Monday Morning’s hit me like a freight train. After a relaxing and enjoyable weekend, I arrive at my desk on Monday morning to an influx of requests, deadlines, emails, and instant messages. It feels hard to organize my week for success when it begins with stress and anxiety.
I believe the key to a successful work week is to have a successful Sunday. To me, having a successful Sunday is about being organized and taking time for relaxation. Being organized and having a plan helps me deal with ever-present time demands.
I would like to provide 3 things that help me prepare you my week and transform the Sunday Scaries into a source of motivation!
1. Perform a weekly review
I recently finished a great book on productivity by Michael Hyatt titled, Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less.
One idea that I have implemented from this book is known as the weekly review. This exercise encourages me to reflect on what I have learned and how I can prepare for my upcoming week. This review is a four-part exercise where you answer the following questions.
Question 1: What was your greatest accomplishment this week?
You should start by giving yourself credit for the things you did well. Writing about what steps you took towards your achievement is a source of valuable insight. You can see what habits, routines, or resources you used to make you successful and how they could be used in the future.
Question 2: What could you improve on?
It is important to assess your progress and evaluate how you could improve. For this question, take one of your weaknesses and develop a plan to improve it. For example, if you feel unconfident leading meetings, find some courses, videos, or books that could you study to improve your public speaking. The goal is to create a daily learning habit that will help you improve your professional skills.
Question 3: What did I learn this week?
I am an avid note-taker. I use my notes from the prior week to answer this question. During my end of week review, I look over my notes and write about the most important things I learned from my meetings and assignments.
We learn new things throughout each workday. But when we don't take the time to document what we have learned, we forget pieces of insight that could help us in the future.
Question 4: What are my upcoming deadlines?
The final part of the review is documenting your upcoming meetings, deadlines, and projects. This will help you mentally prepare for the upcoming week and see how you can be successful.
A weekly review is important because it gives the following week direction. It allows you to proactively get ahead of your responsibilities rather than having them take control of you. Performing the weekly review is a way of renewing yourself in your goals and staying on top of deadlines. Taking 20 minutes to make a plan is worth the hours of stress that you are saving yourself from.
2. Time blocking
When you have a list of obligations, it can feel so overwhelming that you do not know where to begin. The best way to calm anxiety from a large workload is effective time-management and planning. I like to plan my week using an activity called time blocking. This is a method in which you divide each day into blocks of time. Each block is a specified amount of time that is designated to accomplishing a task.
Each Sunday, look at your schedule and take inventory of the tasks you have to complete for the upcoming week. Then, choose a day, time, and amount of time to complete your assignments.
This step allows you to be proactive in foreseeing upcoming problems and scheduling accordingly. By creating a schedule to accomplish your tasks, you will help your anxious mind feel like it is in control.
3. Make time for mindfulness
In Ryan Holidays' book, Stillness is the Key, Holiday highlights the importance of scheduling time for reflective stillness to find inspiration. Holiday mentions three activities that we can do to find some quiet time to reflect.
1. Write in a journal
Journaling helps me get the troubling thoughts out of my head and onto the page. It is easy to let our anxieties of the future or the sorrows of the past negatively influence the present. Taking the time to journal helps me organize my thoughts and take inventory of all I have to be grateful for.
2. Get out in Nature
There is something very calming about being outside and listening to the sounds of nature. I find that my moments of creative inspiration come to me when I go on walks. It gives me space, peace, and quiet to think about complex topics.
3. Do a guided meditation
Meditation turns the air you breathe into a cool gentle breeze while lifting fictional concerns off your tired shoulders. By breathing and noticing the sensations in your body, you become deeply in touch with a feeling of full presence. Above all things, meditation teaches me that the tragedies that exist in my mind are just figments of my imagination. The only thing that really exists is the present moment and my relation to it.
Conclusion
Having a successful week begins with successful prioritization and planning. You will not only be more effective throughout the week, but you will also bring a sense of stability to your Sunday.
All of these activities should take a maximum of 2 hours. By investing 2 hours of time into mindfulness and relaxation, you will set the next 40 hours of your workweek up for success!
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