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People like to procrastinate on Sundays because they don't want to face the stress of Monday. Many people don't look forward to the responsibilities of Monday. This causes a lot of stress and anxiety. You need to start your week the right way to ensure you have a productive week. It all starts on Sunday. Many people dread Sunday after a weekend. They don't want to think about Monday. However, adding a little structure to your weekend, especially on Sunday, can pay off. You need to cultivate a healthy mindset and embrace Monday to ensure you have a fun and stress-free week. It's about productivity, not procrastination.
Let’s dive into how you can start off the week on the right foot.
1. Do a mind sweep.
The first thing you can do whenever you think about the big picture and try to make a plan is to do a mental scan to clarify your thinking. This process goes through a list of reminders in different categories, looks for things you're trying to remember and commitments you've made (what scientists call cognitive load), and notes them on paper. This helps clear distractions from your mind so you can focus better on the task at hand.
2. Review the week to come.
The next step is to review the schedule for next week. You can use a defensible calendar strategy to improve your productivity by organizing your schedule into large chunks with tasks grouped by importance and urgency. This will help you organize and manage your work more easily. If your plan is not well organized, you can request changes to free up uninterrupted time in your calendar to create focus time and optimize travel and logistics. This is also the time to identify any preparation or review work you need to do during the week.
3. Reflect on the last week.
Once you have a good idea of the future, look back over the past week or two and see if there are any open items or actions from previous events that you may have missed. You look for opportunities to write quick thank-you notes and confirm any actions or plans that arose from previous meetings. You'll also take this time to reflect on what went well and what didn't, and how you can improve your schedule and plans going forward.
4. Create a to-do-list for the week
Sunday afternoon and evening are a great time to reflect on the previous week and organize your thoughts for the week ahead. Now is the perfect time to write your to-do list for the week. This is also a great time to write down your successes and achievements from the previous week. It can be easy to forget what you accomplished last week and not congratulate yourself on your progress at work.
5. Sort by urgency and impact.
Once you've written down your tasks and reminders, you start to sort and organize. You'll take notes on complexity and size, then sort them by two main criteria. The first is urgency, which shows how important this week's task is. Basically, if you push this to next week, will it cause any problems for you or others? The second criterion is impact, which is the value this task creates for you in the short and long term. If you do it right, your schedule will be organized and you'll have a plan for how the week will go. You'll have plenty of time to focus on work, grouping similar tasks together so you can keep your thinking the same and minimize task switching.
Of course, life happens and on Monday morning something unexpected could happen and you'll have to replan everything. And that's very good. The value of planning does not lie in executing the plan perfectly. This is because when this is not the case, you will understand what your job is, what your priorities are, and how you want to rearrange things to stick to the plan.
Source : Inc, Medium
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