What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off

by Laura Vanderkam

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 too much still undone.Time management expert Laura Vanderkam, continuing her series on What the Most Successful People Do, shows how we can take control of our weekends to get necessary R&R, 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 talk show host Mike Huckabee, former CEO Frank Baxter, and TV producer Aliza Rosen. She reveals the kind of weekend activities that make people happiest, explains why it’s important to unplug at least for a little while, and shares the secret of why Sunday night may be the most important part of any weekend.  



What the Most Successful People Do On the Weekend  is a fun, practical guide that will inspire you to rethink your weekends and start your workweek refreshed, renewed, and on track.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Productivity, Business, Personal Development, Audiobook, Personal Growth

48 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 31, 2012

About the author

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including:
The New Corner Office
Off the Clock
I Know How She Does It
What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast
168 Hours

Laura is also the author of a time management fable, Juliet’s School of Possibilities and another novel, The Cortlandt Boys, which is available as an ebook.

Her 2016 TED talk, "How to Gain Control of Your Free Time," has been viewed more than 5 million times.

She regularly appears in publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Fortune.

She is the host of two weekly podcasts, Before Breakfast and The New Corner Office and she is the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the weekly podcast Best of Both Worlds.

She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children, and blogs at LauraVanderkam.com.

Reviews

[Russ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Answer to the book's title: plan ahead. That's the key to weekend success. Now you don't have to read the book.

[Stella · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before I say anything about this e-booklet, I just want to say that I loved, loved 168 Hours. It was useful, well researched and it was more or less a newish concept. And I kept rereading bits and pieces for a while and implementing some tips in my life.

And because I loved that book so much, I kept reading this author.

I read her blog for a while (but she comes off as really pretentious on it), then I read her next book "All the Money in the World" - which appeared to be put together in a hurry so I did not really enjoy that, but again, because I loved 168 Hours, I decided to buy this one for $2.99 and see what it is about and while I was reading (took me 30 minutes to read the whole thing - it is so short, most bloggers offer such e-books for free!) I felt really angry. Yes, I know 2.99 isn't a huge amount of money, but this book offers nothing new at all. You should plan your weekends, you should get up and do things, and then it gives you a few examples of supposedly successful people who do the same. Really? And I paid for this???

There isn't even an exciting new premise, at least she had something like that in "All the Money", i.e. you need more, earn more don't try to save more, etc.

I felt really cheated, completely, I'd say, if this book was 0.99 it would still be expensive for what it is.

I hate giving any book one star, in fact, I don't usually finish reading books that I dislike so much, but this one was so offensively short, it was easy to finish and I guess I was hoping I'd find something worth my money. I didn't.

Thank God for Amazon "return for refund". I really felt I deserved my full refund on this one!

[Julia Coney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learn so much from books by Laura Vanderkam. This smaller books are quick reads with a wealth of knowledge. I still refer to 168 Hours because it was the book that got me more organized. I will add this to the rotation to read with each season. You can never have too much information on being better.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laura Vanderkam's eBook, What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off, has been released at a typical resolution-making time - the end of a year. This guide promotes the idea that with a structural plan, people can make better use of their time off work.

I cannot speak for every person, but I do know that I am often frustrated by my lack of productivity at the end of a weekend. It's not that I hadn't wanted to visit that art gallery, take a long hike or paint watercolour landscapes, but I didn't get a plan in place soon enough to make these things happen. I seem to suffer, too, from being "torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world [and] this makes it hard to plan the day" (E.B. White). I have so many things that I desire to do and, more often than not, I end up doing none of things desired, because I don't know where to start.

Laura Vanderkam maintains that some structure in a weekend will leave you more relaxed than having no structure and choosing to loaf. She argues that, "in a world of constant connectivity, even loafing time must be consciously chosen, because time will be filled with something whether it's consciously chosen or not". Which begs the question - Can you waste a whole day checking Facebook, Twitter and flipping through websites? Moreover - has this already happened to me? Regrettably, yes. Do I feel rejuvenated after such a weekend and does it leave an indelible, fond mark upon my memory? No and...no. Laura Vanderkam reminds the reader of an Anatole France quotation: "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another". Labor, rather than loaf, is the operative word.

It is important to note that the author is not suggesting to micromanage each detail of the weekend, but rather to plan a few "anchor events" (enjoyable items) before the start of the weekend in order to maximize the sixty-odd hours of a typical weekend. With that idea in mind, Laura Vanderkam suggests, "When you plan enjoyable things ahead of time, you magnify the pleasure". Therefore, not only do you make the most of your time when there’s a plan, but you, also, prolong the enjoyable event by having time to anticipate it.

