23 activities super successful people do over long weekends
With the long weekend approaching, it is interesting to look at how super successful people spend their free time. Do they totally unplug from work or do they use this as a time to pursue more projects? Or, do they just have six-hour brunches?
Here are the long weekend activities of several successful people.
1. They dress differently
Fashion mogul Tory Burch has a weekend wardrobe. “I dress differently in the country than in the city. I wear tennis whites or our lightweight button-down camp shirts with espadrilles,” she told Travel & Leisure. “And I’m more drawn to color—my closet in the Hamptons is very colorful.”
2. They update their social media
The weekend can be a great time to share what you are up to on social media. Fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff, as well as Burch and Lauren Conrad, love to post photos to Instagram on the weekends. While others like Ryan Seacrest, Nina Garcia, and Martha Stewart all love a good Pinterest post.
3. They go to brunch
Super successful people love a good brunch. Martha Stewart is known to throw some great ones.
4. They play with their kids
Twitter cofounder Biz Stone said in the new book My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired, “I’ve been playing with my son upon waking up since he was born. My routine has changed very little since he came along.”
Jessica Alba, the CEO and Founder of The Honest Company, also devotes her weekend to her three children and husband.
5. They take thinking breaks
Business magnate Elon Musk wrote in a Tweet recently, “Need to have long uninterrupted times to think. Can’t be creative otherwise.”
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Virgin Group founder Richard Branson also agrees with this school of thought. “Open your calendar and schedule time just to dream.”
6. They work out
Working out is a big part of most successful people’s weekend routines. The benefits of exercise when you have a stressful job have been reported on obsessively. In addition to helping with stress relief and giving you more energy, exercise boosts your cognitive functioning and improves your memory. Burch and Vogue editor Anna Wintour play tennis, Vanguard chairman Bill McNabb aims to fit in a midday workout three or four times a week.” Katherine Power, the CEO of Clique Media, says “Every Saturday, I do Cardio Barre in the valley with my childhood friend and Sunday is my day of rest.”
7. They totally go off the grid
Though some people love to be on social media all weekend, others totally check out. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg turns off her email on weekday nights and for parts of the weekend also. MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow likes to go to her cabin in Massachusetts, which has no television.
8. They prep their meals for the next week
Sundays are a great time to prep your meals for the whole next week (especially work salads!) Cameron Diaz is known to cook up a storm on Sunday to prep for her week. “In my house, on Sundays, you can usually find me in the kitchen getting my food ready for the week,” Diaz writes in her book, The Body Book. “I tell my friends that I can’t meet for lunch; I tell my nieces and nephews that if they want to hang out, it will have to be at my house. I make sure not to have any meetings or calls scheduled during that time, because that time is SO IMPORTANT for me.”
9. They go on strategy walks
Some combine exercise with brainstorming like Dia&Co CEO Nadia Boujarwah. She told Business Insider that she and her cofounder, “Almost every weekend we go on a long walk, most often down the West Side highway, and spend a couple hours outside, thinking about bigger-picture questions. Some of the more creative thinking happens then.”
10. They do yoga
Yoga differs from normal exercise a bit because of the meditation component. Stanton Kawer, CEO and chairman of Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide, explained in his article for Forbes that, “Yoga helps make me a more effective CEO by reorienting my outlook on life–my buoyancy of spirit. I spend 90 minutes in a studio feeling like a 10-year-old boy. How could I not have fun? I am doing the real work of building muscles and increasing my agility, but with poses with Sanskrit names like Surya Namaskar or equally fun English names like Warrior. I begin in tadasana, or mountain pose, as I set my intention, and I end up in savasana, or corpse pose, allowing my mind and body to clear out from a period of extreme labor.”
Skinnygirl CEO Bethenny Frankel, a devoted yogi, said in an interview with SELF, “Yoga makes me feel really good and it makes me calm. Yoga absolutely helps with my overall happiness. Anything soothing that is going to make you feel more peaceful is beneficial in all aspects.”
