things need a little bit more room to breathe. So permission to leave some of your blocks. largely empty and open to just allow for whatever is going to come up to come up. Now, one thing I would love to challenge you with, and I challenge all of my clients with this is to do the fun things first.
instead of the other way around. So if you want to have some fun, you want to get out as a family or want to do something together or one on one with your kids, can you put that earlier in the day or earlier in the weekend? When we hold those things hostage, saying, well, once we get our chores done or once we get our projects done, we often end up skipping the fun because we've run out of time.
But I find that when you put the fun first, Somehow we still manage to get the things that we need to do done. But for all of this, if you take anything away from this episode, please take this. It is about choosing what you want. It is about deciding in advance what you want out of your weekend.
Winging it works. It does. I, I have done my fair share of weekends where I just wing it. And it's not the wrong way to go. I get wanting to be chill, wanting to just go with the flow. But what we are talking about here is being intentional. Being intentional doesn't have to mean being overly structured or overly planned.
Again, not down to that 15 30 minute increment. Being intentional just means checking in, checking in with what you need or want to be focused on and then making sure that you have the space to follow through on that.
Putting this weekend planning method into practice week after week is just one of the many processes you learn inside Beyond Balance, my small group program for working moms. These women. who join this group want to be intentional with their time. They want to make the most of it, but mostly they want to trust that they are doing the most important things and making time for the people, the passions, whether that be, you know, a hobby or fun things, and the projects.
And we do that through different strategies, processes, and templates that I teach and provide to you inside the program. And you do that with the support of me as your coach and the other working moms in the group who are going through it right alongside you. Enrollment is going to open up next month in April for our May cohort.
If you want to apply to save your spot, potentially, if it's a good fit, you can do that on my website at themothernurture. com forward slash interest.
There is no pressure on the other side of submitting your application. This is simply you saying, Hey, I might be interested in this. I'd love to learn more. As always, any of the resources and links that I mentioned in today's episode are available for you and the show notes at themothernurtured. com forward slash podcast.
Be sure to subscribe, share. Rate and review the podcast. I'm so grateful for you tuning in, listening and sharing it with the working moms in your life. Remember there is plenty of time between now and Friday to think about your weekend intentions and to decide in advance what you want those days to look like.
All right. I will talk with you next week where I have something actually really special planned for the podcast. So be sure to listen in, but until then take care and I'll talk with you soon.
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