So, I don’t know about you, but to me the idea of having to work on the weekend has always made me depressed… and I mean seriously depressed!
I like to imagine that the weekend is my time to relax and have some fun, but the sad reality of student life is that weekend work is almost unavoidable. We all find ourselves slaving away on last-minute assignments or pulling long shifts at part-time jobs – and I’d be confident to say that most of us probably get upset or stressed out about having to do this, because we feel like our ‘fun-time’ has been stolen away from us.
BUT – and don’t bite my head off for saying this – I’ve recently found that working on weekends can actually improve work-life balance.
First thing first, I am not the only one who thinks this. In his blog ’20 successful habits I learned working for two billionaires’, Paul C. Brunson shares Lesson #7 – Take No Days Off (Completely).
Now, to clarify, this does not mean that you should never take a break – quite the opposite actually. Instead, the idea is to do some work each and every day to help you better keep on top of workloads and avoid those days or even weeks where you are completely overloaded. This also means that you have time to relax and have some fun every single day, which is essentially what the Rule of 8 Challenge is all about.
Further, shorter work days means heightened productivity. My previous blog on productive planning outlined the concept of the circadian clock, which basically illustrates that there are only a limited number of hours in the day where we are truly alert. By working within these time frames, we’re able to make better use of our time, which ultimately equates to less time spent in front of the computer overall!
Lastly, working weekends means that the awful backlog of work we all have to face on a Monday is reduced, therefore preventing the need for us to dread the start of the work week. As a bonus extra, those guilty feelings of ‘damn, I should have done this on the weekend’ are also nullified, therefore improving our general levels of happiness.
If you think about it – and I mean REALLY think about it, without letting your emotions towards weekend work get in the way – it makes a lot of sense. Rather than pulling 12 hour days 5 days a week, weekend work means you can do 8 (ish) hours of work 7 days a week, leaving you a lot more time to do the things you want to do.
The result is that rather than having 5 days of hell and 2 days of joy, you will have 7 days of happy.
And isn’t that what we all want?
What are your thoughts on weekend work? Let me know in the comments below:)
– Paris
Rule of 8 