11. They indulge in food
Bravo executive and TV personality Andy Cohen works out a lot but he also loves to indulge. Some of his favorite cheats include Reese’s peanut butter cups, chocolate chip cookies, and dark chocolate. He also likes an omelet on the weekend.
Ben Anderson, the cofounder and CEO of Amino Apps, also likes to try new restaurants.
Fashion mogul Rachel Zoe takes her family to the farmer’s market. “We typically go to the farmer’s market—our favorite one is in Brentwood. We just get lots of fresh stuff and the kids love to sample stuff and go to the music section and see the instruments and just run around,” she said in an interview with Parade.
12. They get to know their users or customers
Anderson told Business Insider, “Sometimes I’ll chat with our users. That’s kind of a hobby of mine, to get to know them better and really understand who they are so I can build a better product for them.”
13. They practice their hobbies
Warren Buffett can be found playing his ukulele on the weekend and Meryl Streep enjoys knitting.
14. They get spiritual
Ryan Williams, the CEO of Cadre, regularly attends church on Sundays. “It’s something that’s pretty meaningful to me, spirituality. It’s nice to be able to disconnect from the professional side of things and put things into perspective.”
15. They work
Author Gretchen Rubin saves certain tasks for the weekend. “One hour working on non-recurrent, non-urgent tasks — the kinds of little jobs that drag me down, but never get done,” she says. “I’ve found that something that can be done at any time is often done at no time, so I use ‘Power Hour’ to order a new office chair, fix my shredder, make a photo album from my last year of photos, etc.”
16. They read
Rubin also makes time for books. “I have something called ‘Study Time,’ when I spend an hour doing ‘study’ reading. That means reading a book that’s not for work, but something that I just want to read.”
17. They get up super early
Many super successful people like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck do not sleep in, even on the weekends. Melody McCloskey, founder and CEO of StyleSeat, trained herself to be a morning routine and now rises at 5:45 AM most days. “Of course it wasn’t easy at first,” she told CNBC. “It was torture getting up that early; I was never naturally a morning person. But now it’s become routine, and I wake up pretty early on weekends too.”
18. They help others
Social media expert and influencer Natalie Zfat says, “Like most of us, my weekdays are largely focused on work (and by proxy, myself). How can I entice new clients? How can I finish my to-do list? How can I accomplish more/achieve more? To offset the extreme focus on myself and my business, I strive to spend my weekends helping others – whether professionally (carving out an hour to help a friend fix their resume) or personally (checking out apartments with my friend who’s about to break up with her boyfriend). I sort of become a Jewish mom on the weekends, and I’m ok with that.
19. Reflect on the week
Bill Gates looks at the weekend as a time to reflect. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
20. They go running
Yes this falls under exercise but there is something extra special about running. In a University of Maryland study people who looked at unpleasant images for 15 minutes after working out were less anxious than subjects that had to look at the images after just sitting quietly for 30 minutes. Mary-Kate Olsen, founder of The Row and Elizabeth & James, said in a 2017 interview, “I run on the weekend. You find the thing that helps you relax and if you don’t have it, you have to look for it. Or you get burned out and then you’re not productive.”
21. They make a big breakfast
The weekends are not about rushing and sticking a protein bar in your mouth. Talk show host and actress Kelly Ripa told The Cut, “I make a nice big breakfast. We have stuff we don’t normally eat — pancakes, bagels, that kind of stuff. ”
22. They look at art
Tim Gunn spends his weekends looking at beautiful art. He told The New York Times that he spends every Sunday at the Metropolitan Museum and is pretty much the last one to leave. “I’m a huge lover of art. I go to the Greek and Roman galleries first. I’ll choose different objects to fixate upon. A trip to the Met can be very emotional. There are paintings there that just lift me off the ground. I feel buoyant.”
23. They spend time with their kids
Mark Cuban said the weekend is all about family time. They even give the nanny the weekend off.
