I Don’t Want to Live Only for the Weekends
Monday has barely started, but you are already thinking about Friday. By Wednesday, you are counting how many days are left until the weekend. On Friday, you finally relax, and by Sunday evening, you already do not want to think about the week ahead. I have lived like this more than once myself.
I Don’t Want to Live Only for the Weekends
I do not expect every working day to be easy or enjoyable. Adults have responsibilities, tiredness, bills, work and tasks that cannot always be postponed. But I do not like the idea that five days of the week should simply be endured so that we can finally live normally for two.
This is not about giving up work or filling every evening with entertainment. It is about leaving some time for myself and my family not only on Saturday and Sunday, but during an ordinary weekday too.
The phrase “I just need to make it to Friday” did not used to sound unusual to me. Friends, colleagues and people online said it. I sometimes thought the same way.
The working week felt like one long list of necessary tasks. Get up in the morning, deal with everything during the day, somehow recover in the evening and repeat the same thing several more times.
It seemed that normal life would begin later. In the evening, after all the work was finished. On Friday, when there was no need to wake up early. During a holiday, when there would finally be enough time.
But “later” kept moving further away. At some point, I began wondering: should most of the week really be spent waiting for two days at the end of it?
Monday is not over, but Friday already feels necessary
This routine is easy to recognise. It is difficult to get up in the morning. At work or while studying, you think about how much longer the day will last. By evening, there is only enough energy for the most necessary things.
Wednesday feels slightly easier because half of the week is already behind you. On Thursday, you begin planning the weekend. By Friday, your mood changes before the working day has even ended.
Then Saturday arrives. Part of the day is taken up by shopping, cleaning, driving somewhere and dealing with things that did not fit into the working week.
Sunday passes even faster. By the evening, thoughts about Monday begin again.
What this routine looks like
- You wake up with little energy
- You spend the day waiting for the evening
- By Wednesday, you are counting the days until Friday
- The weekend is filled with household tasks
- Sunday is already about the next week
- There never seems to be enough rest
I lived like this for a long time too
I am not writing this as someone who has always managed time properly, rested well and had a calm relationship with work.
I have also had periods when weekdays consisted almost entirely of tasks. There was work to do, questions to solve, messages to answer and thoughts about money, the children and the next day.
Rest was easily postponed until the evening. By the evening, there was no energy left, so everything moved to the weekend. And when the weekend finally arrived, I often wanted only to sit down and do nothing.
The result was strange: you spend the whole week waiting for free time, but when it finally appears, there is hardly any energy left to use it.
After moving abroad, I noticed it even more
Moving to Norway added many tasks that had not required so much attention before. A new language, unfamiliar rules, letters, appointments, school questions, work, housing and our family’s future.
Even ordinary things sometimes took longer. I needed to check whether I had understood correctly, find the right information, translate a message or work out where to ask for help.
Because of this, a day could feel completely full even when nothing especially noticeable had happened from the outside.
I wrote about the changes that followed our move in “How Moving to Norway Changed the Way We Live” . Over time, I began noticing not only the new circumstances, but also the way they affected an ordinary week.
Work itself is not the problem
Work matters. It provides income, structure, experience and the ability to support a family. Some things need to be done whether we are in the mood or not.
I am not looking for a life without responsibility. I do not think such a life really exists.
My question is different. After work, is there still at least a little energy for a conversation with the children, a walk, time with my wife, my own interests or an ordinary dinner without rushing?
When the answer is constantly no, the problem may be more than a busy schedule. At the very least, it is worth looking at where all the time and energy go each day.
Notice it
See when waiting for the weekend is no longer an occasional thought, but the usual way of getting through the week.
Do not demand too much
Every evening does not need to be busy. Sometimes one small thing that is not connected with obligations is enough.
Leave some time
Do not wait until Saturday for a walk, a conversation, dinner together or something you have enjoyed for a long time.
The weekend cannot always fix everything
Two days cannot always compensate for five days of poor sleep, tension and constant rushing.
