Top Ten Things Not To Do on the Weekend

~ John W. Howell
Photo by Carl Campbell on Unsplash

This post ran on June 9th, 2014, and was coauthored by Marie Ann Bailey and me. Since we still have weekends, maybe it will offer some tips.

Top Ten Things Not To Do on the Weekend

10. On the weekend, do not attempt to catch up on all the sleep you missed during the week. If you do try, at best, you may miss a few meals. At worst, you might just find Monday morning arriving way too soon.

9. On the weekend, do not try to complete a week’s worth of exercise in one weekend day. If you do, at best, your body will remind you to take it easy next time. At worst, you will need to call the EMS to help you out of bed on Monday morning.

8. On the weekend, do not try to drink all the beer and margaritas you missed during the week. If you do, at best, you will still feel bad the following Friday. At worst,  you could have a monumental lost weekend and wake up naked,  restrained to a gurney at the county hospital with no idea how you got there nor how long you’ve been.

7. On the weekend, do not feel you must fill in every hour with an activity to make up for the sedentary week. If you do, at best, you just might need a vacation after the weekend is over. At worst, you may be in a position to regret not having a stress test a little sooner.

6. On the weekend, do not power shop to make up for the times you were at work during the week. If you do, at best, you may see the end of the available money before the end of the available time to shop. At worst, you ignore the end of the money warning and continue shopping until your credit card company mercifully cuts you off in the most exclusive store.

5. On the weekend, do not do a marathon of chores hoping to catch up on those you missed during the week. If you do, at best, you will run out of daylight before the work is done. At worst, you will run out of energy and be faced with the end of the weekend and the prospect of an exhausted Monday morning.

4. On the weekend, do not try to watch every show you recorded during the week. If you do, at best, you will feel you have worked all weekend just watching TV. At worst, you will show up on Monday with bloodshot eyes and pasty skin, leading everyone to believe you were in solitary confinement in jail for the weekend.

3. On the weekend, do not take a little work home with you. If you do, at best, you will have to sneak around to get it done before the family finds out. At worst, your boss will find out you are working during the weekend, so the little work will turn into two full days of business as usual.

2. On the weekend, if you are a writer, do not try to not write. If you do, at best, you will become increasingly grumpy until your family locks you in your writing room. At worst, you will be successful in not writing and then will be crushed by the guilt of ages simply because you are now two thousand words off your target, causing you to change genres from Romance to Horror Fiction.

1. On the weekend, do not forget to find time to relax and recharge. If you do forget, at best, your productivity for the next week will suffer. At worst, your nerves will probably be at the point of shattering, and all will let loose when your hapless boss asks you to stay for an hour more on Monday with significantly ugly results.

65 thoughts on “Top Ten Things Not To Do on the Weekend”

  4. Do not decide to mow your lawn at 7am on Saturday so you ‘have the rest of the weekend to relax.’ You might be dealing with angry neighbors for the rest of Saturday.

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  7. I’ve been guilty of a few of these, John, sad to admit! No. 2, in particular, is such a temptation, even though we all know how writing on the weekend can go wrong.

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  11. Still solid advice. The sleep part though — every science thing says bedtime and wake time should stay consistent but it’s so hard not to stay up later and sleep in…

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  18. Yes if you don’t relax a bit during the weekend you get burned out. I volunteered (under pressure) to work in Oklahoma City installing robots for a month. It was nearly 16hr days almost every day including weekend and my wife had to hold the fort on her own. It was brutal and I got nothing for it other than being sick of it, and I missed some important events.

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  20. I had to smile at the increased exercise advice. We humans can’t seem to wrap our heads around the idea that we can’t cram a year’s worth into a weekend.

    The same thing happens every new year at my gym. Many new people join and approach it with great enthusiasm. Unfortunately, they usually drop out by the end of the first month.

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  27. The first time my father-in-law went to the US was around 1990. One of the things he talked about often when he returned was how people in the US seem to go mad every weekend and how they wanted to fulfil all desires they could not during the week. Of course, I am proud to say that with increasing corporatization, most people in India have also been subsequently affected by the condition.

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