It’s an unhappy truth of life that there simply aren’t enough days in the weekend. You slog your way through Monday to Friday, straining to meet your deadlines and appease your horrible boss. The days inch by until (finally!) you clock off on Friday, a little frazzled but elated to have gone the distance once more. The real question, though, is what happens now? How do you maximise this fleeting window of freedom? And can you stop this initial buzz of “school’s out” euphoria from fizzling into anti-climax yet again?
The American writer John Shirley was grimly familiar with this scenario. “Weekends are a bit like rainbows,” he wrote. “They look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.” Nor is this particularly surprising. Your life responsibilities, after all, do not suddenly vanish away from work. Inevitably, there are still errands to run, lawns to mow, groceries to buy, houses to clean, kids to take to swimming lessons and DIY chores to attempt and disastrously bungle before seeking professional help.
But these life logistics aren’t the only thing on your weekend agenda. After a long and stressful week, you could probably do with some well-earned rest to recharge. Except that you also want to have some fun – go for a surf, perhaps, or catch up with mates for a beer or a barbie. Faced by so many competing demands, it’s easy to get paralysed by indecision. The next thing you know, you’ve been sucked down a social-media wormhole that spits you out into the familiar dread of the Sunday-night blues.
That risk is graver than ever at a time when weekends are increasingly losing their definition. Many of us now work from home – some of the time at least – so our professional lives have become entangled with our domestic worlds. The ping of work emails never stops, making it harder than ever to switch off. The onus is on you to erect some boundaries and regain control. But you need all the help you can get.
Which is why we’re advocating the idea of weekend watches. Essentially, what we’re talking about is a highly visible cue to nudge your head in the right direction and capitalise on your precious time off. You know how you occasionally scrawl a felt-tip note on the back of your hand saying, “FFS, Don’t Forget The Milk”? Well, this is a similar principle.
As an added bonus, it also tells the time, is strapped to your wrist and will fire you up to seize your weekend. One word of caution: your smartwatch may have the functionality to do dozens of clever-clog things, from tracking your blood-oxygen levels to sharing your photos. But it’s ill-suited to weekend-watch duties due to its endless stream of notifications. You don’t want to be relaxing at the beach and idly glance at the time, only to be greeted by a terse email from your passive-aggressive colleague that yanks your mind back into the very snake pit of office politics that you’re meant to be having a two-day reprieve from. Nope, when it comes to the functionality of weekend watches, less is very much more.
Rather than bringing you back to work, what you want here is a watch that will hammer home to your brain that you are very much off duty. Think of it like a Hawaiian shirt for your wrist. That means a watch that employs a bit of colour and fun, whether that consists of a perkier dial, a bolder bezel or an eye-catching rubber strap. It’s a watch specifically chosen to short-circuit any thoughts of spreadsheets and that tricky client presentation next week that could conceivably derail your career.
Weekend watches may sound like an extreme measure but, quite frankly, these days you need extra ammo. Recent data harvested from Microsoft 365 users show that, since the pandemic kicked off, after-hours work is up by 28 per cent and weekend working by 14 per cent.
All work and no play, as we all well know, makes Jack a dull boy – and leads to a disgruntled wife and a nervous tic. It’s time to reclaim your weekend.
Hublot Big Bang Integral Ceramic $33,600
Raymond Weil Freelancer $5695
Swatch MoonSwatch $380
Longines Legend Diver $3825
Rado DiaStar Original $2150
Citizen NJ0170-83Z $550
Seiko Prospex Speedtimer Solar Chronograph $1110
Mido Ocean Star GMT $2100
Tudor Black Bay GMT S&G $7560
TAG Heuer Formula 1 $2650
