Do you spend your Sunday’s dreading Mondays?
Or worse still, all of Sunday procrastinating on all the things you want to do to get ready for the new week?
Or are you someone who gets into a mad rush around 4-6pm, trying to get everything done and staying up late into the evening trying to set yourself up for the week?
If you resonate with any of these or have done any of these this year, then this blog is for you.
Spending your Sundays in this way doesn’t set you up for the week. Instead, it causes a rush of stress hormones flooding your body, resulting in spiralling and difficulty sleeping.
The weekend is meant to be a time to rest, relax and recharge. If you manage to do this on Saturday but undo it all on Sunday – what is the point?
Instead, here is how you can manage your Sunday so that you get a balance of both. But the key is to start on Friday.
So before you get to lunchtime on Friday, think to yourself;
‘What is essential that I do to set myself up for Monday and the week’?
Write down that list. Then pick out the things that take up a total of 1 hour.
Those are the only items you should be taking into the weekend.
It might be to finish laminating and cutting out a resource. It could be going through your calendar to add in your admin tasks. Whatever it is, it should only take a total of 60 minutes.
Now have a look at your weekend and allocate 30 minutes to Saturday and 30 minutes to Sunday.
By limiting the time, you don’t end up getting stressed, or procrastinating, or worrying, spiralling or spending hours on a task.
Hopefully, this exercise will get you thinking on Friday ‘I’ll quickly laminate and cut that resource now rather than taking it home’ or ‘I have a bit of admin on Tuesday, I wonder if I can get it done then’.
By using the time outside of the weekend to plan your work, it will mean that you can slowly reduce how much you do.
Why is this important?
Because if we don’t learn to switch off after work and on the weekends, we end up working all the time. We take a 38-hour/week job and turn it into a 50-hour/week job. Then we wonder why we are burnt out.
You can’t ask for more admin time or have a discussion with your employer about your workload if everything is getting done. They will assume you are incredibly efficient and most likely give you more work to do.
Finally, the habits you create now, in this job will follow you into your next one. And if you think it will be so much better when you are working for yourself, think again. That 50-hour week just turned into 60 hours.
Learning to switch off. Being ok with work hanging over to the next week. Not being able to get everything done on your to-do list is such an important skill to learn.
By learning to be ok with it, you will be able to have your nights and weekends off.
& most importantly, you will be able to relax, rest, and recharge, resulting in more clarity, productivity, and a happier you on Monday.
