Get Rid of Those Sunday-Monday Blues
By: Kristopher Coulston
Tags: Self Improvement, Productivity, Life Lessons, Life, Self Development

Step 1) Flip the way you think about Mondays

As long you think of Monday as a dreadful day, you’ll continue to dread Mondays. Flip Wilson popularized the catch phrase, “What you see is what you get.” And this couldn’t be truer when it comes to how most of us see Mondays. But there are strategies you can put into place to change your mind about Mondays.

Four strategies to flip the way you think about Mondays:

Plan your Mondays out: Knowing what to expect will make both your Sunday and Monday more enjoyable. Spend some time on Sunday planning for the day ahead. Perhaps this is planning your workday out or curating your work-fit if your day is pre-planned for you, which leads me to my next strategy for flipping the way you think about Mondays. Dress your sharpest on Monday: Enjoy your Sunday night by picking out your Monday best. What you wear can have a direct impact on your mood. “Enclothed Cognition” is a study completed by Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky that describes the “systematic influence that clothes have on the wearers’s psychological processes.” So make sure you dress sharp on Mondays. Exercise Monday morning: Plan to exercise. We all know that exercise is integral for getting in shape, but it’s also great for improving both energy and mood. Mark Stibich, PhD says, “When you engage in high-intensity exercise, your body and brain produce hormones and neurotransmitters that have a positive impact on your mood, memory, energy levels, and sense of well-being.” So do go on a walk, run, or hit the gym Monday morning. Have a good lunch planned: Make sure to plan out a great lunch. Plan something that you look forward to. Maybe Monday is the day you allow yourself to eat out or perhaps it’s the day you have your favorite meal for lunch. Planning a good lunch on Mondays, particularly something different than the rest of the week, will help you look forward to Mondays a little more.

Making a few changes to how you spend your Mondays can help you change the way you see Monday.

Step 2) Eat the frog

Mark Twain once said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” Complete your most important tasks of the day first.

Procrastinating will do more harm than good, especially on Mondays. Don’t prolong your Monday-dread by putting off tasks. Just because you put off completing a task does not mean it will be completely be off your chest — however, completing the important tasks of the day early on will remove the stress of anticipation and free you to tackle easier tasks.

Make this a challenge for yourself. Go into work everyday with a mindset that’s ready to tackle the biggest and smallest challenges. Don’t by perturbed by artificial stress — dreading Mondays is artificial stress.

By eating the frog, you’ll free your mind to be more productive the rest of the day. And if you make this a habit by doing this every morning, then you won’t dread Mondays as much, making your Sundays more enjoyable as well. So make it a habit to eat those frogs.

Step 3) Plan Fun Things After Work on Mondays

We all enjoy having something to look forward to, regardless of the day it’s planned on. Maybe it’s doing something outdoors or watching a good movie.

I haven’t implemented all the steps and strategies listed, but I have implemented this one. I plan an outdoor activity every Monday. This doesn’t just improve my Mondays, but it sets the tone for the rest of the week.

Not all the steps and strategies listed need to be implemented. Pick what you think will work for you. The ultimate goal is to change the way see things, and this is possible by making some rearrangements or simply changing the way you think.

I’ll leave you with this quote by Wayne Dyer, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”