The Only 2 Things You Need to Do to Make Monday Your Best Day Ever

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

I’m retired now, but for years, even decades, my work week was the same. I’m sure they are the same for you. The dreaded Monday. Hump Day. TGIF. Tuesdays and Thursdays? Don’t really have any memory of them, except I know they were there. Wednesdays were usually pretty good; hump day, you knew you were halfway there.

Of course, Friday was the best day. The weekend was coming, your attitude improved, and you actually became more productive. In the final sprint as it were.

But, what if every day could be like Friday? What if, and you’re going to have to stay with me here, what if Mondays could be like Fridays? That would make the whole week better, wouldn’t it? You come in on Monday morning with that great Friday feeling, and it would carry you through the next five days.

Fantasy?

No. I made that happen. My last few years were like that, and I can tell you the difference it made was phenomenal. People wondered what I was up to.

Why the hell is Darryl so cheerful? Doesn’t he know it’s Monday?

Yeah! Monday! Let’s kick ass and take names.

Okay, I’m starting to lose you now, but just wait. I’ll lay this out for you.

To create this scenario where Mondays were the best day of the week (okay, second-best), I had to do two things consistently.

• Take the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt out of Mondays
• Make Mondays Great

It took a couple of weeks of practice once I hatched this idea, but the positive results were almost immediate.

Remove the FUD Factor

The biggest problem with Mondays is our fear of it. It’s drilled into us from an early age. Mondays are horrible even if and when they are exactly like every other day of the week, Mondays get a bad rap. But that’s something we can change internally if we take away all the reasons to hate Mondays.

Besides the irrational hatred of Monday just on general principals, we hate them for one of two reasons:

• We don’t know what’s going to happen and we are afraid of it
• We know exactly what’s going to happen, and we dread it.

But aren’t both of these fixable? At least to the degree that we can control things.

The biggest mistakes we make on Mondays are actually on Friday. What’s the last thing you do on Friday? Shut down and get the hell out of here, right? Well, stop doing that. Just like every day, the last thing you should do on Friday is plan the next day. And I don’t mean the weekend trip to the lake. Make your plan for Monday. Actually, go ahead and do your weekly review and layout the whole week. But, yeah, mostly Monday.

Plan your Monday on Friday afternoon, and you have just removed the uncertainty and doubt. Two out of three in one fell swoop. And the first thing on your list for Monday is also a weekly review. I know in terms of business hours, you just did one, but there is a whole weekend in between. Make sure you know what you have to do today. Take another look at last week and see how that worked out.

Make Mondays Something To Look Foward To

TGIF, right? We want Fridays to be great, so we make them great. Put off all the crap we don’t want to do. That can wait until Monday.

But let’s do things a bit differently from now on.

Part of that Monday review will evolve into your Friday review. But that will take practice. Take a look at everything you have to do this week, especially today. I know you don’t have total control of your time. Everyone has a boss, right? The boss might be an actual boss. The boss might be clients if you are an entrepreneur.

The boss might be your kids.

But look at everything you have control over. Find tasks you might consider fun or challenging, or for whatever reason, you look forward to them. Or at least the ones you don’t mind doing.

Move those to Monday.

The scutwork; spread that through the rest of the week, but mostly Tuesday and Thursday. The thing you really hate doing, do it on Thursday. The no-man’s-land of the workweek. Or worst case, Friday. Swallow the Frog.

Try to avoid any meetings on Monday. Meetings suck the life out of us; they should be banned. But if you have to have them and you can affect the scheduling, don’t do one on Monday.

And as you become accustomed to scheduling your week on Fridays, I want you to save a particular task for first thing Monday. After your Monday review, the next mission on your list is the pick of the crop. Something you might actually look forward to. Come on, all your job isn’t drudgery. Put the best thing in the week down for first thing Monday.

How about lunch? If you’ve read my stuff (I know you have), you know that I almost always eat lunch. Not at my desk. Out. Away from the office. And if you do the same, you know that the special lunch is always reserved for Friday. Why? Why not make Monday your special lunch day? Places won’t be as crowded, and it will be one more thing to look forward to.

How did Mondays get so bad? We made them that way. We allowed it to happen. The dreaded Monday became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, guess what? You can change the prophecy. That’s how they work.

Someone foretells the future.

Well, foretell your own and make it a good one.

Can you imagine how great your week will be if you take the fear and dread of Mondays out of the equation? Man, I am enjoying the weekend, but I can’t wait until I get to work on Monday. It’s going to be great!

And I can guarantee you from personal experience, if you start your week that way, the momentum will carry you through Friday. Carry? It will hurl you toward and through Friday.

And don’t worry, Fridays aren’t so bad.

Monday is just around the corner.

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