How Successful Founders Spend Their Weekends
Inside the recovery rituals, planning habits, and family time that keep business leaders sharp.

Weekends are supposed to be an escape. For many founders, though, they are more like a pressure valve: part ritual, part reset, and part strategy. The men and women running high-growth companies rarely use Saturdays and Sundays as a void. They treat them as deliberate architectural choices designed to keep the machine from burning out.
The Ritual of Recovery
Ask Ben Goodwin, cofounder and CEO of Olipop, how he spends his weekends, and you won’t hear about sleeping in. His rhythm is closer to a recovery playbook. Saunas, cold plunges, meditation, slow dinners, and yes, even DJ sets, are stitched into his downtime. The Economic Times reported that Goodwin’s weekends look less like leisure and more like a lab experiment in energy management. He is not alone. Business Insider found CEOs leaning on everything from scripture reading to controlled social media scrolling. Call it what it is: people with endless demands trying to keep their heads above water.
Sundays Are for Setting the Stage
The quiet day before Monday is rarely left blank. Jack Dorsey has spoken about how Sundays are reserved for reflection and planning, as noted by the Founder Institute. Others break the weekend into phases. Friday night or Saturday morning is for sketching the outline: family time here, exercise there, maybe an hour of strategic reading. By the time Sunday rolls around, it is not about scrambling but about resetting the compass. There is an intentionality to it. Medium described this as “structured flexibility,” a phrase that lands differently when you know the cost of wasted hours.
Sweat Before the Storm
Founders often talk about fitness not as vanity but as oxygen. Tennis, running, hiking, and kitesurfing these are not hobbies; they are lifelines. Lifehack pointed out that high achievers consistently lean on movement as a way to sharpen thought. Anyone who has tried to wrestle with strategy after three nights of poor sleep and no exercise understands why. Physical strain clears the clutter.
Stillness in a Noisy World
There is also the other side: stillness. Silence, meditation, even digital abstinence. Ape to Gentleman catalogued how successful people carve out quiet, and Entrepreneur noted the same trend with digital detoxes. It is a rebellion of sorts. Unplugging from email, even for half a day, is a bold act when you are hardwired to respond at all hours. Yet those who manage it report clarity, sometimes even joy.
The Anchor of Relationships
Strip away the mythology of the lone genius, and you find a more familiar picture: founders eating dinner with their kids, ferrying them to soccer games, and hosting friends. Bill Gates has long preached the need for non-work priorities. Philadelphia Magazine profiled CEOs who spend weekends in family activities and fun outings. The truth is simple. When you spend your weekdays making decisions that can make or break livelihoods, it helps to be reminded on Saturday night that you are just a parent, a partner, or a friend.
Crafting for the Sake of It
Forbes recently wrote about “leisure crafting,” the idea that hobbies fuel energy and performance. It sounds clinical until you see it in practice: a founder stirring a pot of homemade stock, another kneeling in the garden, and Goodwin spinning records at a weekend party. These acts are not frivolous. They are expressions of freedom in a life otherwise bound by obligations. For some, it is the only time the mind wanders without judgment.
Fighting the Cult of Hustle
Not everyone gets it right. Plenty of entrepreneurs run themselves into the ground. Erin Bagwell, writing in Time, admitted that the single most important lesson she learned was the value of unplugging. The numbers support her. As Karl Hughes points out, productivity nosedives after 50 hours a week. That makes the “996” model of working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, a recipe for burnout, not brilliance. The Times captured this debate, noting how more founders are rejecting unsustainable grind culture. They are discovering that pace is not weakness. It is survival.
The Unpolished Pattern
Taken together, the weekends of high performers do not read like glossy Instagram feeds. They are messy, human, and full of trade-offs. Wellness rituals bump against family obligations, workouts spill into strategy sessions, and silence gets interrupted by a buzzing phone. But within the imperfection is a pattern: recovery is not passive. It is designed, practiced, and fiercely protected. Founders who last understand that the workweek starts on Sunday, but the ability to endure it begins on Saturday morning in a sauna, at a kid’s soccer field, or behind a DJ booth.
Connect With Us On Social Media [ Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn ] To Get Real-Time Updates On The Market. Entrepreneurs Diaries is now available on Telegram. Join Our Telegram Channel To Get Instant Updates.
Pakistani wellness coach focusing on burnout recovery and high-performance routines for founders.