Which leads me to where I began – reading this book has been perfect in its timing. More often than not, at the end of the Christmas holidays, I feel a bit sad and anticlimactic. I anticipate the holidays for more than a month and it’s the anticipation that fuels me through cold, windy weather and hectic days. After reading this eBook, I realize that I need to plan a little more, in order to spur my work week in a forward motion (rather than trudging through the days) and to derive more pleasure by anticipating approaching events.

As a result, I recommend Laura Vanderkam’s succinct little guide, What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off, to anyone needing a bit of a “kick start” in optimizing his or her weekend hours. I can foresee rereading this text in the future whenever my weekends begin to look a little frayed around the edges.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
A quick read that reminded me of the importance of being purposeful with how to spend my weekends. I’m going to try to be more intentional about making plans every weekend… just not as many plans as the author recommends. I don’t have the social energy for that.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biggest takeaway- your weekends are a finite resource. You can do the things you wish to do with your weekend time, but you must have a plan. Resist the urge to lounge around, doing nothing.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like her writing style. There wasn't a ton of groundbreaking new information here, but maybe it's because the simple truth is *PLAN TO USE YOUR TIME INTENTIONALLY* yes, even the weekends. And then you'll feel better about your life and get things done.

[loafingcactus · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read the booklet and do what it says, you will definitely get your money's worth. So I don't really have anything to complain about, and yet I will. I was really surprised when I got to the end of the book- chunk, that's it?! It was as if the writer suddenly became bored with the subject and decided to stop. Or maybe that is all the write thought the intended reader wants?

I would have liked to have seen more interviews/examples from recognized high performing individuals. The person who buys this book is already anticipating some value in the weekend, but what about a spouse who may need persuading? Give the poor reader something to work with! Also, a few more problems and solutions would have been a good idea. Managing electronic leashes would be one topic to cover more in depth (two concrete solutions were offered, but there are enough permutations of this issue that more solutions would be useful).

[Tara Kuczykowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another quick read -- I made the mistake of preordering this book when I purchased What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. A few good ideas, but I couldn't get past her recommendation of having 3-6 scheduled activities per weekend. That's just not my cup of tea (or coffee!) at all.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great little read on the importance of rest and finding things to enjoy on the weekend. I love that she included as part of that, giving yourself away {ie doing things for others}. I appreciated this little gem very much.

[Randy Hsieh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but interesting, the author helps to bring perspective on time, how much we have and how we might better spend it.
It's easy enough to get through in a sunny afternoon and worth it if you can apply her ideas to your life and take some kind of action.

[Kym · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, plan ahead. This was like a Buzzfeed list. And coming out of the gate with Mike Huckabee? No thanks.

[Keren Threlfall · Rating 3 out of 5]

What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off (Laura Vanderkam)

Although I read this book as a stay-at-home mom with three little ones who still need care on the weekends (i.e., weekdays sometimes blur into weekends, though they come accompanied with my husband's (huge!) help), I nonetheless found this book challenging me to think about how my husband and I (and our children) spend our weekends. Having read Laura's other time  books, I didn't find this short ebook introducing novel concepts; yet, it was helpful to see Vanderkam apply some of her time-management concepts to the wisely using the weekend.

Laura shares the paradox of the weekend: for most of us, it comprises around 60 hours--a rather substantial chunk of the 168 hours for an entire week, and yet few of us actually plan ahead. Thus, we end up not maximizing our weekend hours and arriving to Monday unrejuvenated and disappointed at how we once again spent another passing weekend.

Anticipating push-back from parents who feel that children make weekends more difficult, Vanderkam also offers solutions and ideas for parents of small children and busy soccer-scheduled families.

While Laura make it clear that she isn't recommending jam-packing our weekends full of exhausting plans, she does recommend that, instead, we create anchor point of rejuvenating and memory-building activities that will make our weekends more productive, energizing, and something to anticipate. These days, it is also easy to take our work with us wherever we go, and so it's important to be intentional about going off-the-grid (whatever that may mean particularly for each of us).

For those with children, this book also highlighted the brevity of the time we have with our children to build and create memories together. This point was illustrated by reminding parents that most of us have around 900 weekends with each of our children (and even some of those will not be years they remember). What a gift to them and to ourselves to use those weekends together and wisely.

Like some of her other works, I sort of have to disagree with Laura on the importance of a clean house ;), but maybe that's because in our home, neither of us work outside the house (with a few meetings away from home, on his part) and spend a lot of time in our home and a messy house tends to make us all grumpy. However, I can still agree that scheduling in short periods for housecleaning (such as a Friday night) will make us more likely to work quickly to accomplish it, and then be able to use our Saturday and Sunday for other activities.

