Vanderkam - What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend

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WHAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO ON THE WEEKEND

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PORTFOLIO/PENGUIN

WHAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO ON THE WEEKEND

L AURA V ANDERKAM is the author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, USA Today, Scientific American, and Readers Digest, among other publications. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and their three children.

Visit lauravanderkam.com

Also by

Laura Vanderkam

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WHAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO BEFORE BREAKFAST:

A Short Guide to Making Over Your Morningsand Life

ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD:

What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending

168 HOURS:

You Have More Time Than You Think

GRINDHOPPING:

Build a Rewarding Career Without Paying Your Dues

WHAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO ON THE WEEKEND

A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off

Laura Vanderkam

A PENGUIN SPECIAL FROM

About the Book

Many of us breathe a grateful TGIF when Friday rolls around, envisioning a weekend full of both productivity and refreshment. Yet too often our precious weekends seem to disappear, eaten up by unproductive work or leisure that fails to energize us. Monday morning comes too fast, finding us still unrested with tasks still undone.

Time management expert Laura Vanderkam, continuing her What the Most Successful People Do series, shows how we can take control of our weekends to get necessary rest while also using our downtime as a springboard to a productive week.

Drawing on real-life anecdotes and scientific research, Vanderkam explains why doing nothing can be more exhausting than doing something and why happy people make weekend plans in advance. She shares weekend tips gleaned from busy people, such as politician and news host Mike Huckabee, former CEO Frank Baxter, and TV producer Aliza Rosen. She also lists the kind of weekend activities that make people happiest, explains why its important to unplug at least for a little while, and shares the secret of why Sunday nights may be the most important hours of the weekend.

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First published in the United States of America by Portfolio / Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2012

Copyright Laura Vanderkam, 2012

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-10162-028-1 (ePub)

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THE PARADOX OF WEEKENDS

Mike Huckabee is a busy man. The ordained Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas ran for president in 2008, but when that didnt work out he became a Republican Party influencer, raising money and campaigning for candidates who share his views. Hes just published his tenth book, he hosts a three-hour daily radio show during the week, and on Thursdays he travels to New York City from his home in Florida in preparation to tape his Fox News show, Huckabee. You dont have to agree with his politics to see that this is an exhausting schedule, particularly because he records his television show on Saturdays, guaranteeing him a six-day workweek. What makes it all possible?

Sundays. Thats pretty much my day to try to rest and have what I call some Mike time, Huckabee says. Its almost like running a marathon. You think, I know the finish line is out there, and you start visioning the finish line. Many days of the week I start visioning Sunday as the day I can kind of catch my breath. Im not on someone elses schedule and I dont have to turn on a mic at a certain time. From the time his plane lands at 7:45 p.m. on Saturday to the time hes recording a short Huckabee Report commentary later Sunday evening, its my time just to mentally recharge.

But what Huckabee describes as a leisurely day is far from slothful. Im a structured and orderly person, he says, and because his downtime is so limited, he has to be careful about how he spends it. I almost never just sit and watch television, he says. Instead, Huckabee has a plan. He gets up around 6 a.m. on Sunday morning and works out on the recumbent bike and elliptical machine while reading several newspapers (physical papers on the bike; electronic papers on the elliptical). He and his wife, Janet, attend the 10:45 a.m. service at Destiny Worship Center, where the music is contemporary, the preacher is fantastic, and if you want to wear shorts and dress in beach style, thats perfectly fine. After lunch, Huckabee does in fact hit the beach. The weather almost compels me to be outdoors, he says, and he usually spends the afternoon sitting on the beach and listening to nothing but the seagulls and the waves crash against the shore. Come dinner time, the Huckabees often have friends over, with Huckabee cookinga hobby he confesses to enjoying. Mostly its steaks or fish on the grill, or a tenderloin or ribs in the electric smoker. Its really kind of a good time, he says. Indeed, if weekdays feature the things he has to do, Sundays feature all the things that I would want to do.

Having recharged the batteries, Huckabee hits Monday relaxed, refreshed, and ready to take on the world. As he ponders how to describe his philosophy toward weekends, he offers two seemingly contradictory ideas. First, you have to commit to taking time offto keep a Sabbath of sorts, and carve out space for rest in a frenetic world. But second, you have to realize that this rest time is too precious to be totally leisurely about leisure. Dont enter into it with such a lack of structure that you dont do anything because you spend all day thinking about what you want to do, Huckabee advises. If you know you want to read a book, then get the book out and have it set aside and make plans to read it. Say its going to be at one. When that starts, get on it. Dont wait until that afternoon, then thinkcould I read? Or listen to some music? Or take a walk? Then youll sit about wasting an hour of what little time you have figuring out what to do with the rest of it. To make the most of your weekends, you tell yourself, look, what would make me really, really enjoy this day and kind of get me out of the normal routine and give me pleasure? Then say, this is what Im going to do, and come that time, be disciplined about that commitment, telling yourself, this is my appointment, just as if its a doctors appointment or an appointment to go to work.