On the business side, innovative leaders are beginning to wake up to the fact that this non-stop work trend is bad for business: Google Ireland tested a program called Dublin Goes Dark, where employees turned over their phones at the end of each work day. It seems like a sea change is ahead.

I talked to a lot of people about what makes a good weekend, and discovered a few common threads: human connection, play, interaction with nature, exposure to beauty. It's unrealistic to think we're going to get that full 48 hours of respite, so it becomes about seeking rejuvenating beats.

One study found that volunteering actually makes people feel they have more time, not less. A good weekend usually involves more than just passive leisure, like spectator sports or binge-watching The Crown. What's more edifying are activities that generate meaning or purpose.

Many white-collar workers are lucky enough to have creative-class jobs that are satisfying, which is great as long as you're still able to carve out true, work-free leisure at some point. But there's been a kind of sneaky reframing of work as play as the Silicon Valley model has been imported into other fields. Now you see adult offices that look like nursery schools, and staff paintball parties, work cultures that encourage the "We're a family here!" fantasy while preventing workers from going home at a reasonable hour to be with their actual families.

I know Stephen King is uncompromising on the idea that writers should practise their craft every single day, and it clearly works for him. Personally, I relish a day off with some boredom; it gives me space to feel the world, observe, stir up the epiphanies, which I need if I'm creating fiction. On the other hand, I'm a big advocate for beauty and creativity on the weekend, which can be incredibly rejuvenating.

When we don't get that escape from our work selves, I think we feel its absence on a deep, almost primal level. Leisure is uncommodified, unoccupied time where we get to be truly free, so feeling bad about missing the weekend isn't just, "Damn, I didn't make it to the mall!" It's a profound loss.

On the business side, innovative leaders are beginning to wake up to the fact that this non-stop work trend is bad for business: Google Ireland tested a program called Dublin Goes Dark, where employees turned over their phones at the end of each work day. It seems like a sea change is ahead.