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)

Open 5 Days A Week

by Lawyer Working Girl

I hope all of you Working Girls had a great holiday break. I had 5 wonderful days off from work (including the weekend) and I enjoyed every second of it. However, all day Monday all I could think of was, "I sure don't want to go back to work tomorrow" (but in the same breath, I did give thanks for having a job to go to). Do you guys do that too? Usually, it's Sunday evening when it hits me that the weekend is almost over. Since I was off Monday, I just knew that I would have the post-holiday blues this morning. Well, imagine my surprise when I walked into the office today and I was in a very cheerful mood. It's funny that I thought that having 5 days off would put me in a bad mood upon my return to work, when in actuality, it was the exact opposite.

This made me think about how much we work in the U.S. I think we work WAY too much and I think that more days off would do wonders for productivity and moral (I personally found myself a lot more productive today than I'd been the last couple of weeks). On average, Americans get 17 vacation days a year. 17. The French get the most vacations days a year, averaging about 37.5. Wow! At first I thought, "we should be given more vacation days." But then, I remembered always hearing how many people don't use all of their vacations days because they are too busy at work or because they feel like things will fall apart without them. (Let's be clear. This will never be an issue for me. I'm taking every day that they give me.) So, giving more vacation days doesn't really help if people aren't going to take them.

So, what's my solution, you ask? I say we should have 4 day work weeks. 4 days to work, 3 days to rest. Think about our current weekends. We get off Friday evenings and have that evening and night to rest and unwind. I tend to find that I'm exhausted when Friday comes and enjoy an evening at home. Saturday comes and you try to cram a lot in that one day (errands, cleaning, etc.), because it's the only true full weekend day that you have (Sunday night you have to get in bed at a decent hour for work the next day). When Sunday comes you're already thinking about work on Monday. Am I right or is this just me? I think the 3 day weekend would allow workers to truly rest, relax and stay mentally sharp for the work week. Working Girls, what do you think? And who do I talk to about implementing this idea?

Three Day Weekends Every Weekend

It's only Tuesday and you're already counting down the to the weekend. Friday can't come sooner. Wouldn't it be nice if you could count down to Thursday instead?

If you were a government employee in Utah, you'd be used to this schedule by now. But there is a catch of course, employees have to work 10-hour days Monday through Thursday to make up for the lost time on Friday.

According to this article from The Atlantic, 82% of the employees prefer the new work schedule. The state of Utah has also found that the change is helping them a be little more green. They've saved $1.8 million in electricity and eliminated 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Scientific American said that many local governments have been looking at Utah as they consider changing their work week. This could very well catch on in local government. And maybe further to other industries?

If my office changed to a 4-day, 40-hour work week, I'd have to work nine to seven without a break for lunch. Some weeks, I eat lunch at my desk every day and I'm at the office until 6:30 every night. Another half hour every night wouldn't kill me. Then I'd have Friday off and Thursday would be the new Friday.

This is all fine and good. But I spend a lot of money on the weekend. Even when I'm making a effort to spend less, I spend more on a weekend day then I do on a week day. I shop, go to the movies, go out to dinner and more. Could I afford a 3-day weekend? Not to mention instead of my company spending money to keep the office cool in the summer or warm in the winter, I'd be spending my own money on that for an extra day.

Comments on The Atlantic article bring up a number of other concerns: Would an extra day with your kids make up for two less hours with them each night? Would this really work in most industries? Would letting employees work from home for a day be a better idea for business?

Something that seems so simple and beneficial to all involved, may not be so.