OPTED Magazine

This past weekend was a rarity for me.  Most of my projects had wrapped up the week before, I had no events or travel scheduled, and with a rainy weekend it was the perfect excuse to take it easy.  Now, I’m not the type of person who can sit still for long unless I’m accomplishing something (I’m working on that!) and getting used to enjoying pure relaxation time (without multi-tasking) can be a challenge for me.  Do you feel that way?  I’d love to hear how common this feeling may be!

Needless to say, on my “off” weekend, with no agenda and no constraints, I did a lot of thinking about what is the perfect balance of relaxation and productivity on a weekend.

I woke up on Saturday morning determined to find a happy medium between feeling useful around the house and enjoying much needed free time.  I made a decision that Sunday would be a day of rest and Saturday I would split my time between “productive” tasks and fun time.  It’s simple mind trickery that works every time — if my brain knows that for 48 hours I have one entire day to do whatever I want, the house chores don’t seem as bad when I get them out of the way at the front end of the weekend!

I also elected to complete 4 tasks, while not big by any stretch of the imagination, still had a big impact on my psyche and will certainly keep me in a good frame of mind in the week ahead:

1. Cleaning out the fridge — it’s a great feeling to see exactly what is fresh and consumable and to know that the bad stuff has been removed on time for trash day.  And as an added bonus it helps for constructing a weekly meal plan.
2. Clearing off my desk — there’s nothing like a gleaming, clear desk to start out the week.  I try to do this on Friday afternoons before the weekend as well.  A cluttered space truly is a cluttered mind.
3. Catching up on laundry — knowing that all my clothing is clean helps me stay on top of my schedule for the week.  No more scrambling for a matching outfit now that everything is clean and put away!  It’s also the perfect task that can fit in between other chores while the washer and dryer are each in different stages.
4. One decluttering project — any time I have a free window of time I pick a decluttering project to tackle.  I didn’t count my desk for this exercise (that would be cheating!) and instead chose to clear out my coupons.  With such a hectic few weeks, the stack of coupons waiting to be filed vastly exceeded those in my mini accordion and many coupons had already expired.  And wasted money does no good for my mood!

There was still some cleaning and tidying here and there, but for the most part I silenced the perfectionist in my head, if only for one weekend, to enjoy quality time at home.  There was much good football to be watched!

After this weekend I came to an important conclusion: I take life a little too seriously and productivity practiced 24/7 is not good for the soul.  I really challenged myself to change my habits, even if I consider those habits to be beneficial most of the time.

For anyone reading this that is seeking a more productive and organized life, my one piece of advice is to hold onto at least 3% of your unplanned, unstructured self (and ideally more!)  Give yourself time to unwind and enjoy simple pleasures and it will reinvigorate you for the work week ahead.

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