How to Make Monday Your Most Productive Day
By Pete Savage
At a Pitney Bowes sales training conference years ago (yes,
I was a sales guy in a past life) the company’s VP Sales
came in from head office to speak to us sales reps.
He talked about the importance of having a strong work
ethic and how, back when he was a rep, he would make cold
calls and visit customers right up until 5pm every Friday.
Then he said something that surprised me: “Everybody needs
to slack off a little bit, though, so I always used Monday
morning as my water cooler day.” He explained that on
Monday mornings he kinda took things easy… came into work
late, hung around the lunch room, drank a lot of coffee and
had a good, long natter with the office staff.
He explained that slacking off on Monday morning was fine,
because it was the worst time of the week to find any
customers interested in talking about the exciting stuff
Pitney Bowes was selling, like photocopiers and postage
meters.
“Most people in the corporate world are bummed out on
Monday morning, so best to steer clear of them and let them
come out of their funk,” was his advice.
It May Work For Sales Guys, It Doesn’t Work For Freelancers
As a salesperson, I saw that this was in fact true. You
could take it easy on Monday mornings and do just fine. As
a freelancer, however, I discovered that a sluggish start
to the work week always turns the rest of the week into a
race against the clock.
When you have an unproductive Monday, it makes your entire
week more stressful, daunting and exhausting. Fortunately,
the opposite is also true… when you have a super-productive
Monday, you tend to have a more productive week.
Here’s are six easy-to-implement tips (actually, you might
find the first one a bit hard to swallow, but read ‘em all…
they get easier) to supercharge your Mondays and get more
done throughout week…
How to Make Monday Your Most Productive Day
1. Add an extra hour (or two) to your Monday.
I know, I know. It sounds crazy to voluntarily make you
Monday longer. (And if this sounds nuts to you, imagine
what your friends in the corporate world will think when
you start doing this!) But honestly, we’re just talking one
day a week here. An extra hour of productivity right off
the bat can go a long way to reducing your stress, so start
work early or finish late – just on Mondays.
2. Let important people know Monday is your “Power Day”.
Let your spouse, partner and family know about your new
office hours on Mondays. If you work from home, ask the
family to be extra-conscientious about distracting or
disturbing you.
3. Watch the clock like a hawk. On Mondays keep an
especially close eye on time-wasting indulgences. Take a
short lunch. Monitor what you do on breaks. Desperate for
an extra cup of coffee? Fine… give yourself two minutes to
go to the kitchen, fill your mug, then get back to work. No
surfing the net, no personal emails. Challenge yourself to
see how disciplined you can be, all day long. I promise
you’ll feel like a champion at the end of the day.
4.Yes, you get to eat dinner on Mondays. But don’t
make a big deal about it. You need to be able to work an
extra hour or so past your normal quitting time without
feeling stressed about dinner. Ask your spouse to take care
of preparing dinner on Monday nights. Or cook your Monday
night meal on Sunday (make it something you love!) so that
all you have to do on Monday night is warm it up and enjoy
it. Or even better…
5. Reward yourself. Give yourself a treat for working hard
on Monday. Have your favourite take-out meal for dinner.
Enjoy a lovely glass of wine and a long, hot bath. Or,
start a “Monday night out” tradition that might include
dinner or a movie with your partner or a friend.
6. Don’t schedule “due dates” on Mondays. The point of
making Monday your Power Day is so you can work on things
that you decide are important to your business. If you’re
rushing all day to meet a deadline then you’ll feel trapped
and you won’t have the energy you need to put in that extra
hour or two of work.
(Extra Tip: Try to schedule any major project due dates for
Wednesdays and Thursdays, so you have a couple days of
runway leading up to them. With a Monday due date, you’re
more likely to find yourself hard at work on the Saturday
or Sunday prior, which makes it harder to follow through
with your “Power Day” commitment once Monday morning hits.
Don’t worry… working a little harder on Mondays won’t leave
you feeling extra tired at the end of the day. In fact,
after a super-productive Monday, you’ll find you actually
have more energy for the week ahead. Instead of being
stressed about your workload, you’ll experience a wonderful
kind of mental high as you look at all the work you
completed in a single day.
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