Five tasks to keep your Monday morning productive
Monday mornings can be tough, especially rainy ones like we’re having in the Mid-Atlantic this morning. Instead of wasting away your morning, try these simple five tasks to keep your productivity from stalling:
- Read and sort any stray emails that somehow went unread and processed last Friday when you were thinking about your upcoming weekend.
- Inspect your rain gear — umbrellas, boots, rain coats, compact poncho — and look for any damages, proper size and fit, unnecessary duplicate items, etc. Weed out anything that is past its prime, donate to charity any unnecessary duplicate items (if you’re a house of one, do you really need seven umbrellas?), and properly store what you choose to keep.
- Thoroughly review your to-do list/next action items list. Cross off any tasks that have been completed or are now obsolete. Add any items you’ve forgotten to write down before now. Do that thing where you write down something you’ve already done and then immediately cross it off so you get an immediate sense of accomplishment (I know I can’t be the only one who does this). Finally, schedule on your calendar any actions that need to take place at a certain time.
- Make the phone call you’ve been procrastinating making.
- Look at the time, and then give yourself 10 minutes to get a second cup of tea or coffee and ask your coworker if he/she saw the Capitals lose to the Rangers this past weekend (or whatever small talk interests you and your colleagues/friends). When the 10 minutes is up, head back to your desk and start chugging away at your to-do list/next action items list you recently updated (and on that cup of coffee).
10 comments posted
Posted by Laura - 05/14/2012
Love this list! I’m sitting at a coffee shop with some tea and an ungraded stack of papers to wrap up my semester. I think I’ll give myself a minute to make a list (and to add and cross off some already completed things!), a few minutes to check a few websites, and then dive in to the stack.
Thanks for the Monday morning motivation!
Posted by DC.nerd - 05/14/2012
I may not need seven umbrellas, but certainly I need three as a household of one. Right?
Posted by Nicole - 05/14/2012
I love #3! I definitely do that.
Posted by Availle - 05/14/2012
@DC.nerd:
I am with you. One person needs exactly 3 umbrellas:
1 at home
1 in the car/purse
1 in the office
I could certainly not do with less.
Posted by Carrie - 05/14/2012
You never know when its going to rain, especially in Texas. Always good to organize the rain gear!
Posted by Wisestep - 05/15/2012
no need of umbrella in rainy monday ????
Posted by rafael - 05/15/2012
About #3 I use Android Aizon.me to-do list application that force me each morning to plan my day from 0. This makes me do review my tasks daily.
I think it’s better than having a list of old undone tasks, which you keep ignoring.
Posted by Cam @Wedo Beds - 05/15/2012
Living in London, I really enjoyed the rule #2!
Posted by Allison - 05/15/2012
Most productivity-oriented advice would disagree with #1 … getting sucked into emails is a classic way to waste buckets of time. If possible, just get started on whichever task is Most Important.
Posted by Fax Authority - 05/21/2012
Good list!
Once heard that the best way to deal with Monday is pretend that it’s a Friday and you’ve got a massive end of day deadline – move all those unimportant fires to Tuesday and somehow the Monday’s don’t seam so bad anymore…
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