When I was traveling a lot for work, I was young and single and hadn't seen too much of the world.
It was a great opportunity to turn work travel into a personal travel experience, which took some of the tedium out of it.
If it was a short, mid-week trip, I'd sometimes purposely book a late flight home so I would have time to explore whatever city I was in (if it was worth exploring). Plus, it was less stressful to get to the airport, flight would be emptier, upgrades were easier to secure, and no traffic from the airport to the house upon landing.
If possible, I tried for Thurs/Friday trips and would then spend the weekend on my dime if it was somewhere interesting. When a Saturday stay used to mean a huge airfare savings, a prior employer would even pay for our weekend stay so long as that still ended up being less than the airfare saved. That became a regular M.O. for me when visiting NYC.
Lastly, I'd recommend having the personal/leisure part come AFTER the work part - a few times I did an early trip in for fun with friends and then work started on Monday - that was a serious letdown and a drag after a weekend of fun