Aah, Weekends

Do you ever find that your list of goals for a two-day weekend is longer than your list for your whole five-day work week ? In our household, weekends are for accomplishing all the things we can't manage during the week--groceries, laundry, and such--but also for fulfilling more social and enrichment activities than a family of five should have. Gone are the days of sleeping late, and more importantly, of having the weekdays be accomplishment time and the weekends be resting time.
 
So, how, then, do we keep the weekends from becoming just a more intense version of what we expect from ourselves during the week?
 
A few thoughts--
 
1. Laugh. Even if the time is full, it needn't be as serious as work. Laugh.
 
2. Set time boundaries for accomplishing things, or at least for the time you spend trying to. The natural boundaries of work tend to provide the boundaries during the week. On the weekends, it's up to you to set them.
 
3. Allow meals at odd times. Among the most regulated weekday things--for adults and kids--are mealtimes. Breakfast must be at a certain time in order to make a bus or train to work or school, lunch is at a designated lunch period or lunch hour, dinner is defined by afterschool activities and work hours. So, on the weekends, try breakfast at 12 and lunch at 4. It's very freeing.
 
4. Make sure to do at least one thing you can never do during the week. Whether it's reading a book, or going to the gym, or just enjoying a walk in your own neighborhood, this will remind you that, even if it's just as full as the work week, the weekend is different, and should be treated as such.
 
5. Breathe in the weekend, just a little, before you go back to work/school on Monday. Don't worry. You'll have a chance to try out all of these things in just a few days.