The American Weekend is Endangered

INSIGHTS TO AMERICAN WEEKENDS WITHIN THE TARGET

More Americans are using their weekends to catch up to things that they couldn’t do during the week. It’s a magic whirlwind of must dos and when they weekend is over they sigh “Maybe next weekend”.

people are determined to take back their weekends: families who dine together on Friday nights, couples who travel instead of doing things to 'catch up' to the workload of the week.

55 percent of respondents said they spend more time doing things they have to do than things they want to do, and 47 percent of them work weekends. Our ideal weekend is relaxing with family, spending quality, perhaps intimate, time with spouse or partner, being outdoors, catching up on sleep and having alone time, the study reported.

The United States has now passed Japan as the industrialized world's most overworked land. In total hours, Americans work two weeks longer than the Japanese each year and two whole months longer than the Germans. On top of that, while Europeans and Australians are able to relieve the grind with four to six weeks of paid vacation each year guaranteed by law, Americans average a paltry nine days off after the first year on the job (and that's totally dependent on the whims of employers). If you need some time to tend to an illness in the family or paint the house, your vacation time is pretty much shot. Forget about Tuscany, Yosemite, or even a few days at a nearby state park.

Estimates are that about half of all U.S. workers suffer from symptoms of burnout. Pam Ammondson, author of Clarity Quest (Fireside, 1999), sees the wreckage in her Santa Rosa, California-based Clarity Quest workshops, designed to help people suffering from burnout reclaim their lives. "I see a lot of people who work 12 to 14 hours a day routinely," she says. "They want to make a change, but they're too tired to know how to do it. Overwhelmed is a word they use a lot. . . . We allow downtime for machinery, for maintenance and repair, but we don't allow it for the employees”

Yet a survey by the Families and Work Institute found that 64 percent of Americans want to work less, up from 47 percent in 1992.

* Over half (55%) of Americans spend more time doing things they have to do vs. what they want to do on the weekends.* Close to half of Americans (46%) bring work home with them.* Over half (53%) of Americans would work ten extra hours on the other 4 days of the week to get an extra day off work.* 13% of Americans would move to France for a four day work week. Americans: The Ultimate Procrastinators Many Americans plan their weekends at the last minute.

* 47% of Americans wait until Thursday morning or later to start thinking about their upcoming weekends

.* 41% of Americans think that Friday is the most important day forplanning their weekends. Red or Blue State, Americans Want More Time to themselves on the Weekends Americans across all demographics and regions are remarkably similar in how they spend weekend time.

* 93% of Americans say relaxing with family or loved ones is important to their weekend.

* Suburbanites claim their weekend sex is "better" than urbanites on the weekend; but across the nation intimacy is a big weekend activity.

* 44% of suburbanites think they have better sex on the weekends versus 39% of people in large urban areas.

* 80% of Americans say being intimate with their spouse/partner is important to their weekend.

* 38% of working Americans believe their sex lives are better on weekends than during the week.

* Those making more than $100,000 (44%) are more likely to say the quality of their sex life is better on weekends vs. those who make less than $25,000 (33%) per year.

* On weekends, men want more intimacy while women want to spend time with their family or to catch up on sleep.

* Women's #1 "ideal activity" on weekends is spending time with family and friends; while men's #1 "ideal activity" is spending time with a spouse or partner.

* More women (44%) would rather have quality time alone on weekends (vs. 38% of men).

* More men (50%) would rather be intimate with their spouse on weekends (vs. 43% of women).

* Women (44%) think it's more important than men (38%) to "escape from their jobs completely" on the weekend.

* The #1 response to the question "What is your biggest guilty pleasure on the weekend?" is eating junk food.

* 25% of those surveyed say the weekend gives them the chance to splurge on foods they do not generally eat.

* 19% of Americans drink two to three alcoholic drinks on the weekend vs.11% during the week.

* Saturday is the #1 shopping day of the week: Americans spend an average of 42 minutes on Saturday shopping, vs. 27 minutes on Sunday and 20 minutes on a weekday.

* 40% of Americans do their grocery shopping on weekends.

* Over a third (38%) of Americans feel their weekend activities leave them exhausted.

* 27% of Americans say they are depressed to start the work week.