Hello, perfect weekend

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9.10am, Monday: your colleague’s rattling off details from her weekend. Ran a half-marathon, baked three types of macaron, bar-hopped between four venues – all on Saturday.

She’s the Energizer bunny in ballet flats. You, on the other hand, got three pages into a Stieg Larsson novel and painted your nails teal.

It’s easy to have a weekend of extremes: doing nothing (disappointing) or over-scheduling (exhausting). A perfect two days off sits somewhere in between. “If you have a demanding job, weekends are what stand between you and a smouldering burnout,” says Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend.

“Success in a competitive world requires hitting Monday refreshed and ready to go. The only way to do that is to create weekends that rejuvenate, rather than exhaust or disappoint you.” Clinical psychologist Gemma Cribb from Sydney’s Equilibrium Psychology agrees: “The recipe for weekend success is getting a bit of everything, but limiting how much you engage in everything.” So if you plan your weekend like you do Monday to Friday, you can fit in everything you want – including a fair whack of nothing. Get your timer ready...

10 minutes of… Planning

Your weekend starts... on Monday. Map out what you want to do come Friday evening. “If you let the perfect weekend spontaneously happen, nine times out of 10 you’ll only [do half as much] – or spend too many hours in front of the TV,” says consultant psychologist Dr Travis Kemp. And if you leave it till Saturday morning, you’ll waste some of your precious weekend planning rather than enjoying the anticipation, says Vanderkam. After all, the build-up is half the fun. “This time-travel into the future accounts for a big chunk of the happiness gleaned from any event,” says Vanderkam. “You experience some of the same joy you would in the moment. The major difference is the joy can last much longer.”

2 hours of… Getting crap done

Saturdays are for hiking, not tackling mountains of laundry. So don’t leave chores till the weekend – do them when you don’t have the time, says Vanderkam. Say what? “If you use Monday to Friday for chores instead, you may spend less time on them – because you have less time.” Time management expert Jessica Reid, author of Lady Calamity’s Top Ten Secrets to Being Organised, agrees: “Split your weekly chores into smaller, daily tasks. That way it only takes 20 minutes a day rather than a whole day.” And if you’d rather stick a pencil in your eye than spend Saturday at the dentist, try to negotiate a long lunchbreak once a fortnight to tick off dull tasks.

For the really time-poor, a personal concierge can do anything from restocking your fridge to managing your share portfolio. “Client discretion is our number-one priority, but I did once have to retrieve a client’s business shirt from a hotel freezer,” says Kathryn Mayne, director of Urban Concierge. “I never did find out why it was there.”

4 hours of… Tech-free

While Facebook makes you feel “connected”, it may be getting in the way of your happiness. New research in PLOS ONE has found the more people use the site during one time period, the worse they subsequently felt. “Technology pulls you out of the here and now, and stops you from being mindful,” says Cribb.

“Children experience really happy, positive emotions because they’re fully present. A little girl might be enthralled by a caterpillar because nothing else is on her radar at that moment.”

To get that little-girl giddiness, download the free Unplug and Reconnect app from Google Play. It silences your phone for a scheduled period and lets people know you’re having a tech break via text and social media.

1 hour of… Exercise

You know you should work out on the weekend. And defrost the freezer. There are lots of things you don’t feel like doing. But never ask yourself if you “feel” like exercising, says Kemp: “The answer’s probably ‘no’. Just schedule it in, otherwise something else will come up.” And don’t lump exercise with errands, he adds. “If you tell yourself it’s for your wellbeing, that’s a very different headspace than thinking of exercise as a chore.”

5 hours of… Sunday-NIGHT socialising

Does back-to-work angst keep you up on Sundays? A survey commissioned by hotel chain Travelodge found nearly 60 per cent of adults experience their worst night’s sleep on Sunday. “Combat Sunday-night blues by scheduling something fun for Sunday evening,” says Vanderkam. “This extends the weekend and keeps you focused on the fun to come, rather than on Monday morning.”

“One equally great way to end the weekend is to volunteer,” adds Vanderkam. In a survey of more than 3300 volunteers by Harris Interactive, 94 per cent said “giving back” improves their mood. “Nothing will take your mind off any problems associated with your decent-paying and steady job like serving people who aren’t so fortunate.”