Saturday is my sleep-in day, Sunday is Erin's. I'm on the hook for dinner Saturday night; I try to do something interesting. Sunday night I tend to watch TV.
In between, I get some super-unproductive computer time in and hang out with the kids. Recently, it's been Mindstorms. Last weekend we picked apples. This weekend is my sister's wedding. Next weekend I owe my son his belated promised Dim Sum birthday lunch.
A couple weekends from now, I'm doing a class in Chicago for cryptography for security testers. If that works out well, I'll probably try to do some kind of class every other month. A class occupies two weekends, one for the class (and dinner afterwards) and one before that to rehearse.
More than you wanted to know, but hey, thanks for giving me the chance to straighten my schedule out in my head.
Reminded me to check the website for the local orchard. Golden Delicious picking scheduled to start next weekend. Yum! And a few hours in the orchard is generally one of the highlights of the year. :-)
Microclimate keeps this one a bit behind others in the area, in addition to the region running a bit late this year. But will try to be there on the first day they open up the Golden Delicious to picking.
Exactly the same as during the week. As I work for myself weekends are normal days like any other. I just take random days off with no regard for what name they have.
My wife has always worked weird shifts (and is now off for a year on maternity leave) so it works family-wise.. and we don't have to wrestle with the horrible weekend crowds at places. The only real benefit of the weekend is less e-mail to deal with :)
Programming, Reading, Drinking, Poker, PC Gaming (Urban Terror, StarCraft, UT3, Quake), Magic: The Gathering, Catching up on entire seasons of good shows, Movie theater, Shopping (food), Walking (w/dogs)
Big fan of being home on the weekend. I like my home.
Get the hell away from a computer. Heh, that sounds negative. I love by job but I find it easiest to keep balanced by getting away as much as I can for the weekends. For me, that's hiking, climbing, and back-country skiing. I pay for managed hosting for a reason.
Or work on code of a more interesting variety. As a startup founder, there's usually an interesting problem percolating in the back of my mind, and some days just finding a nice coffee shop and working on code with less distractions is perfect.
The 2 days you allocate to every week to keep yourself from burning out in 3 years and then spending 7 months doing nothing but following links on Reddit.
At this point I plan for burnout. It's just part of my productivity cycle. Small burnouts happen 1-2 times a year and involve about a week of doing nothing; large burnouts happen every 2-4 years and require a couple months. This happens with or without weekends.
1) Continue playing taxi by driving son to engagements.
2) Downtime from taxi work: movies, hang out at beach, etc.
3) Step back from implementation and think big picture. Meditate on what I have been working on. Veg-out. Let the mind wander. It has often wandered interestingly.
Admin saturday. I do all the business stuff that gets in the way during the week and (if time permits) write some proposals or produce some deliverables without interruption.
Sunday I try to keep as my day, which I spend with the one I love.
I used to work straight through, nothing like 2 entire uninterrupted days of pure productivity. Then I got a girlfriend. Now I spend those 2 days being productive in other parts of my life.
A random grab bag of spend time with my partner and friends, watch movies, read, code personal projects, blog and goof off online.
Some weeks I'm really energetic about progressing in my personal projects (or getting side tracked and coming up with new ones), lately though I've been avoiding computers.
Tonight I might drink, then try some drunk coding.
I spend two weekends per month just at home, mostly coding +reading/playing video games. The other two weekend usually involve concerts/festivals or just visiting friends.
I need that balance, too much activity on weekends means my head won't calm down when i need it to... and too long without seeing normal people and i get lonely :)
Well, it was only ~5-10 hours per weekend 2 weekends in a row, and it was in the name of making stuff easier for my team for the future. In general, I like my job.
And I actually got out on my bike the past two weekends without working, got some computers built to hopefully find their way into the homes of school kids who need something simple at home, and I'm about 18 chapters deep into Snow Crash, which I feel REALLY BAD for putting off for so long. Never read it before.
Act as stay-at-home Dad since my wife works as an RN for 28-32 hours over the weekend and is off during the week, where I work 40 hours + parttime freelance/hacking. Clean, cook (I enjoy cooking immensely), fix stuff around the house, spend time with the kids.
Weekends are when I'm able to work on my startup. Compressed work schedule for paying job, 4 days x 10 hrs / day. 3 day weekends mean I can relax and put some solid hours in on my startup.
Go to a concert
Go kayaking
Work on the house
Dishes, laundry, groceries, lawnmowing
Drive to another city (east coast megalopolis FTW)
Stay in and chill with me wifey
Work on music stuff
Taking pictures. I hate exercise, and the only way I'd get out of the house is with the promise of good photo ops. This weekend I'm doing a 13mi bike ride to get pics from a lighthouse.
typically dinner and drinks with a couple of friends friday night. catch up on sleep, wake up 10-11am saturday, clean up the apartment (more productive when it's clean!), take the puppy for a super-long walk, work on my blog (it pays more than my startup does, so gotta show it some love), keep working on the blog, go out for dinner with friends, wake up late sunday, finish working on blog, then back to startup work until 1-3am. then startup stuff during the week. more or less.
Surf, learn and practice bushcraft techniques, daydream about owning a campervan for kids/bikes/surboards, take photographs of clouds, go fishing but never catch anything.
Practice capoeira, spin poi and contact staff, contact juggle, read, program my own projects, play Dungeons and Dragons and see moview with friends. In general, live.
In between, I get some super-unproductive computer time in and hang out with the kids. Recently, it's been Mindstorms. Last weekend we picked apples. This weekend is my sister's wedding. Next weekend I owe my son his belated promised Dim Sum birthday lunch.
A couple weekends from now, I'm doing a class in Chicago for cryptography for security testers. If that works out well, I'll probably try to do some kind of class every other month. A class occupies two weekends, one for the class (and dinner afterwards) and one before that to rehearse.
More than you wanted to know, but hey, thanks for giving me the chance to straighten my schedule out in my head.