The Shortest Horror Story: Monday!
If you’re working in the corporate world, you will have encountered people who just hate Mondays. At some point it may even be yourself. You dread the beginning of the week and hope there is some calamity which prevents you from going to the office.
It’s a feeling everyone relates to. They even have a name for it. The Monday Blues. The name conveys a feeling of sadness. Nobody likes to feel blue. Yet, the inevitability of the calendar makes this feeling repeat at least 52 times a year. If you’re unlucky, you may even experience 53 Mondays a year.
That is 52 days filled with sadness, dread, fear and stress. Statistically, that is almost 14% of the year. That is a big number. Why would you want to spend such a long period under stress, fear and dreadfulness?
This cannot be good for your work or your health. Constantly living in fear of a weekday is not only unproductive, it is unhealthy. Being the start of the work week means that not only will your Monday be non-productive, the pace it sets for the rest of the week means your productivity and efficiency for the rest of the week is negatively affected as well.
This is one stress and one fear that you do not need. Mondays should be a start to a great week ahead. The pace you set yourself on this day will help you maintain the pace for the rest of the week. The momentum of the actions taken on Monday should help you power through till Friday (or Saturday) so you can get more done.
Having a productive week will help you to stay charged through the weekend for the next week ahead. So what can you do to make Monday more productive? What can make the Monday Blues go away?
Your preparation to fight the Monday Blues, believe it or not, starts on Friday. On that day you need to plan out how Monday (or even the week ahead) will start. Planning your week ahead will help take the guess work and the uncertainty out of work. Taking the uncertainty out will ensure that you are able to perform without fear.
It also means waking up on Monday you know exactly what you want to accomplish. You have planned ahead so you know what needs to be done. Where possible, start Mondays with positive experiences. Getting a good start to the day means you will feel fresh and positive throughout the day. Whether it is meetings, e-mails or phone calls, look for the positive in each experience to reinforce your feeling of positivity.
Stop giving in to uncertainty and fear and take control of your Mondays.