Assembly can be quite annoying. However, if we cross the following items off our Monday list, we can make the start of the week much easier.
For many people, Mondays are one of the less popular days of the week and for some people the day even casts a dark shadow over Sunday. If you have a severe Monday phobia, it may make sense to look for the personal reasons that make this day seem so gloomy. If there is moderate hostility, it can help to avoid the following behaviors at the beginning of the week in order to see and use Monday in a reconciled manner and as a positive start to the week.
5 Monday habits that can ruin your whole week
Stay lying down longer
If we go to bed later on the weekend and sleep longer in the morning than during the week, it can be more difficult for us to get back into our weekly rhythm on Mondays. If we respond by turning off the alarm again and going back to bed, not only will it make our Monday mornings more stressful because we won’t have the time, but in the worst case scenario, we’ll carry our weekend jet lag with us further into the week. Ideally, we go to bed early on Sunday evenings and get up cold on Mondays at our usual weekly get-up time.
What also helps: having a relaxing and fulfilling weekend. Then it could be that we are particularly full of energy on Mondays and don’t even get to know the problem of getting up.
Looking forward to the next weekend
The weekend was too short and it’s now far too long until the next one. But that’s our life, Mondays are just as much a part of it as Saturdays. Instead of struggling with the circumstances and thinking about all the strenuous things that may happen during the week, we can better use our mental energy to accept reality as it is, including Monday, Tuesday, etc., and look at it Focus on the nice aspects: contact with colleagues. The feeling of having accomplished something and being able to tick something off. The appointment in the evening or the moment when we can finally open our book, which seems even more precious after work than on a Sunday. Mondays can annoy us, but what do we gain by struggling with them? If Monday didn’t exist, it would be something else that would annoy us.
Doing too much
On Monday we still have the whole week ahead of us – we don’t have to do everything right away that we have four more days to do. A stressful, exhausting Monday usually leads to an exhausted Tuesday, which in turn can lead to a panicked Wednesday, which is then followed by an overwhelmed Thursday, which will pave the way for a disappointed Friday. This chain can be avoided through good, forward-looking weekly planning: What is important for this week and how do I distribute it over the days available? Asking this question once – ideally on Friday evening, otherwise on Monday morning – hardly takes any time, but can bring a lot of calm and focus into Monday and the whole week.
Postpone important things
What we can pay attention to when organizing our week is that we do the most urgent things on Monday, if possible, instead of putting it off because it might be the most tiring. Especially on Monday mornings, all sorts of unimportant things often tempt us to do them first and therefore falsely prioritize: replying to emails and messages from the weekend, tackling the unimportant to-dos from last week that were left behind, working through what we think we missed to have – which is usually rarely something urgent. The more urgent the open tasks in our minds are, the more they burden us and the more severely they inhibit our productivity.
As if on autopilot, picking up on last week
In theory, each new day, even each new moment, can completely change our lives. After all, we don’t always feel the same, we don’t always think the same, sometimes we are happy and liberated, sometimes sad and trapped. In between, something happens, a change takes place, which we can sometimes initiate ourselves and often help shape, but can often just let happen. Mondays are particularly suitable days to decide on changes in our everyday lives and to actively shape them. The distance on the weekend allows us to react more consciously and distanced. If we want, we can behave differently than last week, start at a different pace, try out a new approach. Every day and every moment offers us a new opportunity, but hardly any day makes this offer as attractive as Monday. To consistently ignore it would be a shame.
Sources used: hackspirit.com, huffpost.com