Sep 17, 20217 min read

12 Ways to have a better weekend

The past year and a half have been the most stressful time in all our lives. Everyone’s life has been turned upside down. A ton of us are working from home ever since Covid started. A ton of us have lost jobs, a few of us have changed career paths, started businesses, closed businesses, some of us have quit to take on a new challenge in life.

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Pre-covid the only thing most of us eagerly waited for was the weekends. It didn’t matter if it were people with 9-5 jobs, business owners, employees, kids, students, one thing all of us wanted and loved was the weekends.

Due to Covid, I’m sure all of us have forgotten what a weekend felt like with everything shut down, on and off. We can at present enjoy our weekends and make the most of them by making a few tweaks and changes.

Below are 12 things that I do in an attempt to have a better weekend and make the most out of it.

Turn off your work emails and work phones

A typical corporate working week ends on Friday evening. But a ton of us allow work to spill over till late Friday night. In order to avoid this and get started with your weekend early on, plan your work ahead in time and make sure to sign off from work.

Ensure that once you sign off from work, you put that laptop away into a drawer or lock it if necessary and turn off those notifications on work emails.

This helps you destress and rewind. It also gives your mind some rest from having to think about work 24/7. Be conscious about not checking your work emails.

Set boundaries with work, so that you can get some time to yourself over the weekend.

Limit Social Media Exposure

We’re all guilty of this. Every minute you’re not working, you’re on your phone scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. Weekends are meant to be your “me” time. Check out our blog on 13 signs you're losing in life, Click Here to know and understand the importance of "Me" time.

Avoid spending hours together on social media and indulging in negative self-talk, comparing your life with others, looking at how amazing other’s weekends are.

Instead, restrict yourself to spend only a fixed amount of time on social media. It can be a 30min period where you scroll through Instagram and give your mind the satisfaction or the dopamine effect and stay offline for the rest of the weekend and utilize that time to unwind and rejuvenate.

While you're scrolling through Instagram, why don't you head over to our Instagram account here

and show some love and make us part of your weekend.

Plan your weekends ahead of time so that you’re not the only one showing up for those events

With the busy scheduled lifestyle that all of us are leading, it becomes very important to plan things way ahead of time so that everyone that needs to be at a particular event can still make time in their schedules.

It can be simple plans like meeting friends for a coffee or meeting colleagues for a quick lunch, always plan the day ahead of time and you can figure out the details when you’re closer to that day.

Develop a new hobby or learn a new skill

“I’ll work till I’m 65 years old and then I will retire and enjoy life.”

First of all, at the age of 65, you will not have the physical strength nor the willpower to do something fun and enjoy. Instead try to pick a new skill or develop a new hobby over the year, and dedicate your weekends to cater to this hobby or skill.

This can be as simple as gardening, baking, painting, fitness, cooking. Take up a new skill and give your mind some space to breathe and think about something other than work and life.

Picking up a new hobby or skill, builds up excitement in you and gives you something to look forward to during your workweek.

Clean your living/workspaces

In today’s world, cleanliness has become the most important human behavior.

Set aside sometime over the weekend to clean up your work desk, as most of are working from home, we all have set up designated spots in the house to cater to our working needs, so let’s make sure to keep that space clean and tidy your surroundings so that it provides you the apt mindset required to start your workweek on Mondays.

We all dread to get started with work on Mondays, maybe having a clean desk would provide us some enthusiasm., who knows, lol.

Spend an hour or two by yourself and your thoughts

Spending some alone time will help you clear your mind, destress and think clearly. It will help improve your creativity, helps you to reconnect with yourself. You become more independent in making decisions.

Spending time alone helps you get some clarity about your thoughts and resets priorities in life.

Indulge in self-care

Never forget to show some love towards yourself. In these difficult times, it’s very important to practice self-love.

Self-care can be having your favorite meal, spending some time alone with your fav book, can be a deep conditioning shower, can be a trip to the salon to get pampered, can be a simple walk in the park with your pet.

Prioritize self-care over everything else. Your daily tasks and chores will still be waiting for you the entire week, at least on the weekends take some time for yourself and indulge in self-care.

Spend time with your family, catch up with your friends and cousins

Plan a get-together, plan a birthday bash, plan to have a nice home-cooked meal at your favorite cousin’s place, plan to binge-watch a tv show that all of you enjoy. Spend some quality time over the weekends bonding with your near and dear ones.

This will help create a lot of fun and beautiful memories and also develop a strong bonding and a sense of belonging.

Physical activity for your body: be active and be outdoors

In the current situation, I know that a lot of us are skeptical about going out or going on a vacation. But it is very important for human beings to be out in nature and feel connected with the outdoors.

Plan to go for a quick early morning walk in the nearest park.

Play a sport on your terrace or on the street. I know all of us have at some point in our lives played badminton on the streets. Why not do the same.

Add some sort of physical activity to your routine and build a connection with nature and be outdoors for a while during your weekends.

Practice gratitude

With all that’s happening in the world today, all of us need to count our blessings and be thankful to be well and healthy.

Practicing gratitude means literally saying thank you to the world for everything you have today. For some it’s god, for a few it’s the universe, for a few it’s positive energy out there that’s looking after all of us.

For everything that we have and are blessed with in life, practice saying thank you to the providers who have blessed us and count our blessings.

A simple way that I practice gratitude is, every now and then I take a couple of minutes to say thank you to the universe for blessing me with family, friends, relationships, situations, and learnings. I literally just close my eyes, smile, and say thank you out loud. It can be as simple as this.

Plan your next week ahead of time

Always plan your week ahead of time so that you don’t feel overwhelmed and demotivated to get back to work on Mondays. We all have faced Monday blues. They’re no fun.

In order to avoid this or at least get through with the dreadful Monday situation, take some time on Friday evenings before you log off from work to plan the meetings, the deadlines, all the things you need to get done for the next week and send out those meeting invites, set up all your work on your work calendar, this will help lessen the burden of planning the week on Monday and figuring out things on Monday morning and spiraling down to hating Mondays and feeling burnt out and stressed.

Do not compare your weekends with others

All of us have different privileges in life. It can be financial, personal, mental privileges.

It’s very easy to look at some lifestyle blogger on Instagram spending their long weekend in the Maldives or some other hot spot, and end up in your self-pity pit, comparing your weekend of spending time at home just binge-watching some random tv show and feel like you’re missing out on life.

Stop doing this to yourself and constantly comparing yourself. Your life is beautiful just the way it is. Instead, shut off your Instagram or go offline and do a few things that I previously mentioned and feel content with your life.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

These are a few things that I have tried over time to have a good weekend and make the most of it and have fun and have a fulfilling life.

Hope you pick up a few things to do over the weekend from the above list. Much love.

Thank you for taking out time to read our blog as part of Stensor- The Mind Chapter. Do remember this is coming from our experiences only. This is purely from our journey towards mental health and wellbeing. We are Architects by profession, with a design initiative part of Stensor-The Design Chapter, where we help our audience/clients design beautiful living spaces to enhance their lifestyle. If you’re looking to revamp your spaces, feel free to reach out to us via email at contact@stensor.in or Click Here to know more.