Creating A Sunday Ritual Will Transform Your Workweek
Most of us, upon entering the work world begin to form regular routines to help us optimize our schedules. To make the 9 to 5 a bit more manageable we start doing things like meditating in the morning, listening to podcasts on the drive to work and intentionally penciling-in time with friends (to make sure that amidst the busyness we're still catching up with our #squad). While each of these things have immensely helped us stay organized, we've found that no schedule hack comes close to the power of creating a Sunday ritual. Here are the tried & true steps to creating the perfect Sunday ritual that will have you kicking those Sunday blues to the curb:
Pamper Yourself - Since most weeks our schedules are packed after work with networking events, side hustles and spending time with family, weekends become the ideal time to squeeze in some pampering. Even just one hour on Sunday evenings spent taking care of yourself makes a huge difference. Some of our favorite Sunday evening pampering activities include putting on a mud mask, taking a leisurely walk in the park with our dogs and journaling about what we're grateful for. These pampering activities always put us in the right mind-set and leave us feeling rejuvenated.
Map Out Your Week - Although no one wants to spend their precious time-off doing more work, we promise this 45min - 1hr activity will be a game-changer for your workweek. How many times have you rolled into work Monday morning and instantly feel off kilter because you haven't prepared for the day? Before you know it, you're in your first meeting of the day and your tasks are already getting away from you because you haven't prioritized what's most important. We're confident we've found the solution to this! Each Sunday we take a look at our schedules and write down (we like to use Microsoft OneNote!) the following:
What meetings we have each day
The 2-3 most important tasks we need to get done each day
Housekeeping items that need completed by the end of the week (following up on email, saving files to the server, etc.)
By taking the time to write down all of the above information, our Monday's go from manic to more than manageable. You're setting yourself up to effectively maximize your time by focusing on the most important tasks!
Lay Out Your Clothes - This is an easy one that can often get overlooked. Too many times our closets have ended up scattered across our bedroom from frantically trying to pick out what we're going to wear each morning! Instead of stressing and rushing into work (because we've spent so much time picking out what to wear) we now plan out each day's outfit for the week on Sundays. This may seem like overkill, but it's sooo worth it. This one simple planning tool makes all the difference in feeling put-together.
Get Enough Sleep - Getting enough sleep (7-8hrs is recommended) has been a hot topic as of late and we can't reiterate enough how important it is! Without proper sleep, you lack focus, feel less than ideal throughout the day and are more likely to overreact to situations that arise. We don't know about you, but we definitely want to ovoid all those things. This is why, most weeknights and especially on Sundays we head to bed early to ensure that we're getting enough zzzz's to feel our best on Monday mornings.
Hopefully our Sunday ritual inspires you to create one of you own so you too can reap the benefits of kicking-off your workweek calm, cool & collected!