[haswell]

> the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement.

I think this depends on how one’s current job is affecting them.

If you’re near burnout or just work in a very stressful environment, the weekends are more about recovery from the week and might not be a good predictor of future choices when not stressed/burnt out.

Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.

[munchbunny]

> Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.

This resonates a lot. My partner is a startup founder, and fairly often their weekend is life maintenance and recovery because their work week allows nothing else. I spend much more time on side projects, but on some weeks I can tell on Friday that it’s not going to be a productive weekend by any standard except self care.

[mrfusion]

To be fair if you’re burned out for a long time at work retirement will still look like your burned out weekends since recovery can take a long time.

[haswell]

I do think that's fair. I think the important distinction to make is that there are likely two "modes" when shifting into retirement or a long sabbatical:

- Recovery

- Steady state

I think understanding that both exist is important so as not to fall into negative patterns of thinking like "I'm just wasting my time away" vs. "I'm giving my system a very needed break".