How do I Motivate Myself on Mondays?

Hey guys. It's Monday. The weekend blues have kicked in full scale and we are looking at a long week ahead with a mixture of dread and apathy. I say "we," but maybe you love Mondays and maybe you hate weekends because you are a much better person than I am. I envy you! I hate Mondays and I always have the hardest time motivating myself to do anything productive on Mondays especially once classes are over, but I found that there are a few things I can do that make motivating myself for a long week of productivity a little easier. And hopefully, if you are also a person that finds it hard to work up the strength to get out of bed at 7am on Monday and do the errands you told Sunday you that you would do, then this blog may offer you some advise to help make Monday you a more productive person.

So I am going to follow a step by step pattern with this blog. This is what "good" Mondays for me usually start out like and this helps me keep the motivation going, but I also want to acknowledge and make the claim that not all Mondays are like this for me. In fact, most Mondays are not. Even today, I woke up later than I wanted and I did not get half of the errands done that I wanted to, but this is also a fact of life, so I am also working at being flexible and learning that things don't always go as planned no matter how much you wish they would.

But back to the beginning purpose of this blog:

1. Waking up on time
This is probably the major thing that can easily make or break a day of productivity for me. I always set my alarm at 5:30am, so that I have EXTRA time to make coffee and debate on what I want for breakfast. This is just how I flow. Some people have the ability to jump out of bed and rush a shower, grab their lunch, and bolt out the door. I love mornings, but I still need time to myself before I can join the outside world. It makes me a much happier person if I can take my time getting ready and it also makes me less likely to forget to check my email or grab that notebook if I have a little bit of extra time in the morning. My biggest piece of advice is that whether you are a morning person or a night owl, try to find a sweet spot in timing your morning routine. I need at least two hours of time between waking up and leaving for school, some people need more and some people need a lot less, but I truly think that finding that perfect timing makes the day so much better.

2. Coffee and breakfast
As mentioned earlier, the main reason I wake up so early is because I need that coffee and I always need food! Some people, my mother for example, don't like coffee and don't do breakfast, so these are things they can cross off of their morning routine without feeling like they are missing a piece of their soul. I AM NOT THAT PERSON! If I have to leave the house without coffee or breakfast because I woke up late, it ruins my whole day and it makes me want to go to bed early and start the day over again. I will get back to this. Thus, if I intend to not have a killer headache all day and a very upset tummy, I keep to my schedule and get out of bed in enough time to make my coffee and to at least make some toast or waffles. Again, you might be a person that does not want food that early in the morning and doesn't really like coffee, in which case you function a completely different way than me, which is perfectly OKAY and NORMAL. Just keep doing what works for you. Maybe you need that one song that gets you going or you need that early morning workout routine. Whatever the case, make time for it in your morning schedule and I promise you won't regret taking the extra time to do it!

3. Update my planner and write out the to-do list
I am not as good at this as I would like to be. I would love to do this as early on Monday mornings as possible, but sometimes I don't get around to it till later in the day and sometimes I don't get around to it at all that day, but if I manage to get it done I have such a better, more productive day. Tracking things in my planner and my to-do lists also helps keep the rest of the week productive because I now have a semi-rigid plan laid out for how I need the week to go and what sort of projects I can get finished and when I can work on them. So, I find this process extremely helpful, but it doesn't always work out like I would like. You may be able to function without needing a planner constantly reminding you what you need to do with yourself, so again this might not be something that you have to devote time on, but I have the memory of a goldfish and whenever I can write out plans it helps me remember things a bit better.

4. Dedicate some time to cleaning
I actually have a cleaning schedule that I try to follow for the week or at least, that my husband follows for the week because he does most of the cleaning. In any case, I already feel way more productive when I can manage to get all of the Monday chores out of the way and it helps maintain a semi-clean house. I hated spending all of my Saturday, or even the whole weekend, cleaning in order to catch up on all the cleaning I put off for the week. Not to mention, if I had dirty dishes in the sink Monday that I didn't get to till Saturday, then I had a lot of stinky dishes in my sink and no silverware to eat with Saturday. It was a nightmare, so for my sanity, I try to keep to the cleaning schedule and my husband even helps out because he can now physically see what things need to be done on what days. If I start off strong Monday and even take extra initiative by checking off some tasks for Tuesday and Wednesday, it just makes me feel extra productive during the week. But if I can only manage to check off the three cleaning tasks on Monday's agenda because I have an overload of school assignments or writing that needs to be done then that's okay too and it doesn't make me feel overwhelmed or unproductive.

5. Talk to my family and friends
I am the world's worst when it comes to communication. I can generally manage to talk to my husband and text him a nice uplifting message from time to time, but with other people in my close circles, such as family and friends, I have a harder time keeping in touch. Sometimes I don't even message my friends for weeks and people start to think I am dead or I start to feel like a terrible friend. Mondays are busy and hard, but they are hard for everyone I would like to think, so I try to message my mother and brother something cheesy and uplifting to get us all through the week. I also try to catch up with friends on Monday by texting them how my Monday is going and asking them how life has been for them lately. If I only manage to do this once a week, it still keeps things running smoothly for the rest of the week because I always remind myself that I will talk to them Monday and that I can check in on them Monday. And sometimes it helps to just text people when you are thinking about them. Even if it's a brief message, but since I have gotten into the habit of messaging family and friends on Mondays, I don't have a problem forgetting to talk to people for months on end because Monday always rolls around and then I think of them. I get that it sounds like I am forcing myself to communicate with people I care about, but that's not really the case. I am just upkeeping a habit that helps keep me on task for Mondays and the rest of the week. Another plus side to communicating with friends and family early in the week is that I can vent my problems to them and sometimes get solutions to problems that I am facing for the upcoming week.

These are just a few strategies that work for me and they may work for you. Feel free to offer up any more suggestions you have that might benefit me. I would love to learn some more strategies to help me feel like a more productive member of society!

Read this and kick Monday's butt!