Reading this book can definitely be a short anchor point for the weekend, and if you're leaving weekends feeling more tired and unhappy, this might be a helpful read for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee.

Table of Contents:

[Rowena Morais]

What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend. A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off
e Book

Title : What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend. A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off
Author : Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours
Published by : Portfolio/Penguin
Year of publication: 2012
ISBN: 978-1-10162-028-1 (ePub)
Detail : eBook
Availability: Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Amazon.com and iTunes
Price : USD2.99

The author of 168 Hours : You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio, 2010), Laura Vanderkam, started an eBook series about what the most successful people do. This is the second in a series of three eBooks. A very quick read ( I finished it in a three hour block) this 60-pager draws on real-life anecdotes and scientific research to explain why doing nothing can be exhausting and why happy people make weekend plans in advance.

You will be introduced to the idea that you don’t stop labouring on the weekend, instead you choose a different sort of labour. A labour of love or passion perhaps. The point Laura makes, and one I experienced myself, is that many of us do indeed have trouble using our weekends well. It resonated with me when Laura mentioned that our weekends, if we are not careful, can disappear with an endless list of “chores to be completed, inefficient email checking, unconsciously chosen television marathons and a death march of children’s activities that suck all of our energy”.

What we need to do is to be very mindful about how we approach our weekends. One might argue that the careful planning and meticulous detail involved may take the element of spontaneity away, something we might think of as an essential element of weekends.

But what is the point of the possibility of spontaneity if the reality is that you feel your weekend has slipped away, ever so quickly, with nothing to show for it, yet again?

Laura makes a strong case for yes, a strategic approach to these valuable, restorative hours. And a brutal note about the side effect of the wonderful connectivity we proudly embrace - “In a world of constant connectivity, even loafing time must be consciously chosen, because time will be filled with something whether its consciously chosen or not – and not choosing means that the something that fills our hours will be less fulfilling than the something our remembering selves will likely wish we’d elected to do”.

While I was initially opposed to the idea of planning weekends, this appeal to structure makes all the more sense when you have a young family. Doing nothing when caring for a young family does not mean that you do literally nothing. And so it goes that there are two decisions involved in creating weekends that can leave you rejuvenated. Which was the ultimate goal, wasn’t it? It is choosing labours of a different sort and embracing the benefits of anticipation.

Laura goes on to suggest pointers on planning a weekend, such as having a list of dreams, adding anchors, using mornings and creating traditions. While I would have liked more examples of how successful people are spending their weekends, the book makes up for it by posing the kind of questions that really make you take a considered approach and rethink how you are currently doing things. Put it this way, if you’ve been considering a revamp to how your weekends should be spent, this book will help you in your path forward.

Highly recommended.
First reviewed in the january 2013 issue of HR Matters magazine.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ideas

[Hallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, this "how to"-esque audiobook was more of a 3.5 for me, but given how much I like Laura Vanderkam and her overall messages, it bumps up to a 4. There were multiple pieces of information I took away from this book, which is a hallmark of solid content to me. I like her recommendation to plan 2-3 goals for professional, personal, and relational areas of life at the start of each year, and then use weekends to intentionally work on some of those goals if not worked on during the week. I also think her message of planning the weekends ahead of time is key for actively using our weekends the way we want in order to maximize their restorative, enjoyable, and meaningful purposes. Through this audiobook, I was able to make the connection that if I don't use my weekend, it will use me - and the benefits are not reciprocal. One thing Laura said stuck with me: "This is all there is." This, referring to our one life, with our number of weekends we get - what are we saving the weekends/days for when we sit around and do nothing? Rather, because this is all there is, her recommendation to plan the weekend to fit activities (even as small and seemingly unnecessary to plan like reading) that make us happy and relaxed and fulfilled resonates strongly. I'm already thinking about my weekends and the way I approach/plan my weekends a little differently, and look forward to this upcoming one!

[Catherine Gillespie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather than working all weekend or letting the weekend fade into mindless internet or channel surfing, Vanderkam suggests that you’ll get better results from choosing 3-5 “anchor events” for your weekend in advance. She thinks of it as cross-training–neither overwork nor too much doing nothing.

The book does a great job of profiling busy people who make times for a restorative weekend, discussing relevant research, and offering practical suggestions for how to make sure your weekends leave you ready for Monday morning. I especially liked her suggestions for how to avoid the “three common causes of weekend stress: chores, children’s activities, and work that follows you home.”

I always get a lot out of Vanderkam’s books, and What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend is no exception. At $2.99 on Amazon, this book offers way more information and potential for life impact than most e-books, and is a shorter time commitment than Vanderkam’s longer (but also excellent) books on time and life management.

