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 

Overwhelmed with to-do

When the ratio of to-do and done seems to be weighted in favour of to-do… what do you do? 

Many people take the overwhelm path. It’s all too much. Argh! 

But here are 5 steps that might help, thanks to Art Markman’s article in Fast Company. 

And if you don’t have time - or energy - to read it, I made you a picture of 5 steps. 

Do them, one by one. 

The most important person to influence

Much is written about influence: how to use it, who is impacted by it and how to get more of it. 

Of all the people you focus on influencing, do you put effort into influencing yourself? 

Do you know what to do to change your state, how you’re feeling, or what you’re doing? 

Rather than just accepting things for how they are or ‘going with the flow’, a more deliberate practice is to be able to influence yourself. 

To shift and change how you think and respond to things. 

For example, if you have times when you’re anxious or overwhelmed, what do you do? Do you have a go-to list of remedies and reliefs? 

Sniff an orange. 

No, that’s not a typo. It’s one of the suggestions in this neat list of 28 ‘little’ things to do in times of anxiety. 

There are some we might have heard of before like writing things down, exercising or being grateful, but there are some wonderful new tips too 

Bookmark it if it’s something you - or someone you love, live or work with might benefit from. 

It could help you be more influential. 

Are you making things easier

Today I’m working with a group of leaders on building their facilitation skills. 

Facilitation at its heart means ‘ease’, to make progress with ease. 

And ease is a great perspective to take. 

Ask yourself 
- are we making this harder than it needs to be? 
- what could we do that would make it easier? 
- how can I make it easier for them? 
- what does the team think would make it easier?

Easy doesn’t mean it’s not good or not valuable. 

It’s about being able to manage and juggle a mix of things happening in teams :
🌕 Engagement - that we are connected to this work
🌕 Involvement - that we are doing something with the work
🌕 Contribution - that we bring our ideas and efforts to the work. 
🌕 Productivity - that we are getting the work that needs to be done, done. 

The skills of getting people aligned, engaged, inspired and participating doesn’t happen automatically. 

You’ll have to do something. Many things. Many micro things that together make great progress. 

Does your team need these faciliation skills, to help make the day-to-day work easier? 

Facilitation skills apply in-person, online and in the new world of hybrid work. 

Let’s talk. I’ll tailor a session, a series of sessions or a longer term program for the team. 

The truth about feeling bored

I remember as a child I’d call out to my mum, Shirl, and say ‘I’m bored!’ She’d give me a sweet list of things I could do to occupy myself, entertain myself and stimulate my mind.

But here, author Pietro Minto, in his Italian book ‘How to get bored better’ reveals some interesting thoughts, claims and insights about our boredom. 

Apparently we have a warped notion of time and time management ... and the pandemic has exacerbated the warp. 

In this great interview with Minto, we get new perspectives on what we do when we’re bored and how we’re spending a lot of time on things that may not matter so much. 

Oooh that’s a big call isn’t it. 

Aren’t we all so busy? 

This quote: “It’s irrelevant how many stimuli we have – the core of the issue is about how little we are conscious of how we use our time, be it free time or otherwise.”

He says that boredom has carried negative connotations but instead, “it’s a plot of land no one has built on yet.” 

Bookmark this one to read maybe when you’re bored! 🤣

It’s a great prompter of thought about what we do, why we do it and how else we might spend our precious time.