What The Most Successful People Do On The Weekend

What The Most Successful People Do With Their Weekends (By Laura Vanderkam): The author of What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend shows us how to have more get-up-and-get-ahead during the rest of the week.

1. They Don’t Keep Spinning. 

Yes, successful people work a lot. Martha Stewart, for instance, has famously claimed to sleep just four hours a night. But there are times to push and times not to. We need both. "A decade ago, I let my days just sort of all blend together," says James Reinhart, whose San Francisco-based online clothing resale platform ThredUp.com has grown from 30 employees to 140 in the past year. After starting the company, though, he realized that "it’s the quality of my decision making that ultimately makes the company successful." Without the time to go into refresh mode, "you never end up with the space to think."

So now he makes a point of golfing from 6 to 8 in the morning before his family wakes up, getting out with his daughter, and running. Reinhart claims to do his best thinking while hitting the trails in a nearby state park. "I come back from runs with clarity on decisions I want to make," he says. (He may be onto something: A number of neurological studies have found that exercise improves brain function.)

Of course, in a world where we tether ourselves to our inboxes, unplugging is easier said than done. You take your iPhone along when you meet a friend for coffee. She’s five minutes late. You start checking your email and, boom! Work mode is back. That’s part of modern life, but you can still carve out a few hours for a "tech Sabbath," which is time with no electronic devices. Try turning the smartphone off Friday or Saturday night and turning it back on 24 hours later. Probably nothing has changed, save for the level of your energy.

2. They Don't Go Limp.

If you spend your workweek running -- or worse, flying -- from place to place, you may think you want to collapse on the couch all weekend. But resist the urge: First, it’s impossible to do "nothing." Second: Think of the logistics. Want tickets to Cirque du Soleil? So do other people. Need a babysitter? She won’t show up on a whim. Finally, research into human happiness is finding that anticipation accounts for a major chunk of the mood boost associated with any activity. One well-known Dutch study of vacationers found that holiday-goers were happier than people who weren’t taking vacations, but the increased happiness largely happened before the trips, as people anticipated the fun to come. Compare it to opening Christmas presents: The act only takes an hour, but seeing wrapped gifts under the tree stretches out the joy for weeks. If you make a reservation on Wednesday for a Saturday-night dinner at your favorite restaurant, you’ll spend the next three days imagining your pasta carbonara to come -- which improves your weekend and your week.

3. They Don't Clean the Grout.

Using the weekend to catch up on chores is probably the hardest trap to avoid. After all, if you work full-time, when else are you supposed to do the 15.1 hours (for women) or 9.6 hours (for men) of household activities that the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims the average American does each week? But housework will take all the time you are willing to give it. After all, women in 1965 spent more than 30 hours each week on housework... and we haven’t descended into complete filth since then.

So consider doing your chores during the workweek; the chores will take less time because you have less time. This will leave your weekends free for more rejuvenating activities. Throw a load of laundry in before dinner and have the kids either do the dishes after or fold. Make a quick trip to the grocery store at 8:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. The place will be so empty you’ll zoom through. If a sparkling house is important to you -- and sometimes it is -- then designate a short cleaning time on the weekend, perhaps on Sunday afternoon. That way, if you find yourself looking at a messy house on Saturday morning, you can tell yourself that there’s a time for cleaning, and now is not that time. When the cleaning window arrives, set an alarm and do as much as you can in an hour. When the time is up, it’s up.

4. They Don't Lose the Last 15 Hours.

I struggle with this trap myself. I love what I do, but sometimes the sheer volume of work waiting for me Monday morning makes me look at the clock come Sunday afternoon and fall into a total Sunday funk. But the thing is: At 3 p.m. on Sunday, I still have 15 hours before I’ll wake up Monday morning, including seven hours before I need to go to bed. Why not seize that time?

This is why Sunday nights have become my new favorite time to host parties. Most people are free, and there’s a more relaxed vibe than at the formal get-togethers people expect on Saturday nights. Order food, have a beer, enjoy your friends, and you’ll be far readier for the workweek than if you spend that same time thinking about your inbox. As Reinhart puts it, failing to relax, run and refresh on weekends "makes me not a good husband, not a good dad and a terrible CEO." Success requires recharging the batteries from time to time, so you can hit Monday refreshed and ready to conquer -- if not the world, then at least your own life.

