What’s worse than waking up on Monday morning and there is a torrential downpour outside? It’s a great way to start the week, right? Mondays are hard enough for most people. You just spent the weekend enjoying the warm summer sun, at the beach, hiking in the woods, sailing on a boat. Now it’s 6:30am on Monday morning, your beeping alarm quickly destroys your lottery-winning dreams, and you’ve got to hit the ground running… a far cry from yesterday’s lazy Sunday morning.
But in reality, wouldn’t you rather be working on a sunless, rainy day rather than when it’s beautiful outside? I know I do. Even though it’s difficult to sometimes get motivated when the weather is uncooperative, it’s really the best time to be productive! There’s no wishing you were poolside when it’s pouring out, so why not put the bad weather and a case of the Mondays to good use, and get some work done.
After you trek into work soaking wet, write down your to-do list for the day, and just get going on the first set of tasks. While everyone else is half-asleep at their desks, start making your morning phone calls, or catch up on those ten emails you didn’t have time to respond to last week. I’ve learned over the years to always get the hardest or scariest tasks completed first. Maybe you need to have an uncomfortable conversation with a coworker, or maybe you have a big meeting with your manager and haven’t prepared for it yet. Now is the best time to complete those difficult tasks and get them off your plate. You will be grateful when lunchtime rolls around because your afternoon is going to be a piece of cake compared to your tough morning… and just maybe the sun will peek out by then.
Once your most challenging to-do items are completed in the morning, make another list of things to accomplish by the end of the day and check them off as you go. I guarantee your afternoon will fly by, and by 5 o’clock, you will have achieved a whole lot more than you anticipated. And the best part – those rainy Monday blues are suddenly gone.
How do you beat your Monday blues? Leave a comment below!
