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A persuasive, practical, and much needed manifesto that makes the case for reclaiming our weekends to increase joy, creativity, productivity, and success in our lives.
Award-winning journalist Katrina Onstad's The Weekend Effect asks us to reconsider the role of the weekend in our lives often lost to overbooked schedules, domestic chores, shopping, pinging devices, and encroaching work demands debunking the belief that you have to be on 24/7 in a 24/7 economy to be successful, and revealing the extensive benefits of a well-lived weekend.
We're working more hours that we did a decade ago, and worse, we allow those hours to slide over seven days a week, leaving no space or time to tune out and recharge. We don't need the research to tell us that this is hurting us. Our health is deteriorating, our social networks (the face-to-face kind) are weak, and our productivity is down. It wasn't long ago that working less and living more was considered an American virtue. So what happened?
Digging into the history, the positive psychology, and the cultural anthropology of the great, missing weekend, Onstad, herself suffering from Sunday-night letdown, pushes back against the all-work-no-fun ethos, and follows the trail of people, companies and countries who are vigilantly protecting their weekends for joy, adventure, and most importantly, for meaning.
Onstad offers real-world strategies for wrestling back this lost time with how-to practices in making the most of the weekend. Readers of The Happiness Project, All Joy and No Fun, and Thrive will find personal and business inspiration in this well-researched argument to save the weekend, and as a result, save ourselves. A well-lived weekend, filled with face-to-face socializing, idleness, and nature, is the gateway to a well-lived life.
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About the Author
KATRINA ONSTAD is a multiple-award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian and Elle. Her critically lauded novels include How Happy to Be and Everybody Has Everything, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Katrina lives in Toronto with her husband and two children, and she swears that next weekend she is not going to work at all.