Laura Vanderkam is the author of What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off  and 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think.

Yes We Do Windows! Staying Fit Together

Staying fit together: Florence (Oregon) couple made a commitment to each other to exercise. Bill and Connie Spinner made a commitment in 2000 that they would work out every day. The Florence residents are no strangers to making big, lasting decisions together. They married in 1963, for example, and quit smoking together in 1970. The workout idea is yet another goal they’ve achieved as a duo. “If we are sick, one holds the other and off we go for a 30-minute walk,” Connie said. “Movement heals your body, mind and spirit.” Both Connie, 66, and Bill, who will turn 71 later this month, work out for at least one hour and usually about two hours a day, together and separately. Activity is divided between the mornings and afternoons.

That’s in addition to owning and operating their business, Yes We Do Windows, which has Bill cleaning windows about five or six hours a day in peak season and Connie doing window cleaning and bidding. Connie also teaches water and land aerobics classes at Coastal Fitness & Aquatics five times a week. The Spinners have three grown children, including a son who joined their family through an adult adoption, and six grandkids. Their active lifestyle keeps them young, Connie said. “We have a working retirement,” she said. “We both believe that movement and having something that gets you up every day is what keeps you young, both in mind and body.”

The lifestyle: The Spinners started working out in 1970. They had quit smoking and began bicycling and running. In addition to Yes We Do Windows, which the couple has run for 19 years and which they co-own with son Michael, Bill was a carpenter for 30 years. Connie worked in the aircraft industry for 15 years. They have also owned a pool-service business and two fitness centers.

Connie also has been teaching fitness classes for 35 years. She says she’s hooked on water aerobics because it allows someone to get a great workout without impact — and it brings out the kid in her students. She also loves land aerobics because it builds strong bones in addition to working muscles and the cardiovascular system. “If one cannot move, it impacts all of your life. So keeping those powerhouse muscles strong is a must,” Connie said. “Those are the muscles that help you get up, get out of your car, your chair, and into your life.”

The workout: Bill likes to start his day with a three-mile walk with the family dog, Wilson. But since Wilson’s a big dog, he also needs a run. Bill will typically ride his recumbent bike in the afternoon, picking up Wilson and swapping the bike for his adult tricycle during the cool-down phase of his workout. Bill can average about 16 to 17 miles per hour on the bike on a good day. The bicycles are a “love affair” for Bill, Connie said, and he is happiest when he’s riding. He bikes about 9,000 miles a year, mostly between Florence and Mapleton. On days when she’s not teaching, Connie walks with Bill and Wilson, for about 3½ miles at about a 3½-mph pace. She also swims a mile in about 55 minutes about three times a week. When she teaches water aerobics, Connie typically stays out of the pool, but her land aerobics classes end up being a workout not just for her students, but for her, too.

The diet: The couple doesn’t have a strict diet, but they do know what’s in their food, since Connie fixes most of their meals at home. They eat almost anything, while trying not to overdo it. Bill did cut back on sweets last fall to lose a little extra weight. It’s something he now credits for reducing leg cramps he was having and for dropping his blood pressure by nearly 20 points.

The cost: The Spinners’ primary investment has been in bicycles. They have two upright bikes, two recumbent bikes and two tricycles.

The camaraderie: Exercise has enhanced their relationship, Connie said. They both respect and admire the fitness achievements the other has made. She said it sets the tone for them as they move into this time of their lives. “Overall, movement is the foundation for our life,” Connie said. “We always say we can do more by 10 a.m. than most folks do all day. We are very high-energy people.”

