We know that people who work without breaks get tired, introduce errors, get sick and miss out on life. Make no mistake: those staff room hammocks are designed to keep you in them on the weekend.

We know that our bodies suffer from overwork and lack of leisure: anxiety, mental-health issues - we're not designed to work more than about 40 hours a week. Our systems wear out and the quality of the work suffers. After 50 hours, it crashes and burns.

We can do a bit of blaming: the proliferation of devices means we're always at work, always on call, always available. Physically leaving the office isn't a declaration of being off work anymore your office is in your bag or pocket.

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.

Now 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.

Sunday blues often hit because the weekend was only about shopping and chores. If you can clear up some of that domestic detritus on weeknights, you might reclaim some time for what matters. Maybe the laundry can wait until Monday.

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.

For me, writing started as pleasure that became professionalized, so my relationship to it is a bit sullied. I'm working it out.

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.