Fighting the Sunday Scaries

It’s Sunday, the clock is striking almost dinner time, and suddenly all of your #weekendvibes morph into a cloud of doom, aka the Sunday scaries. We’ve all been there and it sucks. I like to start the week feeling energized and prepared, excited for what’s to come and ready to tackle whatever challenges I have (and those that arise) but it can be hard to make this happen when the weekend ends with wishing I had a blanket fort I could hide out in for the rest of time.

I'm just gonna put these back on...

I'm just gonna put these back on...

To the extent that I can, I make sure to allocate time on Saturday and Sunday to getting things ready for the week, be it laundry, dishes, food prep, whatever. Particularly on Sunday, I make sure to do this as early in the day as possible so that come Sunday night, I can just relax. Getting these chores out of the way, let’s me focus my energy and Sunday stress on the things that actually matter: work projects, friends and family, personal events, upcoming travel, the things that really deserve my attention.

Waking up on a Monday like

Waking up on a Monday like

When organization fails, and even when I #getshitdone but still feel like I’m in for a doozy of a week, I go through the big picture and find happy landmarks for myself, much the same way that I would break up big assignments in school (ex: have the full outline done by X date) and plan in study breaks. These landmarks can be as big as an event I’m looking forward to or as simple as noting the day that a new online purchase will arrive and if I don’t have anything, I’ll carve out some time, even just an hour for something I’ll enjoy. Knowing I have dinner with friend A on Tuesday, planning to curl up with my book on Thursday night, or scheduling a fitness class that I really enjoy on Friday morning, breaks up the week into manageable segments and allows me to turn a planner of dread into one that looks way less intimidating and dare I say, slightly exciting. On deck for me this week is dinner with a good friend, a lunch date, three long-overdue coffees, and finally finishing my book (I hope)!  

How do you banish the Sunday scaries?