Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the
Speaker 1: new world of work, where location and hours are more
Speaker 1: flexible than in the past. Today's tip is to embrace
Speaker 1: your weekends. Yes, even now, make Saturday different from Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Even if you spend your time in the same place
Speaker 1: on Saturdays and Tuesdays, you don't need to spend your
Speaker 1: time in the same way. There's a great scene in
Speaker 1: the TV series Downton Abbey when a young lawyer offers
Speaker 1: that he can visit on the weekends. An aristocratic older
Speaker 1: lady asks, what is the weekend? With a life of leisure,
Speaker 1: the day of the week makes no difference to her.
Speaker 1: If every day is defined by pleasure and relaxation, then
Speaker 1: your life might as well be a series of Saturdays.
Speaker 1: But if you're listening to this podcast and aiming to
Speaker 1: maximize your productivity, my guest is that in normal times,
Speaker 1: you are keenly aware of week days and you get
Speaker 1: a lot of good work done. In normal times, you
Speaker 1: would never mistake a Sunday for a Wednesday. But these
Speaker 1: are not normal times. For many people, it's become hard
Speaker 1: to distinguish the days from each other. Now, this might
Speaker 1: not be the case if you've got kids home with
Speaker 1: you who are thrilled to get two days off from
Speaker 1: their zoom classes. But if it's just you or mostly
Speaker 1: adults in your household, it's easy to find yourself working
Speaker 1: on Saturday and Sunday as if they were no different
Speaker 1: from the Thursday and Friday you just worked your way through. Now.
Speaker 1: I will never tell people not to work on a
Speaker 1: weekend if you don't have a religious prohibition against it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing inherently wrong with catching up on some tasks
Speaker 1: on a Saturday, or as I'm doing right now, writing
Speaker 1: podcast scripts at seven am on Sunday. But for most
Speaker 1: people to be able to work remotely sustainably, it's helpful
Speaker 1: to maintain some sort of weekly rhythm. To be at
Speaker 1: our best, we need times to rest and recharge. Over
Speaker 1: the longer term, will probably get more done if you're
Speaker 1: not working a normal work schedule seven days a week.
Speaker 1: To keep work from taking over your weekend, you need
Speaker 1: to do two things. First. If you find yourself board,
Speaker 1: find something non work related to do. Yes. This is
Speaker 1: more challenging if you live in a place where leaving
Speaker 1: the house is still problematic, but it is still possible.
Speaker 1: Remind yourself of your leisure options. Go for a walk,
Speaker 1: call a friend, get absorbed in a good book or
Speaker 1: in practicing music, fire up the grill and experiment. Don't
Speaker 1: think of this as frittering away time you could be working. Instead,
Speaker 1: think of it as cross training. Athletes often devote time
Speaker 1: to complementary sports. A runner might bike two days a
Speaker 1: week to maintain a robic capacity while minimizing wear and tear. Likewise,
Speaker 1: as you putter in your garden, you might think of
Speaker 1: some design concepts to incorporate in your work. Effort Ful
Speaker 1: fun if seldom wasted. Second, if you do need to
Speaker 1: work over the weekend, or if you'd like to invest
Speaker 1: time in a bigger professional project, set some time aside
Speaker 1: specifically for that. I'm working from five thirty a m.
Speaker 1: To eight thirty a m. On Sunday morning, so the
Speaker 1: rest of the day is open. If you don't have
Speaker 1: young kids, you probably don't need to get up that early.
Speaker 1: But if you know that you'll work from four to
Speaker 1: eight p m. On Sunday, then you can resist the
Speaker 1: urge to check email the rest of the weekend. There's
Speaker 1: a time for work and it's not. Now you'll be
Speaker 1: more focused and efficient and feel more relaxed. Of course,
Speaker 1: part of making weekends special is not treating week days
Speaker 1: like weekends. I probably don't have to tell you this,
Speaker 1: but you're best off creating a challenging but doable to
Speaker 1: do list for Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest and knocking
Speaker 1: those items out. If you spend the day surfing the
Speaker 1: web or organizing the pantry, then you'll feel behind and
Speaker 1: feel like you need to work all of Saturday, and
Speaker 1: the psyche gets messy. Building a weekly schedule with time
Speaker 1: for work and time for everything else makes success and
Speaker 1: personal fulfillment possible, and that sounds good to me any
Speaker 1: day of the week. In the meantime, this is Laura,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to succeeding in the New
Speaker 1: Corner Office. The New Corner Office is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, visit the I Heart
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