The weekend resets

Right now is a crazy time in the world. There’s incredible uncertainty, things are changing by the hour, and real damage is and may happen.

It’s important to be aware of these changes—to an extent—as decisions need to be made. But, we only have a limited amount of mental bandwidth to accept and act on the data flowing in.

There are three ways I’ve found to handle this.

First, I limit the news input. I try to pay attention to news on a rolling 24 hour basis, meaning I’m catching up to what happened the day before. This is done by a few podcasts I follow as well as reading articles from a handful of writers. Generally the authors have to take time to process their thoughts, put them to page or microphone, edit, and publish.

While this method misses out on the viral moments that ebb and flow throughout the day, it allows for the most impactful events to be captured, condensed, and shared.

There’s risk in this. Risk in not getting the whole picture, and being misled by bias. So the sources matter. But the value comes in a slower source of news, less crazy stuff thrown all at once, and updates read in a measured, more organized, way.

I’ve been trying this for the last four months and, though it’s not a perfect system, it’s helped bring more calm into my life.

Second, finding time to exercise. In my early twenties I had an off-and-on again method to workouts. I’d come up with grand goals, sometimes attain them, then fall off and stop exercising for long periods of time.

Over the last five years I’ve taken a different approach. About three days a week I get outside and go for a run lasting 30-60 minutes. That’s it. It’s an outlet for my brain and body to get away from everything, and it gives me some of the benefit of just moving my body. Though I’m experimenting with other forms of exercise along with it, including stretching, the running has been a constant. Would I like to do more? Absolutely, but for it’ s hard to at this stage of life.

No matter how bad the day inside, time spent outside is always fantastic. It makes the world feel bigger than my laptop screen, where the cares of my mind can be contextualized by the passing seasons.

Finally, I find some time for me each day, even if it’s fifteen minutes. I’ll play a game, watch something, or tinker with a project. This time has no goals, no requirements, no measurable ROI. It’s just time for me.

These ways of operating are elastic. They can handle a sick day, a travel day, a crazy day at work. There’s no chain to be broken. If one week is bad and I miss a bunch of these, I can just pick it up the following week.

These items are less about concrete goals and more about a way of doing a few things to fit into my life.

All that’s to say, these fit into the bigger picture of taking a reset each weekend, mostly on Saturday’s but often on Sundays too, where I step away from work. I allow the period of the weekend to reset things, where I’ll pick them up in earnest the following week, but not force myself to carry on infinitely with every care.