How to spend a weekend
This feels like a weird question to ask. It's one that's developed a low-level anxiety in me, like walking around with a slightly damp sock in my shoe (as I've had to do at least once this week cause of the storms during my work commutes).
How does one spend their weekend well? We've only got 2 days for it. As much as possible, I'd like to look back on Saturday and Sunday fondly. Of course, we'd want to feel great for Monday morning to hit the ground running. It's just... how do we do that?
Not all weekends are the same. One Saturday may carry a high school reunion, a trip to the mall, or some other kind of special event; the next could be an abyss of TikTok in bed. It's the latter I'm trying to wrangle.
We could take my recent weekend as a case study.
I really had no obligation to be anywhere; therefore, I was at home by default. I told myself I needed that since the days prior had plenty of going-home-late scenarios, just trying to get deliverables to the people that needed them in time. So this was a free Saturday I deserved on my own.
When I got to it, I felt... blank. I didn't feel like I was resting. Instead, I felt anxious and lost, my mind like a hungry dog looking for treats. Most of the hours of that day went to either hopping from one curiosity to another (from League of Legends to the history of chair design) or scrolling through social media, waiting for messages from the friends I've sent Reels and TikToks to.
Was that a good use of my weekend? I could develop some kind of criteria for myself to grade weekends, but that might just squeeze the fun out of it even more.
The point is to "enjoy" it. To rest. But more and more I feel like I've forgotten how to do even that. Maybe it's the work? The culture? The money? Or the aspirational version of myself wanting to boast about not taking any days off.
They want to find the most "productive" use of time, a stance that has its share of controversy. There's almost an industrial taste to that idea. It's got the texture of spreadsheets, the sounds of pings, and the look of graphs. Data, data, data. Push, push, push.
"Maximizing weekends." What the hell are you, a machine?
There's no need to do anything, so enjoy the free time while you can. Wake up late, play your games, shop for shoes; loiter, linger, laze, and let the hours ferry you to away.
But in another light...
Since I'm spending so much time on my weekdays in that gray blob called "Work", Saturday and Sunday should be the time when I tend to my garden and nourish my future self into existence. That could be taking courses, reading specific books, or working on some kind of personal project. There's a sense of directed and meaningful action that, albeit, burns energy and may not always be so comfortable.
There is a third argument, of course, nestled between the two: just straight up plan your weekends. Plan it like how you'd plan your workday. This practice invokes Intentionality, the thing that dispels aimlessness like a fan to smoke. It does take some getting used to; it brings a corporate approach to idle, personal hours.
I've been practicing it for a few weeks now for my work days, and they've really changed how I feel about getting things done. It's given me a sense of forward motion and a defense against firefighting. It just so happened that recently, I hadn't planned my weekends for myself because they've involved seeing other people or tending to some kind of family errand. When it's just me and the rest of the 16 hours of the day, I get vertigo.
There is absolutely no tome that binds the secrets of a correct weekend. Being alive has no boundaries like that. But, it's often very clear when a weekend was well spent. You bring something home to your bed that ignites you. Why that happens is different for everyone. So, maybe the game is to figure out how to have that happen as often as possible.
Let me know what you think: francisjudealcantara@gmail.com