Somehow to-do lists have a nasty habit of not getting done and spilling into the weekend, depriving you of your downtime and your friends and family of your full, undivided attention. Even if you do manage to ignore the flashing light reminding you of what has yet to be finished, your weekend enjoyment is ruined by the stress of the looming tasks or the brain buzz as you continue to think through the problem.
Instead of falling into the trap of the endless to-do’s, shift from a task list approach to a Monday to Friday work routine, whereby you start the week with a concrete task list that you intend to finish by Friday. Even if the tasks you hope to accomplish during the week are key steps in a bigger project, the act of completing each step gives you the mental break you need to come back to it the following week to work on the next step.
By using Monday to Friday as your start and stop dates to each segment, you leave your weekends free and clear. The rule is that nothing ever spans over a weekend (no exceptions). If you start it on a Monday, it must be finished and off your task list by Friday at the latest. So, for example, certain tasks that have to be done as part of your overall strategy may not even make the list until 3 Mondays from now because they simply won’t fit.
How to Get More Done AND Take Your Weekends Off
Break Projects Into One Week Chunks — Take all your projects, long-term goals and tasks, and break them into mini versions that can be accomplished in a one week timespan. If you can’t finish it between a Monday and a Friday, it’s too big a project…break it down again! It may take you a while to figure out what you can reasonably accomplish in a week as most of us think in terms of the whole project, not what we can accomplish in a given timeframe.
Start on Monday With a Concrete Focus Plan — Spend 30 minutes Monday morning (or even Sunday night if you want to get a jump on the week) planning what you need to accomplish for the entire week, assigning tasks to specific days and even time blocks. Remember to include important deadlines and review your calendar to anticipate potential crunch times later in the month so you have time to adjust your work blocks.
Push Hard From Monday to Wednesday — Focus on grinding through as many tasks and projects as is humanly possible early in the week. To do this, it’s best to avoid booking too many (if any) meetings from Monday to Wednesday as this is when you will be getting the majority of the work done. This logic is that early in the week is when you have the most energy AND getting ahead early gives you the mental boost you need to finish strong.
Wrap Up Tasks and Projects Thursday — Don’t wait until Friday to start wrapping things up! Think of Thursday as your wrap-up day and start tackling your task list with the ones that are closest to being done. That way if — and this is a big IF — you don’t get everything done you had hoped to, you maybe only miss finishing one or two things on your list instead of only getting the entire list to 90% by the end of the week.
Save Friday for Spillover, and Slip-ups — Use Friday as your day to handle the projects you got stuck on, new problems that arose and are preventing you from finishing a particular task or just any general miscellaneous that came up during the week and needs to be done THIS WEEK. If it’s not important enough to handle this week, push it to the next, but never EVER allow unexpected to derail your week by handling it between Monday and Wednesday. And if everything goes well, take Friday off.
Start Nothing New Until Next Monday — Don’t, I repeat DO NOT (as in never ever), start anything new until the next Monday as that will only pull your focus away from your weekend downtime. Make it your goal to start your weekend with a clean slate and a clear mind. The only new thing you can start before the end of the week is the Monday to Friday task list for the following week so it’s off your mind for the weekend. The idea is to give yourself a mental break on the weekend by never leaving any tasks undone from the week before.
It may take a bit of practice to figure out what is realistically achievable within a 5-day week given all your other time commitments, but it’s worth the effort.
1 Comment
Interesting approach. I like the idea of saving Fridays for spill over…