
I’ve been playing with the idea of “Weekstart.”
Just as the weekend is the last two days of the week, weekstart is the first two: Monday and Tuesday. During the weekstart I block out any commitments after work for both Monday and Tuesday night.
See, I’ve been asking too much of my weekends. During the week I find peace in knowing I have time over the weekend to do item A, and then I add item B, then item C and D and E…
When the weekend rolls around, my expectations are that I can draw energy from alone time, spend tons of time with friends, exercise, catch up on sleep, go to church, work on chores, work on creative pursuits and catch up on email all in the same weekend.
Although this is all possible to do in one weekend, when I place unreasonable expectations on any chunk of time, my energy is divided and I’m left defeated and wanting by Monday morning.
It’s time for me to set manageable expectations for my weekends. Since a majority of my friends are available on weekends, it makes sense to make people a priority then.
So when do I expect to do the rest of the things that are itching the inside of my head? To answer this question, I created Weekstart.
If someone wants to watch a movie while I’m doing laundry over the weekend, I can watch a movie and still know my laundry will get done during my upcoming weekstart.
If someone wants to watch a movie on Monday night during the weekstart while I’m doing laundry, I can set expectations and already feel tied to my friends after fully engaging over the weekend.
During Weekstart I can work on the most pressing things I need to do to stay zen for the upcoming week whether it’s…
- laundry
- my weekly beard trim
- prayer
- planning my week
- kicking off the week with great sleeping patterns
- remembering who I am
- grocery shopping
- cleaning my room
- walking
- my inbox
- knocking out a project
- drawing energy from being alone
Productivity writer David Allen recommends a time for upper-level planning tasks in what he calls a “Weekly Review.” I was a fool for thinking I could just add this as another task for my already booked weekends.
Setting expectations for my time doesn’t need a fancy name of course—it’s just more fun. I’m finding anything that’s a priority needs a home.