Dealing with Sunday Scaries and Manic Mondays
We give you the lowdown on how to deal with that sinking feeling about work on Sundays and how to have a good Monday to ease you into the week.
Even when you love your job, it’s normal to get that sinking feeling when Sunday afternoon comes around. The weekend feels like it’s coming to a close, and you start thinking about the working week. Many of us start working on a Sunday evening to prepare ourselves for Monday, cutting our precious weekends even shorter. So, no wonder many of us feel knackered by the time the working week starts.
What are the Sunday Scaries?
The enjoyment of the weekend starts to fade away and you’re distracted and anxious about what you’ve got coming up in the working week. This can stop us from socialising, sleeping well and feeling well-rested after the weekend. While many of us are going back to the office, working from home and hybrid working has blurred the boundaries around switching off. Many of us no longer log off and head home on a Friday night not seeing our computer again until Monday morning. Now, we extend that time we’re focused on work, often with our laptops staring right at us at home over the weekend.
What to do about Sunday scaries
Block out some time on Monday mornings
One way to stop us from feeling like we need to prepare for work on Sunday night is to block out time on Monday to prepare for the week ahead. Rearrange meetings, and push back on early meetings that throw you in at the deep end before you know what your priorities are. Block out the first couple of hours in your diary and stress that people should check if you’re available before putting meetings in.
Arrange something social
We tend to leave social work lunches for later on in the week. But, where you can, why not go for lunch with a colleague or a friend on Monday instead of Friday? If you’re a morning person, a breakfast catch-up before getting into the day? Mondays can feel miserable because we're not supposed to be doing some of the things we’re happy doing during work time later on in the week. Challenge this pattern!
Make plans for Sunday afternoons and evenings
We tend to shut down Sunday afternoons and evenings as an option for socialising. Yet, having that distraction on a Sunday evening so you don't focus on work can reduce the Sunday night anxiety around work. Try moving the things we cram into Fridays and Saturdays over to Sundays. Make a reservation for a nice Sunday lunch, or book tickets for the cinema. Where you can book things in to encourage you not to bail on things if you’re starting to get distracted by work. If you would rather stay at home some Sundays, put your work things like your laptop away in another room and ‘book’ something in. This could be cooking a meal with a more complicated recipe than usual. Or, a move night where you watch the film with no other screen time allowed during that time.
Bare minimum Mondays?
We don't quite buy into the term and its negative connotations. But one principle we can take from supposedly doing the ‘bare minimum’ , is to ask yourself do you have to do all the difficult stuff on Monday? If you find Mondays difficult for your mental health, or you’re going through an overwhelming time and reaching burnout, are there some things you’ve put on your list for Monday that could be done later in the week? Could you do some of the ‘easier’ tasks, so the focus isn’t on the stuff that might be taking up more of your energy and contributing to the anxiety?
Now, we’re off to book some Sunday night cinema tickets …
