From the Editor’s Desk: Puente (Premium)

Every Sunday, I have the same pointless conversation with my wife Stephanie about my need for another Sunday. She tolerates this like she tolerates most of my nonsense. But the need is real. And the solution isn’t as simple as it sounds.

That is, I’m not looking to transition to a regular four-day work week. That sounds good in theory, but we own a business and I can’t just arbitrarily decide that I’m going to shift away from the schedule the rest of the planet observes. It’s not just selfish, it’s short-sighted. It’s a good way to turn a five-day workweek into a premature retirement.

No, what I’m looking for is tied to the uniqueness of my schedule and the way I work. Like many people, I work during the daytime hours during the workweek, and I have regular responsibilities at set times throughout the week. In my case, that means recording First Ring Daily every morning at 9 am. Writing the From the Editor’s Desk editorial each week before the end of the day on Monday. Preparing for and then recording Windows Weekly on Wednesday afternoons, a process that often runs to three hours and drains my energy horribly. Writing Ask Paul each Friday, which often takes three or four hours. We also walk in the mornings, and I try to get to the gym at least four days a week, and lately that’s gone well. I work on my Spanish in Duolingo every day, usually at night, and I just hit a one-year streak the other night. (My longest Duolingo streak is 818 days.)

And then there are the less regimental requirements, like recording Hands-On Windows every second or third Thursday (which, surprisingly, still occupies most of my time those days), plotting, recording, and then editing Eternal Spring (which is time-consuming), the normal monthly or one-off virtual meetings, and all the appointments and other routine rigmarole that we all deal with. This week, I have meetings and/or random podcast recordings on Tuesday (two), Thursday, and Friday afternoon.

And I hear you. It’s not like I work in a coal mine. But that’s not all of it, of course.I also spend an hour or so each morning, a few hours on most nights, and much of most weekend days on other work. This can be writing directly related to the site—triggered by news or just an inspiration to write a Premium post or whatever—but it’s often what I think of as secondary work: Books—I’m updating my two most recent books now and have started a third with my wife—basic PC configuration tasks, and the like.

This other work, the work that occurs in off hours, is curiously relaxing and fulfilling, and I think part of it is that it just feels like a win. If I can get a new or updated book chapter finished, as I did this past weekend, it feels like I got something done, and that feels good. I realize that it also looks like some bizarre form of work addiction from the outside, but bear with me. I like what I do. And like a shark has to swim to survive, a writer needs to write. (On a related note, a friend recently asked whether I golfed. I told him that I had tried it for a time but came to realize that you can’t dabble in golf. You either golf or you don’t golf. And I just don’t have the time or desire. And so I don’t golf, I write.)

But there’s more to why this off-hours work can feel so rewarding: Life goes on whether I do it or not, and I don’t find myself constantly looking at the clock to make sure I’m getting something done on time. It doesn’t matter. I can just do it, or not do it, and when I get something done, it’s great.

Tied to this, my wife and I have personal routines, of course, and when we’re home—as opposed to in Mexico, which I guess is also home—that means eating lunch, usually a salad, together every day, and then something home-cooked most nights. We eat out on Wednesday and Saturday(with friends) at an inexpensive place and then on Friday nights at a more typical restaurant with cocktails.

And here’s what happens. Because it must.

Midweek, some friends will text and ask us if we’d like to go out or come to their place for dinner the next weekend. And of course we do, but we have to figure out which usual night out to drop and plan accordingly. Depending on the situation, this can be curiously problematic for me. A few weeks back, I tried to explain why to my wife, knowing she wasn’t going to quite understand because it’s not really explainable. We were driving to see that other couple at their home, and I was happy to see them again. But I still missed not doing what we would normally do that night. This wasn’t additive, I said, it felt like something was being taken away.

I don’t remember how she dealt with this craziness—there was a lot of nodding, I guess—but when Sunday night came that weekend, I suggested that we switch things up: Instead of cooking in as we usually do, I said I felt like going to that inexpensive restaurant instead, the place we had skipped the night before to visit with those other friends instead. And maybe in this moment, Stephanie caught a glimpse of what I had meant before because this seemed like an excellent idea to her. She was tired and didn’t feel like cooking, and while she wouldn’t have suggested this, she was glad I did. And it was the right thing for that night.

The problem with having a full schedule, I guess, is that anything can screw it up. This is why you don’t overbook a vacation: One delay, one wrong move, and the whole thing can come crashing down. Something you counted on gets taken away.

We’re all different, of course. I have friends who literally blow off entire Saturdays or Sundays (or both, depending on the time of year) so they can sit in front of the TV and watch sports, and I assume they find that quite satisfying. That isn’t for me, obviously. But then again, sitting in front of a laptop all weekend writing probably isn’t their idea of a great weekend either. To each their own.

While my problem with Sundays probably seems like a tired retread of an old Garfield meme, it’s more nuanced than that. I don’t want to not work. And I don’t want to only work on certain days. What I want is for the formal schedule, that routine work week, to not be so oppressive. And that can’t happen unless the world, or at least the country I live in, decides to make a universal change. And so I dread each Monday like so many other people. But for somewhat different reasons: I probably worked most of the weekend without any stress or concerns, and I was probably pretty happy about it.

The thing is, I do occasionally experience what it is I’m looking for, as we all have. Every once in a while, there is a three-day holiday or, on those most special of occasions, like Thanksgiving, an even longer break. And at these times, it’s not up to me: Everyone is off, and while I will continue to work, it will be on my off-hours schedule, casual and relaxed. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a writer, or if it’s just the way I am—these things must be connected—but it’s the best. It’s what I miss on most Sundays. It’s what I mean when I say every Sunday, like a broken record, that what I need is another Sunday. If every day were like that, interruptions in the normal schedule wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

We need a word for this.

Which I’m not sure I would have realized had my wife—also a writer and also trying to learn Spanish—told me about a text message she had had with a neighbor of ours in Mexico City. This neighbor used the term “puente” to refer to some time off she was taking. My wife asked what she meant, and the neighbor explained that Mexicans use this word, which translates literally as “bridge,” to describe how they add extra days off on either side of a holiday or weekend to create an impromptu long weekend just for themselves from time to time.

This is a wonderful idea and a good word. And while it’s not exactly what I’m describing, I think it works. That is, I’m not looking for a four-day workweek. I’m looking for a puente, extra time each week that I can fill however I want. When possible, I’d fill that time with writing and related work.

It seems like a fine way to spend a few days.