Making Weekends Count

Sixty-four percent of working-age Americans responding to a leisure-time survey say that, on Sunday night, they usually ask themselves "Where did the weekend go?" rather than feeling relaxed, rested, and ready for another week, as 33% do. This may be part of a general personal-time crunch. While 60% of working-age adults are satisfied with their leisure time, this number reflects a drop of 15% from 1963.

These are among the major findings of the sixth edition of The Shell Poll, an opinion survey conducted for Shell Oil Company by Peter D. Hart Research Associates. More than 1,000 American adults were polled on a wide range of time-related issues including favorite leisure activities vacation dreams and habits, the weekend, and satisfaction with work and leisure time.

Viewing television is ninth on the list of people's favorite activities, yet is fourth on the list of what people spend a lot of their time doing.

The one area in which what people want to do and what they have to do matches up is spending time with family and friends. In fact, talking or visiting with loved ones is their number-one choice of favorite activities, and it comes in second (after household chores) in the list of things they actually spend a lot of time doing on weekends.

If we don't make the weekends count when we are still working by having fun and doing what we enjoy, what will happen when we retire? We need to develop fun activities in our leisure time now!