Any plans for the weekend?

A more innocent and excitement-inducing question on a Friday has never been asked.

Except when the person you are asking doesn’t typically have plans for the weekend.

Weekend plans, unless you’re going out-of-town are best left unmade.

You never get anything done completely that you expected to when you make a plan just before the weekend.

If anything, you plan too much and then you end up needing a weekend to get over the exhaustion that sets in on Monday.

Is this why Mondays are the day of the week that people call in sick more often than any other day?

I would say yes and a lot of the time they aren’t sick so much as just tired and feeling unaccomplished from the things they planned on doing on the weekend that just passed (that they didn’t get done).

I like the unplanned weekend.

This leaves me free to do as much (or as little) as I like.

No agenda.

No to-do list.

Just a clean slate.

Why not?

Maybe the weather is crappy and raining like yesterday.

Yes, we have more accurate weather forecasting and can (mostly) plan accordingly. But, sometimes the weather is unpredictable and whatever you thought about doing outdoors at any given time over the weekend can no longer be done.

That’s when you need to quickly switch gears and set off to binge watch your favorite show that you need to catch up on.

Or you want to play some records while doing that load of laundry–really the only load that requires completion, while you listen to Led Zeppelin 1.

Or while listening to that, you decide you want to update your Ubuntu Mate 18.10 operating system on the external drive to 19.04; it’s a perfect time to do this as you inadvertently run into issues and have to delete some broken packages before the installation can successfully complete.

Or maybe you want to sit on the couch with your significant other and hold hands (but you can’t because your two dogs are taking up the space that you’d occupy). You can try a hug as an alternative in the event there is no room for both of you on the couch.

If the weather is particularly uninviting you can let your mind wander to things it typically might not consider; you might seek out a status check on something like your bow tie inventory. I know I did. It was lacking and so I will be getting a new one.

If I had a plan, the bow tie thing might never have occurred.

Some people recommend treating your weekends as if they were vacations.

I do not think this is such a great idea, mostly because come Monday the shock of returning to work will be too great. It’s not like a real vacation after which you return home from and spend a day or two reacclimating to daily life.

Having no plan works well for me. I do not suggest everyone go into their weekends like this, however. As always, what works for some may not for others. I do hope you can give it a try some time at least on a trial basis.

Life is just too short and is to be enjoyed in the moment as much as possible.

You can’t do that making plans all the time.