Especially when the weekend is also filled with responsibilities. Groceries need buying. The house needs cleaning. The children need to be taken somewhere. Something needs repairing, or the next week needs preparing.
Only a few free hours remain, and during those hours you want to rest, spend time with family, go for a walk, meet someone and do everything there was no time for earlier.
Clearly, all of this does not fit into one Saturday. That is why I increasingly do not want to squeeze every enjoyable part of life into two days at the end of the week.
An ordinary Tuesday is part of my life too
Nothing special may happen on a Tuesday. Work, school, shopping, dinner and household tasks.
But it is still a day that will not happen again. I do not mean this dramatically. It is simply several hours of our family life.
It is easy to spend the whole evening looking at a phone because there is no energy for anything else. I have done that too, and I still do sometimes.
But on some evenings, it is possible to take a short walk, eat together, listen to what the children are saying or spend an hour working on something that interests me.
This does not require a major event. It only requires not postponing absolutely everything until the weekend.
Children also see how we live
Children do not only listen to what we tell them. They see the mood adults wake up in, how they return home and what they talk about in the evening.
I do not want them to grow up thinking that adult life automatically means being tired all the time and waiting for Saturday.
At the same time, I do not want to show them a false picture in which work is always enjoyable, there are no problems and parents are full of energy every evening.
A more ordinary example feels more honest to me: yes, we get tired; yes, we have many responsibilities; but we still try to leave space for conversations, walks, family time and our own interests.
When there is no energy, the weekend becomes the only hope
Waiting for Friday is not always about disliking work. Often, it is simply connected with tiredness.
When someone wakes up without energy, it is difficult to think about taking a walk after work, learning something, starting a new project or having a long conversation with someone close.
Everything is postponed until there is more energy. But sometimes that energy does not return even during the weekend.
That is why the previous article, “I Stopped Believing That Constant Exhaustion Is Normal” , is directly connected with this topic. When your physical state changes, you begin looking at your time differently too.
Not every difficult week can be changed
There are periods when you really do need to simply get through a difficult week. Someone is ill. Work is especially demanding. The children need more attention. Financial or family questions appear.
During those times, conversations about balance can be more irritating than helpful. The person may already be doing everything they can.
I do not want to blame myself for every evening spent on the sofa or every week when there was no energy for anything extra.
Something else matters more to me: a difficult period should not quietly become my permanent way of living.
I started with simple things
I did not completely rebuild my schedule, and I have not learned to enjoy every day equally. There are still evenings when I want nothing except rest.
But I have started asking myself more often whether a particular thing really needs to wait until Saturday.
Can I take a twenty-minute walk today? Can we eat dinner together without phones? Can I listen to my child now, instead of saying, “Let’s talk later”?
These things do not make weekdays easy. But they stop them from being only a road leading to the weekend.
When the week is filled with necessities, dreams are postponed too
Personal plans rarely feel urgent. Nobody reminds you that today you should think about what you want several years from now.
Work and household responsibilities are always waiting in front of them. That makes it easy to postpone your own plans until the next holiday, the new year or a time when life becomes calmer.
I wrote about this in “Why Adults Stop Dreaming” . Sometimes a person has not given up on what they want. They are simply constantly occupied with what needs to be done today.
I do not want five days to be only a road to the next two
Work and responsibilities will not disappear. Not every day will be interesting. After some working days, I will not want to go anywhere or do anything else.
But I still want an ordinary weekday to contain at least a little of my own life.
Not a completely different life that requires changing everything. Just simple things: eating with my family, leaving the house, having a conversation, writing something or doing one small thing for myself.
Friday can still feel good. It just does not need to be the only normal day of the week.
Weekdays are part of my life too
I will still look forward to the weekend. I enjoy not having to rush, being able to sleep longer and spending more time with my family.
But I no longer want to treat Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday as days that should simply be crossed out of the calendar. I want them to contain at least one normal hour that does not feel as though life has once again been postponed.
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