MARK ZURKERBURG-FACEBOOK FOUNDER
WHAT THE
MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO ON THE WEEKEND.
1.The first step to controlling your weekends is making conscious choices.
It's so easy to plop down on the couch on a
Friday night or Saturday morning and watch T.V., but falling into default
activities like this will suck away the few free hours you have available
during the week. Instead of
doing something by default, choose to decide how your time is spent.
Vanderkam writes, "In a world of
constant connectivity, even loafing time must be consciously chosen, because
time will be filled with something whether it’s consciously chosen or not—and
not choosing means that the something that fills our hours will be less
fulfilling than the something our remembering selves will likely wish we’d
elected to do."
2.Make appointments for yourself, even if it's only to read a book.
Former
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee says you need to have a plan for the weekend,
part of which should be setting specific hours or minutes aside for activities
you want to do. Then you have to commit.
He advises, "If you know you want to
read a book, then get the book out and have it set aside and make plans to read
it. Say it's going to be at one. When that starts, get on it. Don't wait until
that afternoon, then think—could I read? Or listen to some music? Or take a
walk? Then you'll sit about wasting an hour of what little time you have
figuring out what to do with the rest of it."
You have to be disciplined and commit to the
decisions you make.
3.Planning actually makes weekends happier, and unlocks a key mechanism of
joy.
Vanderkam cites Harvard psychologist Daniel
Gilbert's 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert
argues, "The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to
imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the
real."
Gilbert is talking about anticipation. Anticipation accounts for a huge chunk of
happiness, which that comes from thinking about the events we plan. Vanderkam writes, "As you look forward to something good that is about
to happen, you experience some of the same joy you would in the moment. The
major difference is that the joy can last much longer."
4.Plan three to five anchor events each weekend, but don't plan out every
hour.
Vanderkam says most people cringe at the idea
of planning their weekend. But placing three to five main or "anchor" events on your
calender for the weekend doesn't mean you need to plan them down to the
minute.
She writes, "Three things taking three
hours apiece is nine hours of your thirty-six waking ones. That leaves a lot of
time for sitting and nursing a scotch, if you don't have three small children,
or watching 'The Backyardigans,' if you do."
5.People dislike planning because they associate it with things they want to
avoid, rather than things they enjoy.
When people do
not like the sound of "planning," it's usually because they think of
planning things they don't want to do, rather than things they do want to
do.
Planning activities that are enjoyable to you
are what define "anchor" events. One reader told Vanderkam, "When you
plan enjoyable things ahead of time you magnify the pleasure."
6.List out the things you dream about doing most until you find the ones you
can do every day.
When the weekend rolls around there may be so
many things we want to do that we freeze up and end up doing almost none of
them. It's effective to have a really good list.
Vanderkam
suggests people create something called "A List of 100 Dreams," which
prompts you to brainstorm anything you might want to do or have in life. Although some things like going to see the pyramids may not be doable
right now, by the end of the list you'll be coming up with things you can do
every day.
7.As you make your plans, don't discount something you haven't done in years.
One of Vanderkam's key secrets is to
"dig deep." Even if there are activities that you haven't done since childhood, you
can still make them part of your regular weekends.
One of her readers signed up for Saturday
morning piano lessons. She says that sometimes parents get so caught up in
planning their kids lives that they forget to schedule fun activities for
themselves. Pick something that means a lot to you and make it a permanent
routine.
8.Weekend mornings can be by far the best time to do things for yourself.
Weekend mornings are very easily wasted.
Instead, set them aside for personal pursuits.
Vanderkam writes, "If you're training for a marathon, it's
less disruptive for your family if you get up early to do your four-hour run
than if you try to do it in the middle of the day. To get up early, you'll probably have to avoid staying up late the night
before, but this is a good idea in general."
9.Establish small habits to create new traditions for your family.
"Happy families often have some special
weekend activity that everyone loves but no one has to plan each time,"
Vanderkam writes.
It could be as simple as making pancakes or
taking an stroll on a Sunday evening. Whatever you'd like to implement, make it a ritual because soon they will
become traditions and traditions become comforting memories which are proven to
boost happiness.
10.
Set aside
specific hours for "down time" and turn off your phone.
It's important
to schedule down time, because otherwise you may never unplug. Vanderkam says Jess Lahey, a new Hampshire-based teacher and writer, has
official weekend nap time in her house that takes place every afternoon between
one and three.
It's like siestas in Spain where people may not necessarily sleep, but take time to watch a
movie or read. No matter what it is, they are using that time to specifically
relax. Vanderkam says that in Lahey's family, "Everyone turns their phones
off, and Lahey and her husband close the door to the upstairs, [and] read for a
bit."
11.
Be sure to
make plans for Sunday night instead of sitting around stressing about your job.
Planning something for Sunday nights is an
easy way to avoid stressing about work in anticipation of Monday morning. That
can happen even when you like your job, but for people who don't like their
job, Sunday night stress can be draining and sad.
To combat
this, Vanderkam suggests scheduling something during these hours because it
extends the weekend and keeps you focused on the fun to come, rather than the
next morning.
12.
Keep chores,
errands, and busy work to a minimum on your days off.
There are always things you have to do, but
keeping chores, errands, and any sort of busy work to a minimum on the weekends
is really important.
Finishing chores shouldn't be central to your
weekend because they often expand to fill available time. Instead, try to
do a chore each day during the week. If that's not possible then set aside
small windows of time during the weekend. For example, set a half an hour on a
Friday night between dinner and when you watch a movie to wash the floor, or
twenty minutes between your piano lesson and bike ride on Saturday morning to
empty the garbage.
Setting small
amounts of time will motivate you to get chores done quickly.
13.
Make sure to
unplug completely for at least a few hours.
Have a tech "Sabbath" day. Or at
least a few hours in the weekend when you unplug from your email and
professional life.
Although it becomes harder to do that with
smart phones and demanding careers, Vanderkam recommends hiding your mail icon
on your phone during your "Sabbath" so you are not even tempted to
click on messages that spill into your inbox. You may not be able to completely avoid
working on the weekends but you can at least carve out a few hours.
14.
If you live to
be eighty years, you'll have 4,160 weekends total, so don't let any go to
waste.
4,160 weekends doesn't sound like all that
much. It's very easy to feel overwhelmed and simply do nothing (or meaningless
things.) But by falling into that trap, Vanderkam points out you may miss the
best parts of your own life.
Too often
people don't think about what they'd like to do and wind up living constrained
versions of life, doing little tasks on a to-do list.
Vanderkam says, "What the most
successful people know about weekends is that life cannot happen only in the
future. It cannot wait for some day when we are less tired or less
busy." So start with this weekend and do something.
Summary from the book:What succesfull people do on the weekend.
