Learn to unwind: tips and advice for making the most of your weekends

As parents, we live our weekends in a strange duality, as if our role as parents and its demands prevented us from having real moments of relaxation. On the one hand, we want to freeze time and make the most of it, and on the other, we'd like to use it to be more productive and organized. A friend who's a teacher told me, at the start of spring break, how hard she found it to reconcile obligations and desires. On one side was the pile of papers to grade waiting for her, and on the other, the kids she wanted to spend quality time with, not to mention the head start she wanted to get on meal prep and the order she wanted to restore to her pantry.

My experience as a mother has made me realize that the biggest challenge is learning to manage priorities, not time. The time available will always stay the same; it's how we fill it that needs to be managed. In that sense, how we use our days off takes real work on ourselves. As journalist Katrina Onstad puts it in her book The Weekend Effect, “the weekend is when we take our foot off the gas to remember what matters.” In other words, it's the time to put the emphasis on the things that matter most to us.

Unfortunately, many social pressures very often make us lose sight of what's truly important and fill our weekends with new obligations. We have to drive junior to hockey or swimming lessons, we need a clean house and an Instagrammable setting, we have to host people with a restaurant-worthy culinary experience, or we have to visit that famous tourist attraction so we can share the experience on social media. When you think about it “objectively,” the weekend is a tiny 48-hour gap in our working lives. The Friday-night feeling of “finally the weekend, I'll be able to get so many things done” is all too often followed by Sunday's disappointment: “it all went by too fast and I didn't have time to check everything off my to-do list.”

How to make your weekend a success

Of course, there's no magic formula for living the ideal weekend. That said, here are a few ideas that might make you think about how you use your free time. Take what works for you to create weekends that suit you. Don't forget that vacation weeks, like spring break, are really just extended weekends!

Create a festive atmosphere

Start the weekend in a party mood. Friday night and Saturday morning are prime moments. Add a little whimsy: some music, candles, an atmosphere that makes the moment special and sets it apart from weekdays.

Experience the flow state

Find a hobby that will let you experience the flow state. The flow state “is an optimal psychological state” that occurs when we do an activity purely for the joy of it and feel as though we're “stepping outside ourselves, outside of time”. Play a sport, get into an athletic or artistic activity, cook or read, but give your brain a treat! Beware: screens and video games do keep us in a state of flow, and they really do make us lose all sense of time, but they bring no psychological benefit.

Do less housework

Set aside a time period for housework in advance and stick to it. For example, reserve Sunday morning from 8 to 10 a.m. to give the house a good scrub. If you can, adopt blogger Erin Doland's “One Day, One Room” principle. Each day of the week, devote half an hour to cleaning one room instead of doing a big clean on the weekend. Don't forget to do the chores as a family; it's more pleasant, it goes faster and it frees up family time for fun.

Find here all our downloadable tools to make managing household chores as a family easier!

Unplug from your devices to connect with real humans

Disconnect your electronic devices for a 24-hour period if you feel up to it. Make human connection the priority. Call your friends instead of texting them. It's proven: human relationships can increase life expectancy, they even strengthen the immune system and can help with healing when we're sick. What's more, our bodies react to every notification we receive, releasing stress hormones when it goes off.

Make plans, but not too many

Make the unexpected your friend and embrace it! Dealing with uncertainty and learning to live with it rather than fighting it is the best way to avoid disappointment. Admit it: the most fun evenings are the ones where you hadn't planned on having fun. What's more, kids love last-minute plans and the element of surprise they bring.

Have people over, but keep it modest

People aren't that complicated! Don't lose a whole day making them a meal worthy of a restaurant outing. These days, people sometimes seem to find hosting too demanding because they tend to try to do too much. The warmth of a home and the welcome of the hosts is what matters most. A very simple chili is an easy meal, and you can add a touch of fun (like margaritas, for example!) and you're all set!

Ease up on structuring the kids' time

There's no shortage of enriching activities for kids! That said, too many activities can lead our kids to burnout. Studies prove it: children who lack free time are more prone to stress or anxiety and to developing a less creative mind. Do you want to stimulate your kids and wonder whether you're doing too much? It's simple: if organizing your kids' schedule wears you out, it's a sign you're doing too much and their schedule is overloaded. Don't be afraid that they'll get bored and become unpleasant, starting squabbles. Give them the chance to experience boredom and prove to you that they're creative.

Manage priorities, not time

Take the time to think about what matters most to you. At our house, we decided to put the interests of the group ahead of those of the individual. That way, we took off the pressure of doing an activity that will please every member of the family. By managing priorities rather than time, you'll be free to say “I'm not giving time to that” instead of “I don't have time for that.” Is having a sparkling house more important than spending time with the grandparents? Is getting ahead on meal prep more important than getting a little exercise? Does one frozen meal a week really have disastrous consequences for the kids' health?

To pin down the values that are dearest to you and easily see where your precious time goes, fill out your values scale and complete your time budget!

O time, suspend your flight!

Not having enough time to take care of ourselves and our family is a problem we all face. We are, in a way, the victims of this time that flows endlessly, that flies by like lightning. So find ways to savour it, to live better, to marvel and to enjoy more of life's simple things.

And to get practical tips and advice every month to optimize your time management even further, subscribe to our monthly Family Manager and check out our various blog articles!

 

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