Are you Mondays full of chaos? Tired of feeling stressed out as you go to sleep each Sunday, dreading the next day?
If you want to have a successful week, you need to set it up right. You need to prepare and plan for it. You need to be thoughtful and thorough about it. Because how you spend your time matters and I’ve found Sunday to be an incredibly useful, but highly underutilized, day for many.
Over the years I have established a series of habits I do on Sundays to help set me up for a successful week ahead. I am not suggesting that you adopt these same habits, but my hope is that you find inspiration to identify what habits you need to implement that will help you have a successful week ahead.
Here are my Sunday Habits:
1. Plan the week ahead.
I spend anywhere between 45-60 minutes planning my week every Sunday, and when I say planning my week I cover many areas of my life on the process. I believe you need to look at your life and your time holistically. You are one person after all, and the day only has 24hrs. At the end of the day if you want to feel centered you need to make sure you have clear your priorities across all areas of your life and you prioritize your time in alignment with those prioriorities.
Work: I check all my appointments, move things around so my calendar matches my priorities for the week. I also block time to work on my priorities and projects, otherwise I can be just jumping from meeting to meeting and leaving feeling that I haven't accomplish anything or made any progress towards my top priorities.
Kids: My husband and I plan and decide who is going to drop and pick up the kids each day. We check any events or other school commitments or/and extra curricular activities that we need to attend that coming week.
Meals: I am really (or try to be) intentional about what I eat. My health is one of my top priorities. I have learned that in order to stay on track, planning my meals ahead of time, being intentional my grocery shopping is key for success. Planning my meals ahead helps me to me more efficient when grocery shopping and save money as I only buy what I know I need, it also helps me eat healthier and it saves me time and reduces the stress during the week of trying to figure out what to make for lunch or dinner every day.
Workouts: Yes, I also schedule my workouts. I decide at what time I will work out and what workouts I will do.
Personal Development: This is another of my key priorities, so I am also very intentional about scheduling time daily to invest in my personal development.
Household: Finally I make sure I plan ahead for any household related stuff. Any deep cleaning around the house, paying bills, house work that needs to be taken care of, etc.
If this seems like a lot, it is. But to be fair, I have a lot going on.
There are a lot of moving pieces to this puzzle and while it’s sometimes a pain to spend 45-60 minutes on a Sunday getting my life in order, the benefit I gain from having clarity and organization throughout my week far exceeds the annoyance of having to sit down and do this every Sunday. Additionally, because things change throughout the week, I’ll also run through this process again each day. I spend 5 - 10 minutes every morning as part of my morning routine reviewing the day ahead and making an y necessary adjustments as life happens. But that is a topic for an entire different blog.
2. Get ready for the week ahead
After planning my week, I take some time to actually get ready for the week ahead. For me, that looks like:
Go grocery shopping and stock up on healthy foods for the entire week
Meal prep
Leave my workout clothes ready for Monday morning
Leave my kids clothes for next day our and ready
Pack my kids backpacks
Refill our water bottles so they are ready to grab and go next morning
Charge our laptops and electronics
Monday is garbage day for us, so we actually take the garbage out on Sunday night no we don't have to worry or stress about it Monday morning
Think about what can you do on Sundays that will make Monday morning go smoother.
3. Learn something new
I am personally very passionate about learning new things. I am curious is nature and personal growth is a priority for me. I have found that investing time in learning something on Sunday's helps me set the tone for the rest of the week. Also, is the day I have more time and flexibility to set time aside for this.
Find something that interests you and dive in. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you find it interesting. And as you continue to explore, so will your excitement for learning. In turn, you’ll discover new ways to challenge yourself and grow. You can then use that excitement as fuel to launch yourself enthusiastically into the upcoming week!
4. Self-reflection
This is one of my favorite things to do on a Sunday – reflect on the week. Why? Because Sundays are a great day for reflection. With the week now behind you and the next week fast approaching, consider:
What things went well this week?
What did I accomplished this week?
What did I learned this week?
What challenges did I faced this week?
What can I learn from those challenges and do differently next time?
See Sunday as a time for reflection and growth, an opportunity to carb out time that you can utilize for introspection and contemplation.
5. Clean and organize the house
When it comes to preparing for the week, I always make sure to have a nice clean working area ready to go. If an orderly environment is something that allows you to better focus, make it a Sunday priority.
By organizing your workspace ahead of time, you will set yourself up to have a more focused week. And, more importantly, you won’t be scrambling to get organized during the chaos of Monday.
Beyond cleaning and organizing my working space, Sundays are the days we clean and organize the house, do laundry and tidy up. To me honest this is because during the week is hard to find the time.
6. Spend quality family time
Sundays for me a prime family time. During the week while we try to spend as much quality time as we can, everyone is running between work, school, etc. the amount of time we have is limited, so we are very intentional about spending quality time together on Sundays. This may look different every weekend. Some weekends we are out and about doing fun activities together, others we just lay back and stay home and watch movies.
7. Connect with your Faith
Regardless of what you believe in, no matter what your faith or religion looks like, but as life slows down a little on Sundays, is a great opportunity to make the time to connect with your faith. For me looks like going to mass or praying.
8. Spend quality "me" time
You are the most important person in your life. It took me some time to process that but when I did, well, my perspective on life changed. You can't be the best spose, parent, leader, employee, friend, etc, if you are not your best self first. I believe in spending quality "me" time on a daily basis, for me that looks like my morning routine, but sometimes it can be challenging to find time to really focus on yourself in the middle of a hectic week, so Sundays as a great opportunity to set some "me" time aside.
9. Stretch and move
I work out every day. Sundays I take it easy though. You can say Sundays are my rest day. That being said I like to still do something like stretching, foam rolling, doing a yoga class or go for a recovery walk. This helps me let go of stress, while improving my mobility and helps my body recover and get ready to start all over the next day with my workout routine.
10. Go early to bed
It might be tempting to stay late on Sunday night, but for me going to bed early is a must. Getting 8 hours of sleep on Sundays is a non-negotiable for me. That helps me wake up refresh and ready to conquer the week ahead. I recently interviewed Michal Breus, PhD; THE sleep doctor. We talked a little about sleep, the chronotypes and the impact to your energy and productivity and one thing that stick with me is that consistency with our sleep is key.
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