Monday has become universally known and accepted as the most depressing day because of the significant mood swing experienced between Sunday and the first work day of the week.
Let’s think about this.
There are about 52 Mondays in a year, or about 1,248 hours. Let’s say you work for 40 years. That means you have about 49,920 hours that belong to Monday. Roughly 5.6 years.
Over five years of our working life is devoted to, yes, Monday.
Five years of your life is too much time spent disliking a day for something that it represents. So, let’s throw down the gauntlet. Change the way Monday is viewed. Don’t let it ruin another Sunday because you are worried about the oncoming Monday.
Let’s kick Monday’s butt.
Try to make it just an ordinary day you have to get through in order to visit the beloved Friday again. And we do love Fridays, don’t we? We even put Friday on a pedestal compared to other days of the week. It’s our freeway to liberation.
So why can’t we ever show the same love to Monday?
Diminish Those Moan-day Blues
Monday is going to happen whether we like it or not. There are two days of the week that we can use to our advantage to help us get ready for Monday and they are Friday and Sunday.
Prepare for your Mondays on Friday
Salary.com conducted a survey in 2014 that showed that Friday afternoons are huge time-wasters. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they waste the most time on Fridays, and most of that time was around 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Use this time differently.
Prepare for Monday so you don’t have to worry about Monday until Monday. There’s a tendency to shut down on Fridays. You’re tired. You think “I’ll just do that later” or “I’ll catch up on that over the weekend.”
Don’t be tempted to do that.
At the very least, plan out Monday’s workload on Friday so you won’t do it Sunday evening or feel overwhelmed on Monday morning. Planning ahead can help you cope with Mondays and will give you an energized boost for the rest of the week. Try it for a couple of weeks and see what happens.
Use your weekends for you and what’s important. You need the downtime to refresh. Finish your “stuff” on Fridays so that when Monday comes, you’re ready to tackle the day.
Seems like common sense but few people seem to heed it. It is a case of instant gratification versus delayed gratification. You want to take a breather. You start to close down and think about the weekend.
But the result of that is dread for Monday. You work over the weekend and you leave undone work you need to face on Monday. Double whammy. When you work over the weekend or you take Sunday to prepare for Monday, you don’t have the benefit of the full down-time that your mind and body needs. No relaxation over the weekend and dreading Mondays. Not a good combo.
Remember that Sundays are still free time. It’s such a terrible thing that Sundays can be filled with gloom all because of a day of the week. Try not to use this as time to prepare for Monday or a time spent working. You need a mental break to be at your best for the week ahead. I used to have a co-worker who had a “Sunday rule”. Every Sunday at 4:00, she called it “quits.” The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent relaxing. She and her husband picked out a nice bottle of wine, made some appetizers, and sat on the deck in summer or by the fire in winter and just relaxed. It helped her with Monday and upcoming week.
Lastly, if you really hate Mondays and have that “in the pit of your stomach” feeling every Monday, that’s a larger issue that needs to be addressed. That may be the most vital item of all. What’s the real issue here? Be specific. Don’t say that you hate your job. Narrow it down so you understand why specifically you hate your job. Is it your boss? The work? The commute? The culture? Your co-workers?
The question then becomes, what are you going to do about it? If you say nothing, you are sentencing yourself to only partial life satisfaction.
Quick Tips to Help Prepare for Monday:
- Finish tasks on Friday. Don’t be tempted to shut down and do the work over the weekend.
- Use Fridays to plan out the upcoming week. Make a list of priorities you will face on Monday.
- Maintain a sense of organization throughout the week so that the weekend is not so overwhelming with errands, etc.
- Plan something enjoyable for the weekend, particularly on Sunday. Don’t make Sunday a day you dread just because you are worried about Monday!
- Don’t be rushed on Monday mornings. Get up a few minutes earlier. Try Meditation. Many leaders credit their success to meditation. If you are not familiar with meditation, do some research. You might be surprised by what you find!
- Plan something fun for Monday—perhaps a class, networking event, dinner, movie, etc.
- Always know the core reasons why you dislike Monday.
