A lot of people spend their time thinking about how they want to spend their weekend productively. Conventional meaning of “Productivity” is often thought of doing things, in place of self-reflection, and rest. However, it does not mean to be busy. The modern definition of productivity is to give your mind a break from the busy schedule so that you become happier, more efficient, and more creative in the future.
Being productive from time to time saves yours mind from exhaustion that can lead to less attentiveness and less engagement at workplace. In this article, we will tell you some innovative ways of how you can make your weekends productive.
Ways To Make Your Valuable Weekend More Productive
Weekends are not meant for sitting on the couch, binging on junk foods, and watching Netflix. It is not the best way to spend those two hard-earned days in the week. There are more effective ways to make this time productive.
1. Sleep Well
Sleep is one of the sources of energy. It makes a person energetic. Sleep relieves from stress that we accumulate every day. People who are sleep deficient are at a high risk of developing obesity, heart ailment, lethargic, low immunity due to fewer antibodies, stroke, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance that causes diabetes.
Poor sleep reduces productivity in the body. It impacts the area of the brain that is involved in creation and consolidation of memory in the brain. To increase your work productivity, it is required to get eight hours of sound sleep every night. If you can’t manage to get adequate sleep on weekdays, then try to compensate it on your weekends.
2. Plan for the next week
You can make productive use of your time by reflecting on the last week and what you need to accomplish in the coming week. It does not have to be official tasks, it can be planning a trip, performing some adventurous task, preparing for a competition, cooking your favorite meal, publishing a guest post, getting a facial or a massage, getting routine health-checkups, shopping for the upcoming event, schedule any appointment / meeting, and more.
It takes only an hour on the weekend to relieves yourself of Monday Blues. When you do the preparation in advance, you will be able to go to sleep with a calm mind. With a clarity, and focus, you will be able to complete your tasks as intended.
3. Prioritize your work
It is important to prioritize the task, and aim at completing the ones that are high in priority. Now the question is to how to prioritize your to-do list. Compare the effort needed to accomplish the task, and its immediate impact.
Put those tasks on the top most priority that provides you the most immediate effect in the least time. Prioritization of tasks give you more time for yourself.
4. Don’t crowd your weekends
It is important to understand that those two days are for relaxing and recharging, so do not make your weekends crowded. If you wake up with a list of twenty to-do items, then there are maximum chances to end up stressed. Weekends becomes a burden more than relaxation.
Many people have this habit of procrastinate all their pending work on the weekend. You may not even be able to complete all your tasks in those two days of time. The remaining tasks will get carried over to the next weekend and that can add up to your tension. Try to complete smaller tasks from Thursday itself, so that you are left with lesser pending jobs for the weekend.
5. Stay Off From Gadgets, Social Media, Mails etc.
You have been making consistent use phones, laptops, tablets etc. on all the five days of the week. On these two days of your weekend, you should give yourself a break. You may be tempted to check your mails, and reply them, or view posts on social media, and like/comment on them, but do not waste on them on your weekend.
6. Pamper Yourself
Make time for yourself. Weekends are the best way to address your body needs and work to give it the comfort that it longs for. Your body is similar to a machine. You need to give some break to make it run more efficiently. As you need to fast a day in a week to increase the efficiency of your digestive system, you need to give your mind a break to boost its functioning.
This can be done by doing all those activities that gives you the best relaxation. It can be getting a head massage, body massage, manicure, pedicure, facial, spa, steam and more. The weekend is for you to rejuvenate, so make sure you use it in the correct way.
7. Socialize
Throughout the week you may not be able to talk to your friends, family members, relatives etc. Weekend is the time to socialize. Go for the things that make you smile and maintain a work-life balance.
Dedicate time to things that are equally important as work. It can be scheduling your time to organize a social gathering in the form of watching a movie, going to a restaurant, celebrate, involve in hobbies, and more. You can even call your friends at home for a dinner and dance party.
8. Do Activities That Relaxes You
Those five hectic days can cause a burnout. You need to find out non-work activities to relax your mind. It can be listening to your favorite music, playing a musical instrument like guitar, dancing on your favorite track, swimming, cooking your favorite dish, playing with your pets, going for a nature walk, doing gardening, trying a new nail paint, or a haircut etc.
