Plan each weekend twice

The key to a really great weekend

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today's tip is to plan each weekend twice. By planning
about a week ahead and then a day or two ahead,
you increase the chances of having a weekend that is
really worth celebrating. Longtime listeners know that I like to
plan my upcoming weeks on Fridays, on Friday, or sometimes

(00:38):
even Thursday. If I feel like I'm getting ahead of
the game, I look at my upcoming Monday to Sunday
week and figure out what needs to happen and what
I'd like to see happen. That means that I am
planning the weekend that is after the upcoming one, that
is the one that is eight to nine days into
the future. Now, obviously this needs to be a relatively

(01:02):
loose plan, as the weather can change and people get
social invitations and in general stuff comes up. But if
there are any big anchor events or adventures to plan,
or logistics that are complicated, all this can be worked
out far ahead of time. Then when I am planning
on Thursday or Friday, I look at the weekend that

(01:24):
is coming up soon that is the one that is
only a day or two into the future. Now the
weather forecast is known and the contours of the weekend
are more clear, I can make a more detailed plan.
I'd been doing this for a while before I realized
that planning weekends twice was actually a good idea. It's

(01:46):
a quirk of when I plan, because this wouldn't happen
if I planned on Sunday nights or on Monday mornings.
But I think it's a good quirk. In many cases,
people treat weekends as an afterthought.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
We are so tired from the week that they get
to the weekend and think they want to do nothing.
But it is impossible to do nothing. You will do something,
but it might not be nearly as rejuvenating as if
you had thought a little bit about it. Or sometimes
weekends become a forced march of chores and children's activities.

(02:22):
You just deal with what urgently has to be done
and you don't think about what you would like to do.
That can make a weekend feel like not much fun
at all. Planning eight to nine days ahead lets you
get the lay of the land and make plans for
any bigger things. It's going to be hard to do
a big day trip or find a sitter, or get
a reservation at that hot place, or tickets for an

(02:44):
in demand show. If you don't think about your weekend
until Friday afternoon, and then you might not do anything
Friday evening because you won't have managed your energy for
that possibility. So get a rough plan a week ahead,
and then you get to refine it close to the
event itself. You can tweak based on whether and other

(03:04):
things that come up. You've been thinking about the weekend
at least to a degree during the week because you
have a rough plan, and so you may come up
with more ideas are ways of doing things even better.
In general, when we plan things twice, we wind up
taking them more seriously and spending the time better than

(03:26):
if we only do one last minute plan. Now, a
last minute plan is definitely better than nothing, but I
take my weekends seriously. I think in a busy life,
leisure time is too precious to be totally leisurely about leisure.
I also want to figure out fun ways to spend

(03:47):
time with my family members. My kids are growing up.
They'll be out of the house before I know it.
If we have the chance to do cool things together.
Why not take it. If you feel the same, then
maybe you'd enjoy planning your weekends twice too. Each planning
session really only has to take a few minutes, but

(04:08):
do this enough and you'll get weekends that are worth
looking forward to. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.

(04:30):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.