Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to plan each weekend twice. By planning
Speaker 1: about a week ahead and then a day or two ahead,
Speaker 1: you increase the chances of having a weekend that is
Speaker 1: really worth celebrating. Longtime listeners know that I like to
Speaker 1: plan my upcoming weeks on Fridays, on Friday, or sometimes
Speaker 1: even Thursday. If I feel like I'm getting ahead of
Speaker 1: the game, I look at my upcoming Monday to Sunday
Speaker 1: week and figure out what needs to happen and what
Speaker 1: I'd like to see happen. That means that I am
Speaker 1: planning the weekend that is after the upcoming one, that
Speaker 1: is the one that is eight to nine days into
Speaker 1: the future. Now, obviously this needs to be a relatively
Speaker 1: loose plan, as the weather can change and people get
Speaker 1: social invitations and in general stuff comes up. But if
Speaker 1: there are any big anchor events or adventures to plan,
Speaker 1: or logistics that are complicated, all this can be worked
Speaker 1: out far ahead of time. Then when I am planning
Speaker 1: on Thursday or Friday, I look at the weekend that
Speaker 1: is coming up soon that is the one that is
Speaker 1: only a day or two into the future. Now the
Speaker 1: weather forecast is known and the contours of the weekend
Speaker 1: are more clear, I can make a more detailed plan.
Speaker 1: I'd been doing this for a while before I realized
Speaker 1: that planning weekends twice was actually a good idea. It's
Speaker 1: a quirk of when I plan, because this wouldn't happen
Speaker 1: if I planned on Sunday nights or on Monday mornings.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a good quirk. In many cases,
Speaker 1: people treat weekends as an afterthought.
Speaker 2: We are so tired from the week that they get
Speaker 2: to the weekend and think they want to do nothing.
Speaker 2: But it is impossible to do nothing. You will do something,
Speaker 2: but it might not be nearly as rejuvenating as if
Speaker 2: you had thought a little bit about it. Or sometimes
Speaker 2: weekends become a forced march of chores and children's activities.
Speaker 2: You just deal with what urgently has to be done
Speaker 2: and you don't think about what you would like to do.
Speaker 2: That can make a weekend feel like not much fun
Speaker 2: at all. Planning eight to nine days ahead lets you
Speaker 2: get the lay of the land and make plans for
Speaker 2: any bigger things. It's going to be hard to do
Speaker 2: a big day trip or find a sitter, or get
Speaker 2: a reservation at that hot place, or tickets for an
Speaker 2: in demand show. If you don't think about your weekend
Speaker 2: until Friday afternoon, and then you might not do anything
Speaker 2: Friday evening because you won't have managed your energy for
Speaker 2: that possibility. So get a rough plan a week ahead,
Speaker 2: and then you get to refine it close to the
Speaker 2: event itself. You can tweak based on whether and other
Speaker 2: things that come up. You've been thinking about the weekend
Speaker 2: at least to a degree during the week because you
Speaker 2: have a rough plan, and so you may come up
Speaker 2: with more ideas are ways of doing things even better.
Speaker 2: In general, when we plan things twice, we wind up
Speaker 2: taking them more seriously and spending the time better than
Speaker 2: if we only do one last minute plan. Now, a
Speaker 2: last minute plan is definitely better than nothing, but I
Speaker 2: take my weekends seriously. I think in a busy life,
Speaker 2: leisure time is too precious to be totally leisurely about leisure.
Speaker 2: I also want to figure out fun ways to spend
Speaker 2: time with my family members. My kids are growing up.
Speaker 2: They'll be out of the house before I know it.
Speaker 2: If we have the chance to do cool things together.
Speaker 2: Why not take it. If you feel the same, then
Speaker 2: maybe you'd enjoy planning your weekends twice too. Each planning
Speaker 2: session really only has to take a few minutes, but
Speaker 2: do this enough and you'll get weekends that are worth
Speaker 2: looking forward to. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 2: or feedback, you can reach.
Speaker 1: Me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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