When you indulge in your hobbies, it will foster creativity in you. This works as a stress buster. You will find yourself becoming more happier, and successful person. Meditation is one of the ways to release stress from the mind. It improves your overall health in extraordinary ways. With better focus, lower stress, and high creativity, not just your health mental and physical health improves but also your productivity improves.
On your weekend, you can try meditating using different types of guided meditations. You can easily find self-guided audio tapes of meditation online. Meditation is one of the simplest ways of relaxation that purifies and revitalizes billions of cells in the body. Just five minutes of meditation a day can give you enormous mental strength to accomplish your work beyond expectations. Learning meditation and incorporating in your daily routine will make wonders to your health.
9. Develop a Skill
Weekends are a great way to enhance your skills. Add some variation to your skills. Learn any opposite skill, from the one/ ones that you normally use throughout the week. If you are spending a lot of time working on presentations, and excel spreadsheets, then you can try learning fun activities such as hiking, dancing, zumba, skiing, and cooking.
If you possess writing skills, and love to write, then you can even write guests blogs, or make a website and post informative articles that will support people. It will, in turn, give you a better feeling. It is a way to enrich your skills. For example, people who love dancing, can take dance sessions to teach students, etc. These stress-busting activities do not take much time, but will definitely bring a shift in your focus. You will feel fresh, and energetic to deal with the challenges of the next week strongly.
Bringing modifications in activities you do supports in re-wiring your brain. It keeps you engaged, and interested. It helps you make new associations, and connections. Vary up of the skills to get creative.
Throughout the week you use your left side of the brain to accomplish your work. By engaging yourself in creative works, you exercise your right side of the brain. This helps in balancing both the areas of the brain equally. This is required because a creative person is more capable of dealing with problems in a better way.
10. Do Guest Posting
Weekend is the time to do those things that you love and can’t make time for it during the week. Guest posting is one of the ways to strengthen your professional network and reputation. If you have an interest in writing, sharing your ideas, and knowledge, then you can set up your personal blog, and start posting authentic and informative articles on it as well as on media channels. It is an effective way to reach a wide online audience.
Choose the area where you specialize and start writing authentic content to enrich the knowledge and experience of users. Not just this selfless service will help in creating a positive impact in their life, but will also give you an inner satisfaction. It only takes an hour to cherish your hobby, help others and enhance your productivity too.
11. Simply Do Nothing
If you have got a lot exhausted during the week, then doing nothing could be the way to get productive. An obligation-free day is the best way to relax your body. You may be habitual of accomplishing a lot during the week, and it can make you guilty of not doing anything during the weekend. You should understand that your decision of not doing anything such as chores, house related work, outside work etc. will help your body to recharge its batteries.
12. Clean your living spaces
Some people like to do household cleaning, paper filing and other organizational works during their weekend. Decluttering you home gives you happiness, and peace. It releases stress, and makes you more efficient at work. A cleaner space makes you feel good and gives you clarity of mind. You can even donate the things that you find unnecessary for your use to either charity, or sell to your friend.
13. Get Into Some Social Service
Have you ever experienced how much great it feels when you help something or bring about any positive change in life of people without any vested interest of your own? It is a such a great feeling that is hard to put down in words.
When you come out of your comfort zone, and think about and help the poor and needy people in the society, your consciousness gets elevated. You feel positive, contended, and unconditionally happy. People who are involved in charity services feel energized and more capable of accomplishing their goals in life. Their outlook towards the life becomes widened.
They feel capable of not just serving their needs, but also accommodating other’s needs too. What you give is what you get. If you remove pain, worry or poverty from other’s life, then you can see that the divine does the same to you. So, weekend is the best time to take out an hour to work towards strengthening your community, and enhancing the lives of people. When you take care of them, nature will take care of you.
There are various ways to do social service, one of the ways is to join an NGO, or non-profit organization. As per your time commitments you can get involved in their local and community level volunteering events. Also, you can check out youth center, local library, homeless shelter, or hospital to find any volunteering opportunity.
Conclusion
To be productive does not mean to be busy and accomplishing a greater number of tasks. It implies to be more effective, and efficient at work and personal front. It is more related to completing tasks in the best possible manner. This can only happen when we give ourselves some break and spend time to rewire ourselves whenever required.
If you overexert yourself, then it is definitely going to make you fatigue, stressful, angry and more. When you lose mental peace, then your personal relationships, and professional relationships will suffer. So, use these tips to make your weekend relaxing, and productive.
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