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Living for the Weekend

You work during the week and live during the weekend - 5 days on, 2 days off.
I touched on this in a previous article, the Work-Life Ratio, but fortunately reality isn't quite like that.
There are 2 methods that I use to offset this grim outlook (yes, I know things are much worse in other places but with modern manufacturing and farming techniques this still seems like more work than is needed).

1. This first method is rather straightforward and it is to see going to work as just an activity that you will do 5 times a week. What I mean by this is not looking at Monday to Friday and Saturday & Sunday as relaxation but rather on Monday to Friday you go to work for your 8 hours and that is just a single activity you do during that day. It's a bit like planning to go to the gym for 90 minutes three times a week or practising a new language for 20 minutes a day. If you can look at working as a single activity, albeit a rather long-one, that you do during that day then perhaps it will allow your mind to see the rest of the day as free.

2. This method is similar to number 1 but instead of viewing work as a single activity, you can look at the hours you have available in a week. 7 days a week with 24 hours a day means you have 168 hours a week.
Adults on average sleep a bit less than 7 hours a night, but lets pretend you are well disciplined and get your full 7 hours. This leaves us with 119 hours (168 - 7*7) of awake time. If you are working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 40 hours total, then you are left with 79 hours left. Even if you take out the time to do essential chores, eating, showering and commuting you should still be left with a decent chunk of time.

It can sometimes feel like we are working like a hamster on a wheel but if you take a step back to plan your time and embrace the bits you have spare (maybe a few hours after work or even an hour before work) then you can perhaps see a bit more meaning to it all.

This article was intended to end hear but I was reminded of a conversation I had with a colleague who had recently had a baby about how he spends his time. To make more efficient use of his time he likes to see what can be combined together in order to essentially double your time. I am sure we all do this subconsciously but I found it really useful to purposefully look at what activities to do this with. Some things that he thought worked well together were :
- watching Netflix (i.e. some mental break time) whilst cycling on his exercise bike
- spending time with his wife and son whilst going for a walk
- listening to podcasts whilst driving to work

Obviously you cannot bung any 2 random activities together as the end result may be that you enjoy neither activity but still it may be worth thinking about.
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