Caught a great post over at Retirement: A Full-Time Job with the title, Thank God It’s Monday. Initially, I thought it was a typo – we all know the saying is, “Thank God it’s Friday!
Upon closer inspection I realized exactly what the author meant. Like her, I dread Monday mornings to the point that I literally get depressed on Sunday evenings. If you were to track my energy levels, and my mood, from Friday night to Sunday night it would show a steady decline leading up to Monday morning. I hope to change that before too long!
My weekends seem to get shorter and shorter, and as my kids grow older I find myself trying to cram more and more into them. As a result, I find myself exhausted on Sunday evenings and joke to the family that I have to go back to work to rest. But that’s just it – I don’t rest. I get no downtime, no time to pursue other things that are important to me. My family time suffers, and after keeping this schedule for weeks on end, burnout is inevitable.
I can’t wait until I reach semi-retirement and feel just as enthused about Monday mornings as I do about Friday mornings. Until then, here are a few strategies I use to reduce the Sunday night dread:
- Find full-time work doing something you truly love. I know it sounds cliche, but it really works. The times when I have felt passionate about my Monday-Friday mission have been some of the happiest “work” memories I have.
- Find your passion outside the office. A few years ago I was really into coaching youth sports. Probably because I used to want to be a high school coach. But I took a different path in my career, so I made time to volunteer as a coach for my kids’ sports teams.
- Ask your boss for a flexible schedule. One of my favorite books, The 4-Hour Workweek, advocates this strategy as a way to start slowly unplugging from the office. It might be as simple as asking to work half-days from home on Fridays to beat the commute, or going to a 9/80 work shedule where you are off every other Friday.
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