Four Weekend Rituals to Make Your Work Week More Productive Add these four rituals to your weekend schedule, and you will find that your workweek stress levels drop, and your productivity increases.
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When it's the weekend, most entrepreneurs look forward to time with friends, maybe sleeping in, engaging in hobbies, and indulging themselves. Then Monday comes, and the week starts. At this point, the weekend isn't regarded so fondly.
When the start of the week is spent shaking off the weekend fog, readjusting to the "work mood," and catching up on everything that's happened over the past couple of days, that can be a real adjustment.
There is good news, though. Whether you spend your Mondays sluggish, trying to readjust, or harried and trying to get too much done, there are ways to increase your productivity. Here are four simple weekend rituals you should adopt as an entrepreneur to start having more productive workweeks.
1. Put together your clothes for the work week
This may seem like a really "mom' thing to do, but this technique can really help. The more decisions you have to make, the more stressful things can be. Too many choices can cause stress and anxiety.
Some, like Zuckerberg, are famously opting to eliminate this choice altogether. If that's a bit extreme for you, consider tackling this chore all at once. The idea is that rather than moving from one task to the next unrelated task, you are more productive if you complete similar tasks in the same time frame. It won't be completely stress free, but during the workweek, you will be happy that you have one less thing to do. You'll also find the task of selecting your wardrobe to be a bit easier.
There's also another benefit. When you're putting together five separate outfits, the status of your wardrobe becomes very clear. Within a few weeks you will know what you wear regularly, and what should make its way to a charity.
2. Try preparing meals ahead of time
Meal prepping is one of the latest trends in healthy eating. In spite of being a bit of a fad, it's not something you should dismiss. This form of food preparation has been the stable of fitness professionals and athletes for decades, with the scientific community now proving that meal prepping can help reduce stress and consistently maintain a healthy diet.
"Meal prepping is something you can do quite easily on a weekend afternoon, said Andy Beresford, CEO of Home Leisure Direct. "Even better, if you have kitchen tools such as deep cooking pans and a slow cooker, you can prep a week's worth of meals without as much active cooking time as you might think. Once everything is ready, it can be portioned into portable serving containers cooled and then frozen for reheating later on in the week. This means that instead of wasting energy throwing together a meal or buying a fast food gut-bomb, you can start your day by grabbing the breakfast that's already made and throwing lunch in your bag."
3. Spend some time decluttering your life
Try dedicating some time every weekend removing clutter from your life. Where should you begin?
"To make your workweek more productive, start by considering exactly what is getting in your way at the start of the work week," said Nathan Stark, VP of Strategic Partnerships at DealWiki. "A great way to gauge this is to simply pay attention to the tasks you perform throughout the workweek. If you find yourself thinking, "this is such a waste of time' or "if only I could skip this and do something more productive', that's something that should be subject to decluttering."
Stark said to also not leave your electronics out of this process. Emails, old files, apps you never use, and old documents clutter your phone and desktop. They give you more crud to deal with during the week, and stop you from starting the week at a running pace. Delete, respond, archive, zip, move to the cloud or otherwise deal with these items as well. "Make it as a habit to kickstart a new week with a clear head and a quick to-do list of essentials tasks you plan to accomplish," he advised.
4. Spend time on those quadrant two tasks
In Steven Covey's quadrant of time management, Quadrant two is for tasks that are important, but not urgent. This includes planning, research and development, growth, taking an online MBA, reading books or investing time in some other forms of personal education. Unfortunately, these are often the tasks that are put off during the week while you deal with urgencies (quadrants one and three). The weekends, when you aren't dealing with daily office struggles, is perfect for taking on quadrant two activities.
How does this make your workweek more productive? First, accomplishment is fuel for productivity. You'll walk into the office feeling ready to continue the momentum you created over the weekend. There's also a reason why these tasks are considered to be important. They are often key to improving productivity, increasing your skill set, and making business run better altogether. All of these are sure to make your workweek more productive.
Starting the week doesn't have to be so dreary. Add these four rituals to your weekend schedule, and you will find that your workweek stress levels drop, and your productivity increases.
Related: Five Rules Entrepreneurs Should Follow To Achieve Success
