My friend Brad Feld takes a digital sabbath. No email, internet, phone for 24 hours from Friday night to Saturday night.
I’ve not been willing or able to do that but I do try to work less on the weekends.
I don’t go to the office under any circumstances on the weekends and I don’t take business meetings on the weekends either. I have told that to a few people over the years and they responded “I didn’t think I was business”. Oh well. I do not mean to offend.
I do generally spend Saturday morning in my home office catching up on personal/family work which I try not to do much of during the week. I remember my Dad doing the same when I was growing up. I did not consciously model that behavior after him but I do know where I got the idea.
The rest of the weekend is largely time off for me. I like to spend Saturday afternoons out and about with the Gotham Gal and Sunday mornings on a bike ride with my daughter, which I did today, or playing golf with friends, which I did last Sunday.
I also try like hell to get an afternoon nap in on both Saturday and Sunday.
And Sunday evenings is almost always a family meal with our kids. I look forward to that so much now that they don’t live with us anymore.
I could have titled this post “Not Working Weekends” but the truth is I do work on the weekends. I often will catch up on email on the weekends when the inbound is slower. It is the only time of the week I can seem to make a dent in my inbox.
And I will do calls on the weekends when it is necessary which is frequently.
But slowing it down for a couple days a week is a great habit and one that I’ve gotten a lot better at over the years.
I do believe that a rested body and mind is a better body and mind and the best time to make that happen is on the weekends, particularly a gorgeous fall weekend like we are having in NYC right now.