Window Cleaning News

Window cleaner takes 200-mile bike ride 60 years after being given months to live: Pictured - Graham Clarke, left, with brother Stephen. Though doctors keep telling him to take it easy, it has never stopped Lincoln window cleaner Graham Clarke taking on a challenge. Born with dilated cardiomyopathy, his heart is on the wrong side of his body, enlarged, has a leaky valve and beats faster than the average person's. Medics did not expect him to survive more than three months. But 60 years on, Mr Clarke has made a mockery of the idea that illness is an excuse to hold yourself back, pounding the streets for 12 years doing 10ks, half-marathons, and, in 2007, the London Marathon to raise thousands of pounds for the British Heart Foundation.
Now, though, age may be playing a part in dictating the method of his next, and greatest challenge. Mr Clarke, of Sincil Bank, said: "My wife comes from Middlesbrough and I always said if I was still fit enough I wanted to run from there to Lincoln. "But it's just too far now. Instead, myself and my brother, Stephen, are doing a 200-mile bike ride over two days." After saddling up in the seaside town of Whitby, North Yorkshire, at about 9am tomorrow, the duo will ride south along the east coast to Hull, where they will camp. On Saturday they will continue down to Skegness, before returning home to Lincoln.
"These days, nobody wants to know if you're doing a 13-mile run, you've got to do something stupid," said Mr Clarke, whose heart has been stopped by doctors on multiple occasions in an effort to correct his irregular heartbeat. "We've had about five months' training and my heart specialist doesn't say much about these things anymore as he knows whatever he says I'm probably going to do the opposite. "I never do anything easy. It's got to be the hard way." For brother Stephen, 55, a prison worker of Lincoln, the ride represents a first foray into endurance event fundraising. He said: "This was all Graham's idea. "If you look at what he's got wrong with him, you'd say he couldn't do it. "The doctors said he should have died when he was three months old, and he's still here." Daughter-in-law Claire Birrell, 25, said: "What he's doing is his biggest challenge yet and we're all, including his son John, so very proud of him.


Warning: Ninja Window Cleaning In Progress.

Bogus window cleaner targeted vulnerable in Windhill, Queensbury and Wrose: A bogus window cleaner who stole from a 94-year-old woman after tricking his way into her home has been jailed for 31 months. Luke Brewster (pictured) conned money to fuel his heroin addiction. His frail burglary victim, who is deaf and registered blind, had lost the will to live since he sneaked into her bedroom and stole from her purse, a Court heard today. Brewster, 26, knocked on doors posing as a window cleaner after seeing a similar scam on television. He pleaded guilty to seven offences of fraud by representation and one of burglary. Prosecutor Louise Azmi told Bradford Crown Court Brewster first struck in Oakfield Terrace, Queensbury, on January 17. He conned £4 from the woman occupier by pretending he had cleaned her windows. The following day, Brewster called at the home of a disabled woman, saying he was collecting money for “Dave the window cleaner”. He asked for £5 and went off with £20. Five days later, Brewster tricked his way into a ground-floor flat in Windhill where the 94-year-old woman lived alone. Mrs Azmi said while she went to find money to pay “the window cleaner”, Brewster sneaked £8 from her purse. Brewster was arrested the next day and admitted the burglary after his fingerprint was found on the pensioner’s jewellery box.

The window cleaner abseiling down the twenty-first floor window of a Mumbai hotel might never know who watched agape as he went about his mundane job that rainy afternoon. Leander Paes. Sitting inside — unseen by the bored-looking cleaner — India’s most successful Grand Slam player with 12 trophies couldn’t stop gushing. Paes, who with great care has strengthened every sinew of his tree-trunk legs to run frenetically around tennis’s most hallowed courts, sat there commending the risky job of a man suspended mid-air by a single harness and dangling his legs carelessly.

Pensioner Edward Meakins, 83, may be forced from family home in Cricklewood after 74 years by Barnet Homes: He was told he could not continue the lease following the death of his sister. An emotional Edward Meakins claims it would kill him to move out of what has been his family home in Cloister Road, Cricklewood, since he was a boy. The 83-year-old has been told by Barnet Homes that he will not be allowed to carry on living alone in the three bedroom house, and has instead been offered a flat in a sheltered housing unit. Mr Meakins, a window cleaner for 25 years, said: “I don't want a flat. I don't like the idea of it at all. It's very important for me that I stay here.

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then facial-recognition technology might be regarded as the soul’s window cleaner — at least by state officials nationwide who are increasingly using it to catch identity thieves and other fraudsters trying to get driver’s licenses. New York this year became one of more than 30 states to deploy the controversial technology at its Department of Motor Vehicles. Facial-recognition software automatically examines digital photographs, comparing the unique underlying structures of the face across different images — flagging suspicious matches.

