The Business Case For Taking Weekends Off

I know this isn’t exactly what a startup founder is supposed to be writing (sorry Silicon Valley), but this weekend made me acutely aware of the business case for taking weekends off.

I’ll caveat this with, it really depends on what sort of work you have to do.  If you aren’t expected to be brilliant all the time, I would argue that you don’t need to take weekends off (i.e. you can get away with not bringing 100% of yourself to work every day).  Lately, I feel like the work that I have to do is so far out of my comfort zone, if I even have 1 hour less of sleep than I need, I KNOW I’m not performing optimally, and it bugs the crap out of me.  It’s like I’m having an out of body experience and I’m shouting at myself, Jesus Anu, what is going on?

Anyway, the point is, if you’re already at the edge, maximizing your utilization, you need to be careful how you spend your energy.  If you spend it on things that are not high value, the danger is that if you don’t give yourself time to recharge, you’ll skimp on things that really require a lot of your attention.  It’s not that you skimp on purpose, you’ll justify it to yourself (no really, that was enough prep for that meeting, promise!) But if you’re honest, you’ll know that if you were less tired, you’d have done better.  Lets be real here.

The point is, whatever work you are doing on the weekend can probably wait.  Because the opportunity cost of sending those emails (that really, can be sent on Monday evening), or that conference talk (which really, would have been ok if you hadn’t given)  is that you aren’t recharged and ready to be brilliant for all the billion problems you have to solve at work Monday morning. The billion problems which, if you provide deep thought to, can fundamentally change the way your company functions.

I had to get that out there before I chickened out.  It’s really not cool to admit you have limits, and yes, WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS THAT NEED REST.

I’m done. Going to meet a friend and READ (non work related things).

Peace.