How to Plan a Productive AND Relaxing Day with your Partner

Does your partner have a set schedule? Or does it change every week? Unfortunately, my partner’s schedule varies from week to week. That means that our days off are rarely the same day. And that on the days off we DO share together we want it to be both productive and also relaxing. So we try to plan a productive and relaxing day together. Here are some of my favorite tips to do that. 

1. Plan Your Priorities in Advance. Don’t wait until Saturday morning to decide what you’re going to do on Saturday. The likelihood is that you’ll end up staying home all day watching Netflix. We like to plan what we’ll do when we get Jeff’s schedule. Just remember to stay flexible in case your plans do need to change
2. Don’t plan too much at once. The worst feeling is when you’re trying to accomplish a ton of stuff, there is no plan, and nothing gets finished. It is way better to plan a few things and have enough time to finish it all.
3. Vary What Kind of Activities You Do. One of my favorite things has been categorizing my activities so that I get a lot of variety in my day. So my categories are 1. Something productive. 2. Something relaxing 3. Something fun. It’s important to distinguish between fun and relaxing because sometimes fun things are relaxing and sometimes relaxing things are fun. But sometimes fun things leave you feeling exhausted! For instance, on a day we both have off we might  1. Go grocery shopping and meal prep for the week 2. Go check out a local museum and 3. Catch up on a show together just sitting on the couch. That gave us a whole day of quality time but with a lot of variety and no pressure. Other days we might need more relaxation and so we won’t do as much outside the house.

As a side note about my categories – something productive doesn’t include our normal chores. Jeff does the dishes and takes out the trash almost every day. I make dinner almost every night. We change our sheets once a week. All those things ARE productive but they are also constant chores. We know they get done every day or once a week. So they wouldn’t be included. Something like going grocery shopping together is productive but it also feels like a treat because we get to decide together what we’ll be eating for the week. If we go to Costco we’ll even make it a date with food court hotdogs! Just finding little ways to make things feel more joyful! 

I’d love to know how you plan your days off with your partner!