What to do to keep Saturday and Sunday in quarantine like a weekend

Do you still remember what a weekend is?

The longer I am in quarantine, the more difficult it becomes for me to keep track of what day of the week it is, and the more difficult it becomes to determine if it is a work day or a weekend. Now that almost everyone is stuck at home, the countdown to the weekend has become irrelevant.

Due to the quarantine, many of us have switched to teleworking from home and adjusted our daily routine for maximum productivity — this is good news. But just because we work from home doesn't mean we can't have burnout — that's bad news.

As productive as we manage to remain in quarantine, we also need to learn not to be productive, so taking a break on the weekend is as important now as it was before the pandemic. Morning shopping, an afternoon stroll through the city and an evening dinner at a restaurant are what used to relieve us of stress after a busy week. But what to do in a quarantine environment when stadiums, clubs and restaurants are closed?

We asked several of our remote home freelancers about this, how they spend their weekends in quarantine. Based on their experiences, here are some examples of how to spend your weekend in the same way, as in a pre-pandemic era.

1) Plan your weekend!

Ironically, leaving a job requires the same discipline as starting a job. As a freelancer, Gregory had an unstructured work week even before quarantine, so he long ago established that the time for work and rest should be strictly delineated.

Planning non-work-related activities for the weekend will help you avoid the temptation to check your work email or get busy. But at the same time, the weekend schedule should not be mandatory — otherwise, what is the difference with the responsibilities at work? Therefore, the weekend plan should be floating. The plan should contain goals that do not have to be achieved — this is what your emotional system needs — to rebel against the rules. For such activities, choose to read a book, wash a fur coat, teach your son to eat on his own, watch a movie, or choose a design for a new kitchen.

2) Adapt your pre-pandemic activity to the new conditions.

A typical weekend for our lawyer Anton was held in the company of friends outside the city — in nature or with one of his friends visiting. Observance of social distance forced Anton and his friends to go online — now they arrange online meetings via video link.

Video calls with friends every week allow Anton to hold on to old habits that he had before the pandemic. Using Anton as an example, if you've been spending your weekends at the cinema in the past, set up your own cinema at home (there are many movies available to watch on the internet) with cozy pillows and popcorn. Have you visited art galleries before? Now you can virtually visit the most outstanding museums and art galleries right from home. For completeness, use virtual reality technology.

3) Our veterinarian Sergey does yoga on weekends

“On Saturday and Sunday I do yoga in depth — from an hour to an hour and a half, I give it only to myself. And then I self-isolate in the kitchen to cook dinner for the whole family. It’s cooking that makes me feel like a weekend.” In the afternoon, Sergey devotes to reading books for which there was not enough time before. The main thing is his conscious choice — not to do anything that is related to work.

4) Shift the Sphere of Emotional Engagement

If your work week is filled with online meetings, emails, and work chats, a good way to take your mind off work is to interact with family in person, even if you have to communicate virtually. The main thing is to change the emotional sphere of involvement — work for personal life. It's all about me — Sasha, marketer.

“Since my mom and brother also work remotely from home, we synchronized our schedules and decided that Friday night was the start of the weekend. This means that from now on we all stop working to spend more time together — playing board games, chatting, discussing friends and making plans.”

5) Children and Weekends

Working remotely from home can be a challenge for parents with small children. To distract from children, such parents need to divide the day into two halves: in the first, mom spends time with the children, in the second — dad, or vice versa. This is about our accountant, Mikhail.

As a summary

Weekend is a time to switch the emotional sphere of engagement from work to private. This must be done so as not to "burn out" at work. As a distraction, do the opposite of what you do at work. For example, if at work you strictly follow the regulations, then there are no regulations on the weekend! More face-to-face meetings, even if via video link. Fortunately, modern technologies make it possible to travel the world, visit sights, do what you love — live life to the fullest! The main task is to get emotionally involved in classes as much as possible!