By early 2008, Rivera was Prime Pharmacy Group's treasury accountant and a promotion was later offered, but by October he fell ill and was often absent. When he was next seen, in good health and gambling in Crown Casino at Christmas, the company's chief financial officer cancelled Rivera's access and privileges to its accounts. A very unhappy New Year then dawned for the company when it found Rivera had stolen $549,000 in seven months during 2008 in a series of transfers into his personal bank account from the accounts of three partners of a pharmacy in Warragul. ''Some people in the community wouldn't earn half that money in a lifetime,'' Ms Fatouros said as Rivera, 23, now a window cleaner, of Dandenong, pleaded guilty to three charges of theft.

The Absurdity of Modern Exercise: Have you ever wondered why many of us hire people to exercise for us as gardeners, house cleaners, fence builders, window washers and carpenters while we pay other folks big bucks for the privilege of pounding up and down on their indoor machines to give our unused muscles a workout? I began to think about doing more physically demanding and productive things at home. I could save the gym fees and gas money, spew fewer greenhouse gases, and pocket the cash I was shelling out to pay other people to use their muscles on my behalf. Plus I'd reap the immediate satisfaction of seeing an instant yield from my muscle work: a cleaner floor, sparkly windows, a raised bed for veggies, fewer cobwebs, a turned compost pile or a productive fruit tree that would yield delicious apples for years to come. I'm convinced. There's a special satisfaction to honestly productive muscle work that's you just can't get bicycling to nowhere in a gym or endlessly stepping up stair machines that never reach heaven.

Bye-bye workout, hello chores! Does your gym subscription cost the earth? Or are you worried your maid will not turn up? Try doing the housework; it's fitness for free. Now, why would I ever want to take it up? Because it saves money and burns up calories, that's why. Except the calorie-burning bit was the last thing on my mind when my affair with the dust cloth began. After days of coming up with marvellously original excuses for benignly neglecting the house, I was surprised, when one day, I couldn't see outside! Oh no, it wasn't the fog, it was the windows, so caked with a lethal combination of grease and dust. Just as I lay wondering (on the couch, with a good book and great fudge) what to do, my quirky, busy-body neighbour appeared, with a bucket full of warm, sudsy water, a soft sponge and squeezy blade. And in about 10 minutes, she efficiently restored visibility, gave me a little lec-dem on window-washing, and cooed encouragingly (“go on, it's really easy and so much fun”) when I awkwardly, slowly had a go…If I said it was “love at first sight” there and then, I would be a huge liar.

When light shines through a back window of Spring Lake United Methodist Church, some believe an image of Mary and Mary Magdalene appears to the left of the cross. Something's there, plainly visible to the eye. What the heart sees, however, is open to interpretation. Nancy Wrenn, the secretary at Spring Lake United Methodist Church, and a handful of church members see a miracle: a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, gazing with adoration from the church's marble altar. In truth, there is something reflected. It's about 10 inches tall, about as wide as a plastic drink bottle. It isn't a reflection, nor is it something etched into the smooth marble surface. Wrenn says she discovered the image while preparing the sanctuary for last Sunday's service. "I was cleaning the marble, just using Glass-Plus, when I saw what looked like a streak," she says. "I scrubbed harder, even tried scraping it off with my fingernails. It wouldn't budge. "But when I stepped back and looked, I realized what had happened. I realized it right away. "Our little church has a miracle."

Jason "Crazy Legs" Conti, star of Zen and The Art of Competitive Eating, the seminal documentary on the niche sport, hails from Boston and has held several world records, including the oyster, green beans and sweet corn disciplines. He's the 14th-ranked eater in the world and is a true ambassador of the sport - serving as the color commentator on Spike TV's coverage of MLE events. Conti occasionally can be seen as a window washer in New York City.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (June 11, 2008) After consuming 15.1 slices of watermelon in just six minutes, "Crazy Legs" Conti was named the World Watermelon-Eating Champion on May 20. In a watermelon-eating contest held at the Nintendo World Store, Conti faced off against his arch-nemesis (and roommate) Tim "Eater X" Janus. Conti, ranked 11th in the world by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, was the underdog going into the competition against Janus, who is ranked 4th in the world, but when the juice had settled and the rinds had been counted, he emerged victorious, having defeated Janus by just one bite.
Janus had his revenge, however, a few minutes later when the two professional eaters competed in a virtual watermelon-eating contest in Major League Eating: The Game, Mastiff's upcoming WiiWare™ title. Although Conti initially took the lead, with 23 watermelon slices to Janus' 21, he overestimated his virtual stomach capacity and experienced a "reversal of fortune," defaulting the win to Janus.