Squeeze the Most of Your Weekend & Set Yourself for a Productive Week
Weekends are meant for slowing down, relaxing and enjoying life’s little pleasures in the company of family and friends but let’s not forget that, these two days off work are also a great opportunity to take some time to reflect on what you accomplished, work on side projects and get ready for the upcoming week. More importantly, if you plan your weekend the right way it will not only create more structure in your life but also it will help you to reach your professional and personal goals faster. Doesn’t that sound great? So without further ado, here’s my method to win the weekend and position yourself for a successful week. I hope it inspires you to plan and structure your next weekend so that you will have time to relax, unwind, have fun and get ready for the upcoming week!
1. Self-Reflect
Practicing self-reflection helps you to become aware of the current version of yourself, determine the level of success that you achieve and take the right actions to make good progress in your immediate future to feed your life purpose. That’s why I highly recommend you dedicate some time to practicing self-reflection and self-awareness over the next weekend. Here are some self-reflection questions you may want to use for analyzing the current version of yourself!
Self-Reflection Questions:
💠 What are my this week’s achievements?
💠 What is my biggest challenge this week?
💠 What am I most proud of at work?
💠 What am I most grateful for this week?
💠 What is my strategic vision for my life?
💠 Are my goals aligned with my life vision?
💠 Am I keeping my priorities in check?
💠 Is the mental picture of my future capturing and inspiring?
💠How do I want to improve myself within the upcoming week?
💠 What can I do to nurture my mind, body, and soul more?
💠 What are the five things I would do more?
💠 What doubts I currently have? How can I ease them?
💠 What are my 3 major distractions in my daily life and how can I overcome them?
💠 Am I my BFF? How can I improve my relationship with myself?
2. Plan Your Week Like A PRO
Schedule means getting things done in an effective and peaceful manner. So instead of filling your calendar, setting goals and making your to-do list on Monday morning dedicate some time for planning, organizing and scheduling your weekly activities over the weekend. Trust me it’s the best way to avoid Monday morning anxiety and kick start your week the right way! So write down everything you need to accomplish in a new document (Google calendar, Outlook) on your phone or on your computer. Prioritize your tasks and set deadlines for any of them. Plan for maximum productivity BUT don’t overschedule. Be rational and always negotiate with yourself. Do not be your own tyrant. Design your ideal week and set yourself up for success. Plan and get ready for the upcoming highly successful week!
- Plan Your Days According to 3 x 8h rule (8h of work, 8h of productive “me time”, 8h of quality rest. Split your day into 3 parts and you will create a sacred equilibrium, a perfect balance of your mind, body, and spirit.
- Create a Powerful, Productive and Exciting Weekly To-Do List
- Set 3 MITS - the most important tasks (get them knocked out in the early morning, as soon as you can when your mind is fresh)
- Set SMART Goals & Deadlines
- Design an Action Plan for Your Goals
- Plan your weekly Workouts
- Plan Your Quality “Me time”
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3. Clean Eating Grocery Shopping
Trying to eat healthy during the week but you don’t find time for that? Well, Weekend is the best time to do your clean eating grocery shopping, prepare your healthy & nutritious meals for the week and fill your lunch box with tasty lunches!
Here are some powerful tips to do that:
- Get some food inspiration online (Pinterest, youtube, food blogs)
- Plan your weekly meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks)
- Make a grocery shopping list
- Go to a grocery store well-rested and well-fed to avoid unhealthy food choices
- Stock your fridge, cupboards, and pantry with healthy, nutrient-dense delicious food
- Do some meal preparation that will save you time cooking meals during your week and help you to stick to more nutritious meal choices
- Keep your meal prep more entertaining try daily themes ideas such as meatless Monday, taco Tuesday, pasta Wednesday, Pizza Saturday, slow-cooked Sunday dinner, breakfast for dinner, Mediterranean lunch (that’s my favourite one!)
Download Your FREE Printable Clean Eating Worksheets
4. Self-Care Like A BOSS
Cultivating self-care is important for creating and maintaining a healthy balance and a positive relationship with yourself. That’s why it should be an important part of your daily routine, especially on weekends! But hey, don’t limit yourself to taking a relaxing bath or applying a natural face mask. Try to address all 5 dimensions of self-care to cover a full spectrum of Mind, Body, and Spirit. You will find some great tips on how to do it in my Self-Care Workbook or Free Printables you can download below!
