Weekends Are For Living

by Lawyer Working Girl

Working Girls! Can you believe that the holiday season is over? To me, it's officially over once the MLK Day holiday has come and gone. Between Thanksgiving and MLK Day we get several days off so there's always a long weekend just around the corner. If you're a Government Working Girl, you might have another holiday coming up soon (President's Day), but for those of us in the private practice, MLK Day was the last holiday until Memorial Day. I don't know about you all, but that's a long time to wait for another long weekend (lucky for me, I have a trip planned between now and then to break up the long weeks).

Since it doesn't look like my idea of Corporate America moving to 4 day work weeks and 3 day weekends is going to be adopted anytime soon, I started thinking about ways that I can maximize my time on the weekend. Since the weekdays are so structured with work hours (for a lot of people 8 to 5) and kids school hours and after school activities (for you Mommy Working Girls), no one really wants their weekend to be so structured. If you're like me, when the weekend comes you just want to unwind and relax and enjoy every single second of your free time. And I would do exactly that if I didn't have other stuff to work do. No, lounging on the couch from Friday evening until Monday morning for me. I've mentioned before that I have what I call my Passion Project and I spend a lot of time on weekends working on that; however, I do want to make sure that I'm not all work and no play. So I started to think about how I can divide my weekend so that I can enjoy some me time (watching TV/movies, reading magazines, sleeping in late) and still be productive.

Friday evenings are usually my day of rest. When I get home from work I plop on the couch and get in my "me time." It usually involves watching TV and catching up on social media. And call me lame, but it usually includes me being knocked out fairly early for a Friday night. Saturday mornings, I tend to do more of the same. I generally take a couple of hours to catch up on magazine reading or to read a book. I might watch a movie first thing in the morning too so I can give it my full attention before I get distracted by other things. From there I'm pretty flexible with the rest of my Saturday. I try to get in a few solid hours of working on my Passion Project, but I'm also flexible to meet up with a friend for lunch, get my hair or nails done, or meet friends for dinner and a movie (notice I did not say meet my boyfriend). Then on Sundays, I generally start my day of with church and then I'm back home watching TV the rest of the morning. By the afternoon I'm out the door running errands, such as the always necessary trip to the mall and Target. On Sundays I do my grocery shopping and start thinking ahead to what I will take to work for lunch for the week (I try to bring my lunch everyday, but sometimes treat myself once a week or grab lunch with co-workers). I like to be back home by early evening so I can thoroughly enjoy the rest of my weekend before the work week starts. I think the way I map out my weekend allows me to make the best use of my 2 day weekends so that I'm prepared and well-rested for the new work week. If I didn't have a general plan, I would do one of two things: be a couch potato the entire weekend or work all weekend.

Working Girls, how do you make the best use of your weekends? If you're a Working Girl who doesn't work the typical Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 schedule, but instead have other days of the week off, how do you make the best use of your free time?

(Image/Google Images)