Minutes Concerning No Plans Weekend
The calendar was kept clear. The weekend arrived. Both of these things are true and neither of them produced what was imagined.
Field Notes: No Plans Weekend Observations from a period of voluntary unscheduling
Friday, 6:14 PM
Subject confirmed to three colleagues that they had no plans this weekend. The confirmation was offered with visible satisfaction. The colleagues nodded in a way that indicated understanding and possibly envy.
Subject closed laptop. Subject had no plans.
Friday, 8:30 PM
The question of what to do with no plans has begun to require active management. Subject opened and closed the same streaming application four times. A documentary about salt was considered and rejected. Subject sent a message to a friend asking what they were doing, for informational purposes, not to make a plan.
The friend was doing something. Subject indicated that sounded nice. No further steps were taken.
Saturday, 10:00 AM
The day is available. Days that are available have a quality different from days that are not available, and the quality is harder to locate than expected. The subject had anticipated something in the neighborhood of rest. The actual experience is closer to mild background pressure of an undefined origin requiring no particular response.
Subject made coffee. The coffee was good. This was a satisfactory outcome within its own category.
Saturday, 2:00 PM
The weekend was protected. Protecting it required a kind of effort the protection was supposed to eliminate. Several invitations were declined. One obligation was deferred. A hair appointment was rescheduled to the following Friday, which was not ideal but was the only available slot that did not conflict with the preserved nothingness.
The nothingness is now present. Subject is located inside it.
Saturday, 4:45 PM
Subject has completed the following activities since the morning: one walk, one meal, one long episode of a series that was fine, fourteen minutes of reading, one nap that lasted twenty-two minutes and left a texture of mild confusion rather than restoration.
No obligations were fulfilled. This was the objective. The objective has been met according to all available metrics.
Subject checked work email. This was not required. Subject did not respond to any emails. Subject closed the email application and noted a low-level unease that is not clearly classifiable as guilt or relief or something else.
Sunday, 11:30 AM
The absence of obligation was supposed to feel different from how it felt. The subject had a clear image of what the weekend would feel like and the weekend arrived and produced something adjacent to but not identical with that image.
The subject is not dissatisfied, precisely. The subject is noting a discrepancy.
The next No Plans Weekend has been tentatively scheduled for late October.