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5. Manage Your Stress Levels
Stress can be either a motivating force that pushes you to work harder, think faster and achieve your goals quicker or a destructive force that kills your productivity and ruins your health. It’s the dose that makes the poison. This means that a little stress can be actually good for you because it helps you to stay motivated and driven to succeed in your life. Only if your body produces too much stress hormones making you constantly on alert your physical health and mental wellbeing are put at risk. So keep your stress hormones on a healthy level and don’t forget to de-stress, unwind and relax during the upcoming weekend!
Simple & Powerful Ways To De-stress & Unwind
- Cultivate Il Dolce Far Niente aka “The Sweetness of Doing Nothing” - Cultivating “Il dolce far niente” means relaxing on purpose, enjoy yourself and indulge in real pleasure. It’s about you and all these small things in life that make you incredibly happy, fulfilled and excited.
- Incorporate a Digital Detox into your weekend routine - switch off and live in the moment!
- Clean out your Mental Clutter (journal, engage in physical activity, meditate)
- Challenge your Negative Thinking and Negative Self-Talk
- Try Guided Unwinding Mindfulness Meditation (guided meditations are fun and easy to follow!)
- Use Positive Affirmations to boost your self-esteem and confidence (make writing positive affirmations your daily habit!)
- Talk to someone you can trust about your struggles (Talking to someone about your struggles is a great opportunity to release stress and tension from your body, refresh your thinking, gain a new point of view and in consequence look at your problem from a completely different perspective.)
Best Apps To De-stress & Relax
- SuperBetter (Android / iOS)
- Shine - Motivational texts (Android / iOS)
- Pocket Yoga (Android / iOS)
- Calm Meditation and Sleep Stories (Android; iOS)
- Happify: for Stress & Worry (iOS and Android)
- Happier (iOS)
- Headspace (Android; iOS)
- Breathe2Relax (Android; iOS)
- Anxiety Reliever (Android; iOS)
- Self-help for Anxiety Management (iOS)
- Sanvello (Android; iOS)
- SAM App (Android; iOS)
- What’s Up? - A Mental Health App (iOS and Android)
- Self-help for Anxiety Management (iOS and Android)
- Smiling Mind Meditation for all ages (iOS and Android)
6. Declutter Your Space
Your internal world and your external personal space together represent the field of your being. This means that if you want to put yourself in a positive headspace and set yourself for a successful week you need to clean and declutter not only your head but also your house. So clean your external personal space, get rid of unnecessary stuff, wash the dishes, do your laundry, clean your desk, take out the trash and do whatever you need to do to make your surroundings clean, organized and presentable. Trust me this simple act of cleaning your personal space will boost your happy hormones, increase your motivation and improve your productivity levels. But hey, don’t take my word for it, just try it. Do it on your own. Make your environment more presentable and see how it impacts your state of being. If your place is a complete mess you may need more than 5 minutes but the result is worth both the time and effort.
And when you finished ask yourself these questions:
- What the place I live in says about me?
- How this experience of cleaning and organizing my external personal space made me feel?
- Does a clean house affect my mental wellbeing in any way?
7. Spend Quality Time With Family & Friends
As human beings, we are social creatures. We need each other for psychological survival. That’s why even introverts need community. Spending time in a good company is an incredible opportunity to create memorable experiences, connect with others, boost happy hormones, and relax. However, if you have a busy schedule and your life during the week looks like an endless to-do list you probably don’t have much time for your loved ones. So make reconnecting with loved ones your Sunday habit and squeeze from these special moments as much positive energy as you can. Plan something fun activities or prepare a delicious meal. Use your imagination and spend some quality time with your tribe.
8. Quality "Me Time"
The weekend is a perfect moment to indulge in solitude and make the most of this authentic experience. During the week is often quite hard to get some peace and quiet so make sure you find the time in your weekend schedule to do the things that make you feel genuinely happy, peaceful and fulfilled. Do something that feeds your soul and makes you feel alive! Engage in an activity that inspires you, motivates you and makes you feel good about yourself. Feed your passion, treat yourself with your favorite dessert, go on a solo adventure, do an outdoor workout, go for a walk, read this book you wanted to but you didn’t have time for it, watch your favorite tv show on Netflix or do whatever you feel like but do something you love doing! Enjoy this life’s simple pleasures that have the power to make us genuinely happy. Nourish your mind, body, and soul. Treat yourself and treat yourself well. Because if you feel good about yourself the chances that you’re going to perform better in the office or in school are extremely high. So go, plan and schedule quality „me time” for the upcoming weekend!
