What to do when you dread the week ahead

Mondayitis is when it hits but many of us feel the dread of the working week before that, while we’re still in the weekend!

An article labels the ‘Sunday Scaries’ that feeling when you’re already overwhelmed by what’s ahead and you haven’t even started the working week yet!

Do you dread? 

I’ve had job roles, commitments, projects and colleagues that absolutely made me feel dread-full about Mondays … and I’d feel the dread approaching on Sundays. 

More recently, I’ve aimed to set up Mondays as a day of ease. I try to protect the day with some breaks, space, a gradual start to the week, not a slap in the face with the hardest task, toughest meeting or most annoying people. 

I think that ‘start with the hardest task first’ advice is dated productivity BS that sets off overwhelm in a second!

This article suggests 5 things we can do on Sundays to make them less scary. 

If it’s not work time yet, outsmarting the overwhelm of dread makes the weekend more enjoyable and doesn’t make us work hard ahead of time. 

Read the article here 

A mindset for success or burnout

The deep beliefs we hold about what we’re doing and why, may not be as noble or effective as we think. 

After all, why do we work longer hours? 

Why aspire for higher standards?


Here’s a quick check of 9 mindsets (this article says ‘lies’) we may believe, unconsciously, that don’t serve us well. 

1. If you stop what you’re doing you’ll be letting everyone down

2. If you don’t do it it won’t get done

3. You have to work long hours or you won’t get ahead in your career

4. If you sacrifice now you benefit later

5. It’s only costing you some ‘time’

6. You don’t have time to do what you enjoy

7. You have to isolate yourself to get the work done

8. You can do it all on your own

9. You have to be perfect all the time.


Ticked any of them? 

What if you reversed, flipped or edited them, all 9 mindsets? 

1. If you stop what you’re doing it gives others a chance to step in. 

2. If you don’t do it maybe it won’t even matter. 

3. You can work shorter hours and still get ahead in your career. 

4. If you sacrifice now, you may make things worse in the future. 

... keep going. You edit the rest and see how it challenges beliefs about work. 

Trying out some better ways of working

Today I’m working with an organisation introducing them to some new and better ways of working. 

Work changes all the time. 

But sometimes we’re locked into the way we’ve always done things. 

Hey, how much did we have to change in 2020 when we were forced to work remotely - if we weren’t already! 

What if we kept that pace of change going and tried doing other things differently? 

As Steve Denning in ‘The Age of Agile’ explains, new and agile ways are a vast global movement that have been changing the world of work. 

And these ways are moving beyond software and technology where they became known, finding keen supporters in other fields like health, government, education, marketing and finance. 

Most of all, I think today’s workshop will focus on how it starts with the individual. 

Adopting a flexible, adaptive and agile mindset is where it can begin. Yet it’s also about trying things in different ways, and seeing how mindsets shift... as a result of that experience. 

Who might benefit from you working in new and better ways? 

Are you there with curiosity

Or did critique and complaint show up instead? 

There can be an easier, default response to be right ... by pointing out the wrong. 

But these times of extreme change and uncertainty require a greater openness of mind, a willingness to wonder and a greater sense of possibility. 

Our curiosity bias is there. We think, ponder and are curious about many, many things. 

How can we be curious about the things that might benefit from our curiosity? 


1. Do we bring curiosity to potentially boring meetings? 

Do we think:
“OMG this is so dull and boring; they are a hopeless leader.”

Or do we think:
“Hmmm, how could I help bring greater engagement or contribute to higher interest - for myself and others? What else is possible? What could I do here?”


2. Do we bring curiosity to a dense information pack?

Do we think:
“Ugh what waffle. Pages of it! They’ve missed the point. They’ve got no idea.”

Or do we think:
“Hmmm I wonder what the intention is? What’s the main point here? How can I best make sense of this?”


It may be easier to critique but the better, and more powerful work is in curiosity. 

Be there with curiosity. 

To use now ...or saving it for ‘best’

I bought a new notebook three months ago. And there it sits on the shelf. All new and unused. Just like the outfits in my childhood wardrobe, waiting for ‘Sunday best’. 

Similarly, when people buy my book ‘Visual Mojo’ I tell them it’s been designed for them to write in it. It’s a true work-book. 

But many people don’t write in it. They want to save it, for best. 

We save the best cutlery for special guests. 
We hold the best crockery back for the most notable occasions. 
And we save our best tools for the perfect job. 

But as we work on a rough draft or a first cut of something, it’s ok to use the good tools, the special equipment, the best that you’ve got. 

It builds our confidence when we use the good stuff. 

We become less fearful, less hesitant and we worry less about going for perfect. We learn to trust ourselves more. 

But most of all, if we can’t use the best stuff today ... when will we use it? 

In times like these, every day is a day for using the best!