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.
Katrina OnstadWhen 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.
Katrina OnstadIt used to be that wealthy people were the leisure class, and having time off was a status symbol. That's switched now: being busy and overworked is the reality for many white-collar workers, and there's a kind of perverse currency to that, competitive busy-ness. At the other end of the income scale, there's a swath of lower-wage workers who are underemployed or unemployed, with too much unwanted leisure, and zero status for that. For shift workers, devices mean they're accessible in ways they weren't before, susceptible to that call from the boss to log more hours.
Katrina OnstadNow we have a gig economy where many people are holding down several jobs at once. The whole concept of a 40-hour week makes people under 30 laugh.
Katrina Onstad