I wrote yesterday about my self-care Sunday, and I concluded my blog post with how I prep for the week. My end of weekend preparation is key for me to start the week off on the right foot, yet somehow I did all of my preparation and still felt like I failed on the productivity front this morning.
Here’s why:
I snoozed.
I didn’t just snooze once, I actually reset my alarm and then snoozed that 3 more times. This meant that I got up nearly 90 minutes after I had originally planned. Yikes. Like I mentioned yesterday, I am not a naturally early riser, and so I need to set an alarm for myself on weekdays. There’s something about knowing that I don’t have to get up though that allows my sleepy brain to justify snoozing.
I didn’t have any calls or urgent to-do list items this morning, and I knew that I had a podcast interview tonight, meaning that I need to work late at the co-working space. So, my tricky brain justified snoozing over and over again, leaving me feeling a bit down right off the get-go this morning.
I didn’t have a tangible action plan.
Last night, I wrote out my list of to-do’s for the day, and transferred a couple of my action items from last week to this week. Again, my tricky brain knew that I hadn’t put enough to-do list items on my list to keep myself busy from 9am to my podcast interview tonight at 7:30pm. But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have enough to do. There are certainly other things I can and should be working on, but I didn’t have an action plan for those items so I didn’t get up and do them.
No accountability.
Because I work from home and work mostly for myself, I am solely responsible for holding myself accountable to what I need to get done. I am usually pretty good with setting deadlines and holding myself accountable, but it’s on days like today that I know I need to have someone else or something else hold me accountable to getting my ass out of bed and getting started on my tasks.
No intention.
I went on Facebook this morning and one of the groups that I’m a part of had a prompting post asking what we were working on this week. I wanted to contribute, but I realized that I didn’t really know what I was working on this week. Of course, I have podcasting and office hours and yoga studio management tasks, but those are small tasks that should be a part of a bigger goal. I found myself thinking that the key thing that was missing for me was having an intention for my day and for my week, and this is what will get me out of bed.
Here’s how I plan to be more intentional with my Monday mornings:
Set a morning schedule.
On Sunday nights going forward, not only am I going to write out my daily to-do items and transfer my task items from the week before, but I am going to set myself a schedule, including my wake up time, any morning routine or exercise that I want to do, and my first 3-5 task list items that I want to get done, including a deadline to have them done.
Keep an easily accessible running list of to-do items.
I keep a running list of to-do items and ideas for projects on Asana, but I want to make this more easily accessible for me during the moments when all I want to do is snooze my alarm, and I know I have stuff that I should get up and start doing. On Sunday nights, I am going to start writing myself a running list of to-do items in my notebook where it is easy for me to access during times when I feel like I don’t have anything to do or any reason to get up.
Set a weekly intention.
This is key. I want to have a focus or a goal for my week. Once I have set my intention or goal for the week, I am going to figure out what is needed each day in order to be successful with this and plug it into my day timer for the week ahead.
By implementing all of these action items, I hope that I can have a better start to my week next week!
Wins I’m celebrating!
Because this post was mostly about how I could improve my Monday mornings, I also want to take a moment to celebrate what’s been great today:
- Meditating and practicing yoga once I got up
- Preparing a healthy and nourishing breakfast
- Having lunch and dinner meal prepped for the day
- Complete all the tasks on my list before 6pm!
Happy Monday!