How Do You Ease into the Work Week?


A freelance friend of mine recently commented that she has a hard time transitioning from weekend to weekday. “How do you ease into your work week?” she asked. “Monday mornings are always killer!”

I’m afraid I have the opposite problem: work days and weekends blend together thanks to my BlackBerry and MacBook addictions. This means I rarely have a huge email overload on Monday morning, but I also miss out on the chance to feel completely relaxed and rested because I’m never fully unplugged. However, I do make sure I have something fun to do Sunday night (often watching Mad Men with the aforementioned friend), so I’ll start the week on a positive note. It helps that I also try to stick to roughly the same sleep schedule so I’m not throwing my circadian rhythms out of whack.

Your turn! How do you transition into the work week? Do you keep worktime and playtime clearly delineated? Or, like me, do you sometimes find they blend together?


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Susan Johnston is a freelance writer/blogger who has contributed to publications including The Boston Globe, Mint.com’s blog, WomenEntrepreneur.com, and Yahoo! HotJobs. Her own blog, UrbanMuseWriter.com, covers tips on productivity, brainstorming, and more for fellow writers.

Discussion

  1. Rochelle Dancel on the 16th August

    Much of the Monday Morning negativeness stems from being around a collective of people that hate Mondays. So I don’t work in the office on Mondays. I start work from home on Monday afternoon. When I go into the office later in the week, Monday blues are done and I never had to deal with them 🙂

  2. Jonas Brauer on the 16th August

    Simple! Keep a playlist of awesome tunes that puts you in a great mood.
    Hit play and kickstart your week.

  3. Olly Killick on the 16th August

    I find a good thing to do is to stay on top of work emails but try to keep it between Monday to Friday. That gives me the best of both worlds. A freelancer I know always takes Fridays off, says it always works for him.

  4. Sandro Salsi on the 16th August

    Funny topic. Web workers never switch off and work 7 days a week however, old habits are hard to die. Weekends are supposed to be easier days 🙂

    I myself find it difficult to start the week on Monday.

    I am fortunate enough to do something I like and when I like it but commitments, deadlines and challenges are always there.

    I am not sure one can completely solve the problem. What Jonas says is right, doing something you like on Monday can make the transition a little easier but…won’t solve the problem.

  5. Okyere on the 16th August

    Weekends are a very dicey thing for me. I usually pretend they are just extended weekdays, but I usually mix in some interesting activities like being with my girlfriend or something like that.

  6. Daquan Wright on the 16th August

    I too hate Mondays….something about being interrupted early in the morning right after you slept in just yesterday…. 🙁

    Just schedule your time appropriate and look for something that puts you in a good mood. 🙂

  7. Mike Abasov on the 16th August

    I just really, really love my job 🙂

  8. Well I think due to the web, the difference is decreasing.

    But that said, I ease into the workweek by waking up early on Monday, so that the more work that has to be done on a Monday, can be finished earlier.

  9. Chris on the 17th August

    True, the difference is decreasing and work and weekends are merging.. There are a couple of things I am currently doing ( and still improvising!)

    * As a rule, I never pick up the Blackberry as soon as I wake up in the weekends
    * I do not ack. mails on weekends but keep a watch once in 3 hours or so
    * I do not carry the BB all along in the house
    * I however do check for missed calls.
    * I do not call Team Members ( even to just say Hi and then talk @ work 😉

    Monday starts very early for me ( try to work from home for 2 hrs) responding to weekend mails – just ensuring that all mails are replied to before ppl get to work
    Though this ends that I put in a lot of hours on Monday .. I do spend some good time with the family

    Chris

  10. I struggle with Mondays and Fridays. Usually on a Monday I go through and reply to any e-mails, read a collection of links I have e-mailed myself from Twitter, catch up on other RSS feeds and any business accounting. Fridays I like to do as little as possible, winding down for the weekend, usually doesn’t happen though!

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