Tags
Achievement, Consistency, Dreading Monday, Drive, Goals, habits, motivation, rituals, Routines
It’s time to grind folks!
Are you one of those folks who dreads Monday? I think it’s pretty common across all cultures. For those of us that work Monday – Friday, the weekend is our relax, binge-watch, and laze-around time. Then we have to get up on Monday and head to work.
Since retirement, I’ve tried to keep a Monday-Friday schedule. Last week I tried an experiment of not having a real weekend. In other words, I kept my daily schedule consistent across 7 days. I still have a blow-off day on Sunday called “my do nothing day”, but this last week I continued to plug away at all the things I schedule for myself daily. What did I discover? My Monday wasn’t that bad when I consistently kept doing what I normally do during the Monday-Friday workweek.
For me, consistency is the key to accomplishing what I have set out to do. This consistency is what keeps me going. I love to habitualize everything. I find comfort in the consistency of my schedule and the automation of daily tasks and routines. The key, however, is I love everything I am doing.
When I retired I knew I would still want to be active. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of binge-watching videos, playing video games 12 hours a day, and all the rest. I wanted to finally do what I have always wanted to do–focus on exercise, learning, writing, reading, meditating, and coding. Subsequently, this is my day. I love what I do. Since I love what I do, I am no longer “working”. It is a great place to be.
For those of you that are still doing the 9-5, find aspects of your job that you love. Then, carry some of these things into the weekend with you. Instead of piling up all the personal things you have to do during the weekend, spread them out through the week. Clean as you go, do your laundry in batches, prep all of your meals on Saturday or Sunday. What you’ll find is your weekend will slowly begin to blend in with your workweek and each day will be more consistent.
I started doing this in my final years in professional recruiting. I used to do something work-related each weekend day. Maybe I would source for candidates and begin building out call logs for my work week. Maybe I would do some research into some company or new technology hitting the market place. I could even knock out some social networking. I thought that if I make everyday the same, there will be no more “Monday dread” because there would be no separation from my work day and my weekend.
Give this a try. You may be like me. You may enjoy the consistency of your day and thrive on it. I know I do. I just feel good when I can knock out little chuncks of my goals each day. I wake up each day knowing what I am going to do and it never changes. This consistency is my life line. I’ll stop here.
Here’s my schedule for the week:
- Work on my book daily
- Work on my blog daily
- Learn daily
- Journal daily
- Meditate/Spiritual Exercise daily
- Exercise daily (See my Workout Routine Posting today)
- Eat less than 2500 calories daily
- Read daily
- Get out of the house and interact with the public daily
Ok, folks. Get out there and crush your goals and have a great week ahead!
Until next time…
Dave
