Weekends are supposed to be all about relaxation and refreshing, but often this remains a theory, and not reality. We all know the feeling of weekends disappearing in the blink of an eye; the surprise at where has this weekend gone?
But this doesn’t have to be this way.
Weekends became incredibly important for me in the last few years. I take them very seriously and try to make the most of them. Sure, there are the odd weekends spent with work or errands, but only if it’s really unavoidable. Most of the time I make sure I use them to totally recharge and refresh.
This was not an easy process, it actually took me years to get to a place where I can stop thinking about work, resist the urge to constantly check my phone or use these 2 days to catch up with life admin. My time in the US was really a turning point and shaped the way I now think about weekends.
Because I was only there for a year, I knew I wanted to maximize that time – see, do, experience as many things as I could. Thus I really made an effort to make the most of the weekends – I constantly scouted the local program pages, planned short and long trips, and really went out of my comfort zone. As I said, the fact that it was only a temporary thing really helped – I knew it would end soon, so I wanted to gather as many experiences as I could.
That year was really transformative for me in many ways, and I really wanted to keep up this more outgoing approach to life back at home as well.
In many ways, it is similar to how we behave during vacations. I know I’m way more active when I’m traveling, wandering around even when my feet hurt like hell because I want to see, try, taste, and experience as many things as I can. And it’s not tiring at all – just the opposite. The way I really recharge and refresh is through experiences.
But this doesn’t need to only happen during the rare vacation days. And that’s exactly the reason why I plan a lot of my weekends.
I know it may sound bad or too limiting. After all, we juggle a dozen to-do list during the week, why the hell would we want to plan our free time?
But the thing is, planning for me is not about restricting – it’s about maximizing.
I don’t plan and micromanage my weekends down to the last seconds, but I try to make sure I have a couple of things planned – whether it’s a reservation I made in advance, a friend or family get-together I organized, or a program I plan on visiting. Often, these planned activities are just the beginnings, which then lead to more spontaneous oh, now we’re here, let’s grab something to eat, hey that place I read so much about is nearby, or this day is so beautiful, let’s just walk around some more decisions or the coolest random experiences or finds.
Of course, sometimes we just want to do “nothing” – just lay around, take it easy, curl up with a good book or do a marathon Netflix session. And that’s fine, I love those programs as well. But I also know myself and my shortcomings and I don’t want my natural laziness to stand in the way of experiences. Sometimes it takes an effort to go out, but in the end, I always, always come to the conclusion that it was all worth it.
If you’d like to get more serious about your weekend programs, here are the three tools I find the most useful.
The local city guide
I have a favorite Budapest website that’s all about exploring what’s new and interesting in the city, from new restaurants, cafés to festivals, outdoor programs, seasonal recommendations, exhibitions, concerts, and under the radar niche programs – you name it, they have it. They also make a weekend guide every Thursday curating the most interesting upcoming weekend events. That’s my go-to source for all weekend ideas and it’s become a very enjoyable Thursday routine of mine to browse that list and plan my weekends. I’m sure you too have a local website or a newsletter you can subscribe to for some inspiration. And if there’s nothing that really interests me, I turn to my weekend bucket lists.
The weekend bucket list
I already mentioned my quite elaborate excel in my How I plan my year in advance post in January, and the part that is useful in this case is the mini bucket list. I have a running list of things I’d like to do, try, see and I regularly check it when I’m putting together my weekend plans. Whenever I come across a new place I’d like to try, an interesting spot, or an activity idea, I put them on my list.
At the beginning of each new season, I also sit down and put together a seasonal bucket list. These collections are really incredibly useful and quite motivating as well.
Mapstr
Mapstr is a digital map app that I use for bookmarking my favorite places in my city (or any city, for that matter, I also use it when I’m traveling). What I like about this app is the organizational feature. I can search for, save, and then use tags to organize the places – like cafés, restaurants, places to try etc. It really comes handy when I’m out and about and want some inspiration on what to visit in the area I’m at.
Take your weekends seriously and make every second count.
