Friday Night Used to Suck

Friday night isn’t a particularly great time to post a blog. A bunch of you are probably already off and into your weekends. But there might be a small handful of you still sitting at your desks, wondering what the hell you are doing there. I used to do that.

For anyone working regularly with suppliers in Asia you’ll know that Friday nights are a critical time to get work done. If you don’t get your requests sent off to your Asian colleagues by the time you leave the office, you won’t have any return answers on Monday morning since they’ll still be on break when you return to the office.

So I’d wait for my second wind around 5PM, buy a red bull or something, and jam out more emails until about 7 or 8. And it’s about then that I’d really start to feel like crap.

Everyone in the office is gone– maybe they went to some happy hour. Your phone has a few messages: Johnny’s club tonite?

Sitting there, all done with the work, and looking at those text messages was often the emptiest moment of my week.

I’m not sure what I was thinking. Something like “this is it?”

The chorus in our society sings something like: “take your time on the weekends, have some fun and disconnect, go party, and make sure you don’t check your email for heavens sake!”

That’s just not me. I should never have listened.

“Isn’t it sad that we have a job where we spend two weeks avoiding the stuff we have to do fifty weeks a year?  Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin

I thought I was supposed to get something on the weekend. Like, ya know, that’s what I’m working for. Here’s my payoff! Vacation! Shopping! Whatever.

But there I was working well past 7PM. I was doing it because I loved doing my work, and I should have just trusted my gut.

The more and more successful people I run into you’ll hear the same thing thing.

Steven Pressfield is waking up tomorrow and working. So is Stephen King. I’m sure Mark Cuban is. Adam Carolla never rests. Ian will be working on content for our new business. My entrepreneur friends here in the Philippines will be back at the laptop tomorrow at 7AM for sure. Speaking of success, I heard this gem of a first world problem dropped in conversation today:

First world problems. Barf! "Work, Smart, Work Hard, Don't Spend Your Money"

If you are wondering what you should be doing on Friday nights you can let yourself off the hook. Call a friend, hang with your boyfriend, watch a weird French movie that will either stimulate your brain or send you to bed early.

Go home. Relax. Recharge. Then wake up on Saturday morning and go back to work.

You’ll be in great company.

Cheers,

Dan

Here’s some stuff to do on Friday night if you don’t make it out to see some friends:

Read: Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants, Sex at Dawn, The Story of B, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,     ::: Watch: Pirates of Silicon Alley ::: Listen: Steve Kamb on The Rise to the Top ::: Music you can rock to: Best of Bootie Mash-ups 2011 (free), Best of Bootie Mash-ups 2010 (free), Best of Bootie Mash-ups 2009 (free)