4 Tips For A Happy & Less Hectic Weekend

Shawn Fink

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“I wish the weeks were only three-days long,” my daughter Jadyn said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because they would go faster.”

She loves school. She gets only top grades. She has more friends than she knows what to do with.

And yet there is simply nothing better, nothing more magical, and nothing more exciting than looking forward to the weekend.

The name alone evokes joy.

Weekends. Sigh.

Except, if you’ve been through a bad one or two, you know what that feeling of failure feels like come Monday morning when the work week begins again, and you feel like you just squandered yet another great opportunity to relax and enjoy life.

Or is this just me?

This kind of vicious cycle just creates more busy-ness in our lives, not less. I’ve never had a jam-packed weekend that left me exhausted really leave me more time in my week. I just didn’t get a weekend.

One of the mamas on my team emailed me one weekend recently.

“Weekends are hit or miss,” she wrote.

That’s about right.

You either have a really great one, or you have one where Monday can’t come fast enough.

The thing about being so busy all week is that we feel like we then must be really busy all weekend.

Slowing everything down is the entire theme of my new book, “The Abundant Mama’s Guide to Savoring Slow™.”

I intentionally chose the words Savoring Slow™ because life is busy, and we have to learn to grab onto our opportunities for slow moments with two hands and both sets of eyes — or we’ll miss it.

We will miss it.

What does this have to do with weekends?

Everything.

Our weekends set the tone for the week ahead. Finding that perfect balance of making up for the past week, preparing for the week ahead, and relaxing and recharging can be seriously challenging for any busy family — mine included.

I keep trying to make it my mission to have a wonderful, relaxing weekend. So we try our best to get the hard work done all week so the weekends can be what they are intended — restful and energizing.

Because I want to live a life that embodies savoring slow moments and recharging so that every day feels wonderful and not rushed.

We want to put the happy into our weekends, in other words.

Here are 4 Savoring Slow Tips for a Happy Weekend

Develop a solid weekend schedule

Children who thrive on consistency and routine can feel scattered and overwhelmed by a weekend. So actually throwing everything out the window and just going with the flow may not be a happy trick for your family if this is the case. Keeping weekends roughly the same, for the most part, can help ease a child into the transition easier. This is a great time to create that one weekend tradition that you all look forward to each and every week.

Put down time on your to-do list

It’s so easy to let the work take over since everyone’s home and available — and there’s so much to do! But work is not how we recharge. So make sure to blend leisure and fun time into the schedule for everyone, yourself included. If you do not make time for down-time it just will not happen. Make it your priority — even above cleaning out the garage. Save that for a Tuesday.

Avoid over-scheduling

Leaving weekends open offers a lot of time and space that a busy family needs. This leaves lots of room to be creative and read and doing other things we love. This is how we replenish ourselves for the hectic week ahead. This is how we start to really live a slower life. The calendar doesn’t need to be filled up to feel important.

Get outside and breathe

Being outside to enjoy the fresh air — even just for 15 minutes a day — really makes for happier children and parents. Please don’t just send the kids outside to play. Go outside yourself. Soak in the breeze and gather some precious Vitamin D from just spending 10 minutes in the sunshine. Make it your priority to never get to Monday and realize you didn’t get outside to enjoy the world around you.

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