My weekend routine – How to make 2024 less stressful

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LIFE STORIES At the weekend you have time for yourself and can recover for the coming school week? Unfortunately, you thought wrong! In high school, weekends mainly mean catching up and studying. Nevertheless, there are reasons to look forward to them.

I do my best to post regularly. But sometimes I need time for time at the weekend. Time for myself and what I actually like to do. Because with all the school stress, that’s what’s getting left behind.

During the week

My school philosophy of working continuously during the week and studying diligently at the weekend has given me many busy afternoons. Particularly time-consuming are the exam overviews for my (probable) exam subjects, I always wisely complete in parallel with my lessons. Then there are the study sheets for „normal“ tests, etc. I know I’m not making it easy for myself.

Of course, I could just do the bare minimum and hang out on Instagram the rest of the time – but school seems to make more sense to me in this case. There are evenings when I’m just so exhausted that I can’t do anything anymore. Then it’s time to switch off for the day. The next day, however, I’m motivated again, because I want to get the worst done before the weekend.

Friday

The first day of the weekend – for me it usually starts after dinner, when I finally put away all my school things and enjoy the fact that I don’t have to worry about new, spontaneous school challenges the next day. I usually start drawing, a hobby I pursue more sporadically and which I may not master perfectly, but still: in those minutes I am happy. That’s not to say I’m always unhappy. Rather, I keep such moments in mind, the memory of which gives me not a little strength to cope with stressful phases.

Saturday

Getting up around 8 a.m. in a good mood – on Saturdays I manage to do that, at least to some extent. Although everything outside is still gloomy and unfriendly, which doesn’t generally lift my mood, I know that the day is long and can be planned more freely than any other day of the week.

In theory, this means: I decide where to go today. Practically, it means: I write a list of everything I have to do and I’m happy to have every free minute. Since I’ve already done most of the homework and overviews during the week, the mornings are mainly spent studying. Stubborn, hated memorisation, during which I usually run circular furrows in our living room floor.

I have to get through it – and my grandma, whose rooms are below me. The plan to learn everything for the coming week at the weekend sounds tough, but it pays off – especially since the learning is spread over two days. If things go well, I’m also finished for the day before 3 pm. This means that the day has another 9 free hours.

Now the activities that serve personal projects come into play. Whether it’s personalised birthday gifts (which I won’t describe in detail here because otherwise I’ll spoil the surprise for the people who are supposed to receive the gifts, namely when they read this blog themselves) or writing competitions – such activities unfortunately have the characteristic of always taking much longer than they were scheduled to. But – don’t worry – most of the time they are fun for me and can thus be regarded as nice Saturday activities.

5 pm. My concentration is irretrievably coming to an end. Sometimes Mum and I find time to do a puzzle now. That sounds more relaxed than it actually is, because with a 1000-piece space puzzle, all the pieces look almost the same… Unfortunately, such lazy evenings have become rather rare, because at least until 7 pm there is always something that could be done. Nevertheless: Saturday is and remains the most free day of the week by my definition.

Sunday

My Sunday morning mood is often clouded by the knowledge of a new week starting tomorrow. Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, I have a good motivation to get up as early as possible again. Because, if you follow my logic, I have more time for any work, I finish faster and can therefore concentrate on myself again in the afternoon.

If the weather is good, I often take the opportunity to go for a short or long bike ride through the local forest with my dad after lunch. But at the moment we’re usually trudging through the snow (we actually have a snowy winter… ). With the feeling of being physically exhausted, but mentally recharged, we return on time (or not) for coffee.

Reflecting, I can actually say that these minutes are the only ones in which I think about nothing but the present. Originally, the cycling tour was always in the afternoon, but the early setting sun put a stop to this tradition. Whereby – such a sunset shooting also has ist good sides. (Due to time constraints, I don’t want to go into my passion for taking photos of myself and the world here).

Sunday evening is hardly any different from a normal weekday. Although I don’t have time pressure like many others (the people who are just starting their homework over the weekend), the typical routine of packing my schoolbag, checking my homework, going to bed early, etc. comes into play.

Conclusion

So the weekends pass as if in a sleep, packed with self-assigned tasks and many relaxing moments. And before you know it, the week is over again. At some point – and I’m holding on to this in my mind right now – calmer weeks (and weekends) will come and then life can really get going again.

PS: If you have time left over in your study schedule, here are a few activities that are guaranteed to be stress-free.