Everyone, or at least most of everyone I know, like weekends. It's time for them to totally switch off, not have to think about what they've been doing from Monday to Friday, and just do things differently. The same for vacations.
I remember a two week vacation I had many years ago. The vacation was enjoyable. Lots of snow. Lots of company and good food. But guess what? When I got back to work, I was faced with triple or quadruble the problems I would have had to face If I'd kept in touch during the so-called vacation.
Once I took a weekend off (Friday afternoon to Monday morning) to somewhere without internet and emails and my laptop. Sure enough, when I returned on Monday, it took the whole of that week to catch up on what I'd missed out.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a workaholic. I like weekends and I like to have time ro relax, do things I didn't have time to do on weekdays, and catch up with friends. But I always like to keep in touch even on weekends.
It doesn't mean that I have to respond to that email or SMS I receive during the weekend. But keep tabs of everything even on a weekend will enable us to have a headstart when Monday morning breaks.
I'm not stressed. Possible just in control.
Having the information and choosing when to react and respond to that information is more soothing than a day on the beach only to come back and be totally stressed about what's fed to us via email or SMS. Besides, while I'm not working, there may be others who are working toward getting things organized for first thing Monday morning.
Imagine someone who needs to know if you can have a meeting with them on Monday morning? Would you rather hear about that on Saturday night, or would you rather wake up on Monday morning to find that someone has been kept in limbo for two days? Would you rather wake up on Monday morning knowing exactly what meetings you have to attend that morning, or have someone SMS you about an answer he/she is waiting for since Saturday?
Would you rather have a leisurely start to you Mondays, or go through an adrenalin rush once you wake up to rush to a meeting which you should have been well prepared for, had you checked your email or SMS on Saturday.
Most people are trying to shun the electronic age when it comes to weekends. They want to go back to the times before internet and SMSes. They want to have "convventional" weekends where your boss, colleagues, clientsl, and vendors can't communicate with you until Monday. That's passe, really. Antiquated. And unless we change our mindsets, we will find ourselves having to fight those who are more technologically savvy, eager to stay "on top" of what they need to do on Mondays and can enjoy their weekends thoroughly, knowing that they will be well prepared for their Monday mornings
Food fo thought, perhaps, for those of you who go by conventional expectations of your weekends?
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