- Go on your own solitary adventure
- Get Active
- Go on a Solo Date
- Treat Yourself with Your Favourite Dessert
- Practice Self-Reflection
- Feed your Passion
- Work on Your Side Project
- Connect with Nature
- Practice positive Thinking
- Journal
- Ground Yourself using Mindfulness techniques
9. Educate Yourself
Another great way to make the most of the weekend is to dedicate some time to self-education. Investing in self-education it’s the best investment you can make because your whole future depends on it. We tend to think that there will be plenty of time for that but the time is now. If you want to succeed you need to invest in your self-development and personal growth right now. The power of the mind is limitless and if you think otherwise, then you’re must be setting your own limitations in our mind. It’s your low self-esteem and lack of confidence that make you believe in this bulls*t. The truth is that you’re worth more than you think and your experience is far richer than you can ever imagine. You’re definitely capable of so much more than you even realize. BUT to be able to reach your full potential you need to invest in your personal growth and self-development otherwise you will be wasting your time and energy doing the wrong things. It’s time to evict your self-limiting beliefs from your mind and commit to conscious growth. Put all your mental performance into something productive, creative and inspiring. Use your concentration to explore your personal growth. Cultivate the growth mindset and train your brain to get smarter every day!
- Cultivate growth mindset
- Commit to a conscious growth
- Shape your perspective
- Be open-minded
- Search for external source of inspiration
Best Books for Self-Education & Self-Improvement
- Atomic Habits: The life-changing million-copy bestseller by James Clear AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
- I Like Myself! by Karen Beaumont AMAZON UK / AMAZON US
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman AMAZON UK / AMAZON US
- HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself by Harvard Business Review AMAZON UK / AMAZON US
- Mastery: The Keys to Success And Long-Term Fulfillment by George Burr Leonard AMAZON UK / AMAZON US
- The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
by Brene Brown AMAZON UK / AMAZON US - The Effective Executive by Peter Ferdinand Drucker AMAZON UK / AMAZON US
- Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek AMAZON UK / AMAZON US
- Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
- The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
- How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by Ellen Hendriksen AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
- Words That Change Minds: The 14 Patterns for Mastering the Language of Influence by Shelle Rose Charvet AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
10. Set Up Your Weekly Budget
I fully agree that being spontaneous is a great ability that enables us to make the most of every situation we face in life while planning out every detail to the nth degree can be quite boring, monotonous or even counterproductive. A little chaos DO make life more interesting, exciting and fun BUT not when it comes to making wise financial decisions, staying out of debt and making thoughtful shopping. So next weekend take some time to set up a weekly budget and get control of your money with these 5 simple steps:
Step 1: Check your account statements and review your transaction details
Step 2: Set your financial goals for the upcoming week
Step 3: Create s realistic budget for the upcoming week to gain control of your money
Step 4: Create an effective spending plan to determine your expanses
Step 5: Divide your expenses into different categories and put the price tag on your expanses
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Best Apps To Manage Your Finances
- Mint (link) - saving and budgeting app
- Acorns (link) - saving and budgeting app
- PocketGuard (link) - extra money spending app
- You Need a Budget (link) - create a budget within your actual income
- Prism Bills&Money (link) - organizing and paying bills app
- Albert (link) - saving, budgeting and paying a debt app
- Travel Wallet (link) - travel budget and expense app
- Wally (link) - professional expense report app
- Tycoon (link) - Freelancers app
- SnipSnap (link) - digital coupon app
- ShopKick (link) - rewards for shopping online and in-store app
- GroceryIQ (link) - intuitive shopping list app
- Bill Watch (link) - managing, organizing and reminding bills payment app
- Venmo (link) - splitting bills and sharing transactions app
- Personal Capital (link)- investment optimization app
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Best Posts About Achieving Goals:
- Perfect Morning Routine to Reduce Stress & Anxiety HERE
- The Ultimate Guide For Setting & Reaching Your Goals HERE
- 6 Self-Improvement Habits To Adopt in 2020 HERE
- Get into the Habit of Being Seriously Organized in 2020. HERE
- 8 Simple Steps to Set Yourself Up for a Successful 2020 HERE
- Powerful and smart ways to manage your time efficiently and effectively HERE
- 5 steps to success in achieving your goals HERE
- The ultimate way to overcome procrastination and become a highly productive person HERE
- The science of motivation HERE
- 10 powerful habits to boost your confidence HERE
Stay positive
Be Mindful
and Have a great upcoming weekend. Cheers!
xo Kate
