Working on the weekend - just say no!
So I logon this past Monday morning to check my email, and find an invitation to present at an online event. The person coordinating the event was looking for 42 different speakers on a ‘first come first serve’ basis… looked like fun to me so I sent her a ‘yes’, figuring I was a shoo-in being that it was first thing Monday morning.
Well much to my surprise all the spots were already taken! I checked her original invite message and saw that it was sent on Saturday morning… which means that 42+ people were checking their email on the weekend and responding ahead of me.
At first I thought ‘Bummer! If only I had checked my email on the weekend’… then I shook my head and remembered that there is a very good reason I don’t check email on the weekends. If I do I instantly become SUCKED INTO THE VORTEX OF EMAIL and easily spend a couple of hours working where I only meant to do a quick 2 minute check-in
I made a very conscious decision a few years ago not to work on the weekends, and let me tell you - once you get in the habit of having a couple of work free days each week it is a treat. I remember reading an article by someone (can’t remember who it was) where they talked about how they used to work 7 days a week, got burnt out and then made a change to turn off their computer on the weekend with no exceptions. The funny thing was that they became much more effective overall and were getting alot more done in 5 days than they ever did in 7 days. I believe downtime is necessary to a) sustainable work habits (ie: not getting burnt out) and b) to giving our brains some ‘unplugged’ time so they can perform better when needed.
All of this makes me wonder - is it necessary to be working on the weekends? Are we addicted to our email? Even just a quick check-in can become the equivalent of ‘working’ if you aren’t careful and get sucked into email like I do. I’m curious how much online and virtually based business owners actually do work on the weekend? If this event being full by Monday morning is any indication i’m thinking it must be alot of people, which surprises me for some reason.
Regardless, i’m OK to have missed the boat on this one due to my decision to not work on weekends. My downtime is too important to risk getting sucked into the email vortex in case someone sends another cool opp on a Saturday morning. 