The pressure of time off.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I don’t take much time off. About the only time I have more than a three day weekend, It’s almost always only for a planned vacation to visit out of town. But I had use it or lose it time before the end of the year, so I used it to take the rest of the week off. Last Saturday till next Sunday. 9 days off… So what the fuck do I do now?
I do have some projects I need to spend some time on( I have a tradition of doing a whole house clean on Christmas), but I want to get some relaxing in before I start those. I went out drinking Saturday, which was fun. I spent Sunday remembering why going out drinking at 40+ is a bad idea.

Now it’s Monday morning, and I’m getting tense and depressed because I have no idea how to relax on a weekday, and I’m getting nothing out of it.

2

I occasionally will go out drinking on a weekday. It’s a chance to see and talk with my retired friends, who make fun of me for still being a productive member of society.:smiley:

3

Hit some brew pubs in Frankenmuth.

Take in a hockey game.

4

I do have a couple feelers out with friends for the Wings-Sabres game tomorrow. But I’m in a mood where going to a game alone would be more depressing.

5

-Get some super yummy things to eat and cook up a delicious dinner.
-Read a book or magazine you’ve had hanging around
-Watch all of “Vikings” (download, or stream through Amazon Prime)
-Do the prep work for your big Clean (assemble supplies and make sure you have enough of everything you need, start moving stuff for vacuuming, start towel laundry, etc)

6

I think you should start practising ‘how to relax’ as your retirement is only a couple of decades away.

I’m retired and I spend my time:

  • reading
  • walking
  • teaching friends chess and bridge
  • eating out and watching sport with another retired friend
  • eating out and cinema trip with a couple of former colleagues
  • roleplaying (same group since 1979 :cool:)
  • playing Lord of the Rings Online
  • typing on the SDMB
7

A bit late for the OP, but I have to plan ahead for things like this. Case in point, we get the day before & after Christmas off work this year, so for a week I’ve already been jotting down things as I think of them:

  • things I should do but don’t wanna do - even crappy chores are better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs
  • things I only think of during inconvenient moments, ex. that item that needs repair that I only see as I’m on my way out the door
  • projects that require multi-step pre-planning

OP: any foreign languages it would be worth learning a few phrases in?

8

Go for a walk. Go to a movie.

All caught up on your Christmas shopping?

Binge watch something you’ve been wanting to see.

9

Get a short-term job for the duration and earn some more money. That way, your “free time” won’t be free and won’t be going to waste. :smiley:

10

We get a break from Xmas Eve till Jan 5 and I feel the pressure not to waste it. Typical schedule is sleep till 3:00 PM, putter around the house, maybe see a movie, watch TV or read till 3:00 AM, repeat.

But I do have a car checkup and a dental exam the week after Christmas. Way to live it up, gigi.

11

When I have more than a long weekend off, I pretty much always stay in town and:

  • go see movies I never have time to in the theater
  • meet friends I haven’t seen in a long time for coffee, always kills many afternoon into evening hours
  • go to the big library downtown, read parts of a bunch of books and take some home
  • read a book or two while making pots of tea
  • go for long walks, sometimes taking the El to a different neighborhood and walking around there
  • check out cool indie shops I haven’t been to before (collectors, books, records, antiques), and neighborhood coffee shops I haven’t seen before
  • hit the beach if it’s nice out
  • meet a friend or two for dinner and drinks at either my favorite couple of places or a new one we haven’t been to before
  • make doctors appointments if I have any I should get up to date (including dentist)
  • go to the zoo, art museum, other neighborhood tourist spots/smaller cultural museums, act like a tourist for a while
  • I haven’t done any geocaching yet, but it’s on my list of stuff to do one day when I’ve run out of other stuff
12

SeaDragonTattoo that is like, the list of things I totally think of doing when I have time off but in reality I end up with my butt glued to the couch, re-watching shows I’ve watched several times before and eating cold pizza.

Good on you! :slight_smile:

13

Back when I was depressed, the weekends were always the worst. Give me routine and structure and I can deal with just about anything. But take work away, and I’m left alone with the thoughts. Ugh.

My therapist got me into the habit of planning my weekend agenda. My appointments with her was always on Mondays, but we would still use the last five minutes or so to chart out the upcoming weekend. I know this seems so basic that I shouldn’t have needed help. But since planning in advance has never been my thing, this wasn’t intuitive.

Now it’s my habit to come up with a to-do list right after I wake up on Saturday. I jot down a few house chore/errand type activities, in addition to some fun things. I cross them off as I go through day. I feel a sense of accomplishment if I can get to most of them.

I try not to stay home on holidays and days-off. If I stay home, I usually squander all my time on the internet. And then when someone asks what I did over the holiday, I have nothing to talk about. So I always plan an outing somewhere or some kind of activity that has a high likelihood of generating an interesting story or two.

14

My brother and I both have struggled with depression and we totally agree with that!