# How do you make weekends feel longer? Canonical: https://zestasy.com/wiki/making-weekends-feel-longer/ Section: Zestasy Wiki > Mindset · Updated: 2026-10-13 · Publisher: Zestasy *Zestasy Wiki: our reference answers. Checked for facts and sources; less curated than the magazine.* Give the weekend one or two distinct moments (a new walk, a market in another town, a long lunch somewhere you've never been) and leave gaps around them instead of filling every hour. Weekends that look like every other weekend tend to blur into nothing by Monday, while ones with something different in them feel longer looking back. Treating Saturday a little like a holiday, and paying attention while it happens, helps too. Friday evening, a pizza and a film. Saturday, errands, laundry, a supermarket run, a vague evening. Sunday, a lie-in, a bit of tidying, a sinking feeling at four o'clock. By Monday morning, it's hard to remember what happened. The weekend didn't feel short while you were in it; it just left nothing behind. ## Why some weekends vanish Part of the answer seems to be routine. In a study published in the *Journal of Experimental Psychology: General*, [Dinah Avni-Babad and Ilana Ritov](https://cris.huji.ac.il/en/publications/routine-and-the-perception-of-time-2/) found that time spent on routine tasks was remembered as shorter than the same time spent in less routine conditions, across lab experiments and field studies that included people on holiday. In everyday terms: weekends made of the same chores in the same order fold into each other in memory. Weekends with something distinct in them have more to hold on to. ## Add one new thing You don't need an adventure every Saturday. One distinct moment is enough to give the weekend a shape: - A walk somewhere you've never walked, even twenty minutes away. - Breakfast at a different café, or outdoors. - A market in the next town. - A swim in a different pool, lake or stretch of sea. - Cooking a dish you've never made, from a cuisine you rarely cook. - A gallery, a matinee, a match at the local ground. The novelty doesn't have to be big. It has to be different enough to be remembered. ## Plan anchors, leave gaps A weekend with nothing planned can drift away. A weekend planned to the minute can feel like a second working week. The middle way is anchors with gaps: - **One anchor on Saturday, one on Sunday:** the lunch, the hike, the friend's visit. - **Gaps around them:** time to wander, nap, read or follow whatever comes up. - **Errands in one batch:** an hour on Saturday morning, then done, rather than scattered across both days. Gaps are where weekends breathe. Anchors are what you remember. ## Treat it a little like a holiday A working paper from UCLA Anderson by [Colin West, Cassie Mogilner Holmes and Sanford DeVoe](https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/vacation-mindset) asked one group of people to treat their weekend like a holiday and another to treat it like any other weekend. On Monday, the holiday group reported paying more attention to the present and being happier, and the researchers linked this to that attention rather than to spending more money. You don't need to do anything elaborate. A slower breakfast. The phone left at home for the morning walk. Eating outside. Noticing the light. Saying to yourself "this is my weekend" and meaning it. ## Push back the Sunday shadow Many weekends lose half a day to anticipating Monday. A few things help: do any Monday prep on Friday afternoon, keep a nice plan for Sunday evening (a dinner, a film, a walk), and leave work notifications off until Monday. There's more on that particular feeling in [shaking off the Sunday-evening feeling](https://zestasy.com/wiki/sunday-evening-feeling/). ## Get up a bit earlier, sometimes Not every weekend, and never as a rule. But an early Saturday walk to a quiet market or an empty beach can feel like an extra morning that most people never see. ## FAQ ### Isn't rest the point of a weekend? Absolutely. Rest and novelty aren't opposites: a new walk, a long lunch or a nap in a different spot can be very restful. The aim is not to fill time, just to make it distinct. ### What if I have to work some of the weekend? Fence it in: a fixed slot, done and finished, so the rest of the weekend still feels like its own thing. ### Do I need to spend money to make weekends feel longer? No. The UCLA researchers linked the effect to attention, not spending. A free walk somewhere new counts. ### How do I do this with young children? Small changes work well with children: a different playground, a picnic instead of lunch at home, a bus ride to somewhere new. They often remember the odd detail for years. ## Sources - [Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Avni-Babad and Ritov, Routine and the perception of time (2003)](https://cris.huji.ac.il/en/publications/routine-and-the-perception-of-time-2/) - [UCLA Anderson Review: Treat your weekend like a vacation (West, Mogilner Holmes and DeVoe)](https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/vacation-mindset) ## Related - [How do you shake off the Sunday-evening feeling?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/sunday-evening-feeling/) - [What does dolce far niente really mean?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/dolce-far-niente/) - [How do you switch off after work?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/switching-off-after-work/) - [How do you plan a holiday without overplanning it?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/overplanning-holidays/) - [How do you get out of a rut?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/getting-out-of-a-rut/) - [All Mindset answers in the Wiki](https://zestasy.com/wiki/#mindset)