The Weekend Effect: The Life-Changing Benefits of Taking Time Off and Challenging the Cult of Overwork

by Katrina Onstad

Overview

Encroaching work demands—coupled with domestic chores, overbooked schedules, and the incessant pinging of our devices—have taken a toll on what used to be our free time: the weekend. With no space to tune out and recharge, every aspect of our lives is suffering: our health is deteriorating, our social networks (the face-to-face kind) are dissolving, and our productivity is down. The notion of working less and living more, once considered an American virtue, has given way to the belief that you must be “on” 24/7.

Award-winning journalist Katrina Onstad, pushes back against this all-work, no-fun ethos. Tired of suffering from Sunday night letdown, she digs into the history, positive psychology, and cultural anthropology of the great missing weekend and how we can revive it.

Onstad follows the trail of people, companies, and countries who are vigilantly protecting their time off for joy, adventure, and most important, purpose. Filled with personal and professional inspiration, The Weekend Effect is a thoughtful, well-researched argument to take back those precious 48 hours, and ultimately, to save ourselves.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062440181
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

KATRINA ONSTAD is a multiple award–winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian and Elle. Her critically lauded novels include How Happy to Be and Everybody Has Everything, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Onstad lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.

Table of Contents

Sunday Night Letdown 1

Chapter 1 What Is a Weekend? 7

Chapter 2 The Rise and Fall of the Weekend 14

Chapter 3 The Need to Connect 84

Chapter 4 Binge, Buy, Brunch, Basketball: Better Recreation 134

Chapter 5 Do Less and Be More at Home 189

Chapter 6 The Power of Beauty 225

Chapter 7 Manifesto for a Good Weekend 256

Acknowledgments 261

Notes 265

Editorial Reviews

03/13/2017
Journalist and novelist Onstad (Everybody Has Everything) makes a compelling but flawed case for the need for leisure. The book begins with a bit of history, explaining the differences between contemporary and pre–industrial revolution conceptions of leisure. Onstad’s tone is hopeful as she details the benefits of longer weekends for both work and workers. The book explores how companies such as Basecamp and Amazon are attempting to implement shorter work weeks and encourage employees to disconnect on weekends. The section that details good ways to fill in leisure time—including art, nature, and volunteering—is encouraging, but the book doesn’t adequately address the role of class. Early on, Onstad reveals that white-collar workers work more than their blue-collar counterparts, a “leisure gap” that shouldn’t be “trivialized” according to the writer. Though it’s fair to say that weekends and leisure are a “cross-class” issue, the book never addresses whether less work for people who make less money and have unstable hours actually translates into more leisure. A passage on the importance of work/life balance to the social fabric is powerful, but too brief. The need for leisure is a worthwhile subject, but Onstad’s book, while a good start, is ultimately a superficial survey of the issue. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Often we race through the week, only to find our weekends packed with countless errands and never-ending to-do lists….In The Weekend Effect, Katrina Onstad offers a powerful argument, and practical advice, on the importance of reclaiming your leisure time to live a happier and more fulfilling life.” — Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before

“Too often work and technology erode our ability to connect meaningfully face-to-face, intruding into the critical time we need to recharge ourselves. In Katrina Onstad’s insightful and compelling book, The Weekend Effect, she offers an urgent call to arms on the essential need to take back our weekends.” — Dallas Hartwig, New York Times bestselling co-author of It Starts With Food and The Whole30

“Masterfully researched and beautifully written, The Weekend Effect urgently makes the case that our hard won free time is essential to our survival, and needs to be reclaimed. Pick up this book, and get ready to rekindle your love of the weekend! Your emails can wait until Monday.” — David Sax, author of The Revenge of Analog

“The Weekend Effect is a call to action-or even better-a call to inaction. It proves its case that by staking a claim to your weekend, your work and home life (and your health and wellbeing) benefit every day of the year.” — Kirstine Stewart, media and technology executive and author of Our Turn

“Katrina Onstad makes a compelling case in her terrific new book, The Weekend Effect, that true leisure-time for reflection, connection, play and joy-knits together the social fabric of community, soothes the weary soul and, at heart, is what makes life worth living.” — Brigid Schulte, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time and director of The Better Life Lab at New America

From the Publisher

Masterfully researched and beautifully written, The Weekend Effect urgently makes the case that our hard won free time is essential to our survival, and needs to be reclaimed. Pick up this book, and get ready to rekindle your love of the weekend! Your emails can wait until Monday.

David Sax

Katrina Onstad makes a compelling case in her terrific new book, The Weekend Effect, that true leisure-time for reflection, connection, play and joy-knits together the social fabric of community, soothes the weary soul and, at heart, is what makes life worth living.

Brigid Schulte

Often we race through the week, only to find our weekends packed with countless errands and never-ending to-do lists….In The Weekend Effect, Katrina Onstad offers a powerful argument, and practical advice, on the importance of reclaiming your leisure time to live a happier and more fulfilling life.

Gretchen Rubin

Too often work and technology erode our ability to connect meaningfully face-to-face, intruding into the critical time we need to recharge ourselves. In Katrina Onstad’s insightful and compelling book, The Weekend Effect, she offers an urgent call to arms on the essential need to take back our weekends.

Dallas Hartwig

The Weekend Effect is a call to action-or even better-a call to inaction. It proves its case that by staking a claim to your weekend, your work and home life (and your health and wellbeing) benefit every day of the year.

Kirstine Stewart

[A] thoughful, life-affirming work.

The Globe and Mail