{Read my full review here}

Note: I received a review copy of this book but the opinions found here and in my longer linked review are my own.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have not read 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think so I don't know how many of the ideas were explored there. For me, there were some useful insights, such as, doing nothing may be less refreshing than doing something, and the importance of minimizing chores. I plan to read it again and think about what changes I can make to my weekend habits.
As other reviewers have said, this book is very short, but, if your weekends leave you less than delighted, then for the price of a chai latte, this is worth a look.

[Jen Turrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great one from Laura Vanderkam! I have steadily working my way through all of her books and have really loved them all so far. 168 Hours, You have more time than you think was the first one I read and it completely changed the way I look at the hours I spend on different tasks every week. That is the best takeaway that I have gotten from all of her books is to look at the time I spend weekly on tasks, use solid blocks of time to deal with specific high-level tasks, and then plan out my leisure and family time with as much care to make sure we actually get to the things that we mast want to do in our free time as well as in work time.

[Shuan · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all know that Weekends are precious. Yet few of us plan for them. That's not very clever, isn't it?

The author encourages us to plan ahead for these precious days of the week. Exercising, socializing, and spiritual times are proven to make us happy and recharged. In addition, planning ahead for the weekend leads to anticipation, which has a multiplier effect on the goodness that these activities give to us.

A simple but wise tip in a short and readable form. May we all have better weekends and more satisfying lives.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most of the series, this is a light and breezy read. My takeaway was to plan for the weekend (to-do-list, calendar) just as you would a work day. The difference is the items should be fun, life-afirming, or otherwise personally advantageous. She divides the weekend into five discrete parts: Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday evening. Thinking and planning this way will help you get off the couch and make something of your weekend before it evaporates.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very short ebook/extended essay I listened to as an audiobook. And I loved it. I thought it was a great perspective on weekends and that while we may be tempted to think there will always being another weekend ahead to do what we'd really like to do, no one knows what the future holds so planning and prioritizing what time we have is worth it. The memories we create with our lives are worth the hassle and highs and lows of making them.

Have you heard all this it before? I don't know. Listen or read and let me know. :)

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just so enjoy Laura Vanderkam's writing style and how she tackles great topics like time management, financial health, etc. I bought this short for the Kindle, several months after getting and reading her short book, "what the most successful people do before breakfast." She's so sensible and encouraging, and she's the kind of author I'd love to meet for coffee and talk about her writing and her work

I wish this one were a little more specific and longer, but overall a great read.

[Nikhil Kumra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What the Most SUccessful People do Before Breakfast" was a great read and was the start of truly changing my habits. If "Before Breakfast" was valuable to me, then "...On the Weekend" was twice as valuable - and was seemingly twice as challenging initially. So simplistic in principle, yet one of those concepts that one truly does not every really think about. We have 40 hours every weekend?? Really?? We do!

[Timothy Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast read packed with great tips for using your rest time to actually get rested and recharged for the coming week. The time and energy I spent reading this book and doing a few of the exercises in it -- this book will save me that much time this week, to say nothing of the hours of restless "rest" and frustration it will save me over the remainder of the year. Well worth the small amount of time you'll spend reading it.

[Adam Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprising book. It's short, sweet and actionable. I got a lot from reading this. Planning a weekend is one area I've failed a lot. I often find myself thinking I want down time, but then by midday Saturday, I'm annoyed I'm not doing anything!

This book gives me a system to get past those frustrations. With a research-driven approach to boosting energy, joy, and happiness, I'm happy to give the tips in this book a good try!

[C.G.Koens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short, but full of good ideas for making the most of your weekend. Even ideas mentioned in passing (like the List of 100, and working on Saturday but leaving the emails in draft, instead of sending them), were enough to make me stop and think...and start my own lists and weekend plans. Easy to read, helpful advice, and a new way to look at how you spend your days "off".

[Tim Maurer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe the pursuit of success has gotten a little out of control, but Laura Vanderkam writes very well and always keeps her feet on the ground, providing balanced and applicable insight. I read this over summer vacation, and I found that all of the lessons about how best to spend our time over weekends applied almost perfectly to vacation as well.

[diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very quick read but well worth the ideas presented.

Basically, plan your damn weekend so you don't end up sucked into screens and wasting the time you have to really get some meaning out of life.

It's sort of a combination of DER, I knew that, and WOW that's a really helpful bit of advice. A good combo, I think. I'm going to make my husband read it.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very short book. I now plan to read her main book, 168 hours. This was more inspirational than "what successful people do before breakfast" but really I think you would need to use both together in order to maximise your success and happiness.