Skip to main content

Weekend Do-over

A friend shared this on social media.


My first reaction was "of course you can". I do that every weekend. I work Wednesday to Friday. So Monday and Tuesday are my 'second weekend'.

Sadly though, not all employers offer 3-day-a-week jobs. And it is sad.

Sub-consciously we realise that we are spending a lot of time working and not so much time enjoying the benefits of that work.

As a result we start to resent the work that we do (even though it's our chosen line of work) because it takes up so much of our time.

Sometimes the standard weekend is barely enough to recuperate from a stressful week and catch up on household chores and then it's back to work again.

We hunger for more time to actually live life and enjoy it.

So how can we do it?

1. Hope that employers realise this great opportunity. Offering a diversity of work options can help them compete for the best employees. Working 3 days per week is also more productive.

2. Team up. Where I used to work there was a pair of people who actually applied for their job as a pair - each working 2.5 days per week. Again this relies on the employer being smart enough to realise that they are getting two brains for the price of one.

3. Take breaks between jobs. If we're in the position to do so, sometimes a break between jobs (kind of like a mini-gap year) can be a good opportunity to escape the grind and enjoy life. So many of us don't use up our annual leave. That pay-out can help you have some time-off at the end.

4. Set your own hours. If you're self-employed you can sometimes set your own hours. A tradesman was recently telling me how he moved to four days per week to spend more time at home with his kids.

5. Be more selective with spending our money. Most of these options also mean getting by on less income than before. But do we really need that much money for a good life? That's a question worth asking.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to waste a year's wages

A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c

Don't dump on charities

Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot

This could all be yours

This cartoon kind of happened to me on the weekend. Joking about death My dad has his own unique sense of humour. Flippantly he joked that when he passes away, the first thing I'll need to do is get a rubbish skip (maybe two) and jam it full with all the junk from the garage. I was reminded of Marie Kondo, who says in her book that we have to deal with items either now or later; so it might as well be now. For people who have retired, I guess there's a third option: Ignore it for a few more decades and let descendants deal with it. Don't get me wrong - my dad has plenty of years left yet. But from his joke I'm guessing he's reasonably happy to let it all sit there while he enjoys retired life. Why not deal with it? I can kind of understand. It's an overwhelming task (even to look at). There's also the "I might need that" factor. Which is fair enough, but even if an item is needed, is it findable in amongst everything else? About half the