Inverse-Weekend Technique: Boost Your Creativity, Drive & Good Habits When Starting a New Week
We all love weekends (or other days off during the week) because we get a chance to relax, step back, and cool off from the work we’ve done the week before. We need weekends to empty our minds and gain back our energy for the week ahead of us. For the past several months, I have tried different methods to get the most out of my weekends and be even more prepared for the upcoming week. After many trials and errors, I came up with the “Inverse-Weekend” technique that has been helping me improve my creativity and drive. Using this technique, I also manage to continue sticking to my good habits.
This post will explain what my signature “Inverse-Weekend” technique is and what benefits it has for you and your personal/business growth.
What is Inverse-Weekend Technique?
The technique is straightforward and might sound unusual to you. To try this technique, all you need to do is intentionally do the polar opposite of what you usually do in all aspects of your life during weekdays, during the weekend. You might say, “well, that’s what weekends are for, not working, which is the polar opposite of working.” That’s true, but this technique affects every part of your daily routine. It invites you to let go of your daily habits and do stuff completely different. Let’s go through some examples of what I’ve been doing for the past several weeks.
During my week, as an entrepreneur, I work around 8–10 hours per day. Besides working, I’m also sticking to my constructive habits and tracking my progress. I work from home; I eat indoors and usually entertain myself indoors as well. I love what I do, and I spend a lot of hours on what I love. During the weekend, I mostly spend my time outdoors and ultimately stop working. I eat different foods, do the opposite of my habits, etc.
Here is a table of the usual things I do differently during the weekend in comparison to my weekdays:
And the list goes on. Every weekend, I adjust what I want to do, depending on what I have done during the weekdays. Now let’s talk about the benefits of this technique.
What are the Benefits of Inverse-Weekend Technique?
I’ve been applying this technique for several months, and I’ve noticed various benefits in my life, which I’m going to take you through some of them:
De-Patternization
The main benefit of this technique is de-patternization, meaning to break your mental and physical patterns. The topic of de-patternization is a discussion of its own. It is essential to say that de-patternization is one of the significant reasons early humans have evolved and grew into modern civilization. It was through de-patternization that we managed to invent new things. When we get away from our repeating life patterns, aka our comfort zone, we start introducing new knowledge and activities to our lives. We look at life challenges differently. We gain a different perspective and eventually increase our creativity. Very similar to the positive effects of psychedelic drugs.
By applying the “Inverse-Weekend” technique, meaning by intentionally doing polar oppositions of what we usually do, we introduce de-patternization in our lives. We get forced to get out of our norms and usual surroundings to gain different experiences. No matter how small the opposite acts are during the weekends, we still experience life differently. This technique will help us during the upcoming weeks to carry on these experiences in creativity and apply them to our work and life journey.
Recommended Book: Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
Mental and Physical Rest
Another significant benefit of this technique is that you let your brain cool off from the repetitive tasks during the week by doing different tasks. When we do repetitive and similar tasks, we create mental blocks and blindness, and our brain alertness decreases. When having mental blocks, we can easily miss the universe’s signals and opportunities passing right in front of our eyes. We, therefore, miss our chance to grow personally and within our professional life.
Paying Attention to Other Important Aspect of Your Life
The “Inverse-Weekend” technique will also help you step back from your daily work and understand if you’re missing out or not paying enough attention to other significant parts of your life like your family, friends, health, integrity, etc. I personally have experienced this since I love what I do. I sometimes get sucked into my work and forget about other aspects of my life. This technique has helped me balance out different parts of my life and eventually live happier.
Re-Gaining Excitement
Through months of applying this technique, I also noticed that every Monday, I’m much more excited to start work, I have a stronger drive, and I stick to my good habits more. By having a time-off from my daily routine, I let my brain and soul miss my everyday life! Every Sunday, I’m so pumped to start my new week, and my mind is ready to tackle anything more than ever!
If you start practicing this technique and notice that you don’t miss the tasks you usually do during the week or you don’t experience any excitement on Mondays, then you should take a more in-depth look at what you’re doing in life and find out what’s missing in your life or what is keeping you down. If you love what you do, then you will love Mondays. If you don’t love what you do, you haven’t found your real purpose, aka your Dharma.
Awaking the Inner Child
The last benefit I want to mention is the advantages you can gain from awakening your inner child. The randomness and the adventurous characteristic of this technique wake up our inner child, our true-self. When we live through our true-self, we experience life on a deeper scale and make conscious decisions. Keep living through your true-self long enough, and you will notice yourself to be a better conscious human being.
My Last Words
We live within a random universe, and randomness is an essential part of our lives. Without randomness, we might as well be just robots! We need to keep randomness within our lives, and the “Inverse-Weekend” technique can help you do that.
Like all the other posts that I published on this blog, give my advice and suggestions a try and if you feel that they are constructive for you, then keep it with you. When practicing any new personal development technique, be aware of your inner and outer changes, pay attention to your body and mental responses and watch the effects the techniques have in your life, no matter how small they are.
I invite you to practice this technique next weekend and truly enjoy it! Instead of fearing the unknown, embrace it, and just have fun with it! Bring back the randomness to your life.
Related: Goal Obsession: How We Are Blinded by Our Goals and Missing Out a Lot
