Monday Motivation to Jumpstart Your Week

Chop Up the Frog 🐸

The “swallow the frog” method is a popular strategy to make tackling your to-do list feel more manageable. It means ripping off the band-aid and tackling your most daunting task that you totally ignored last week and that has probably been on your mind all weekend. But diving headfirst into your most undesirable, boring or tedious item on your to-do list might feel like a lot for a Monday morning, especially when you haven’t even had a full cup of coffee yet. So instead, why not take the frog to the butcher shop instead?

Chopping up your most daunting, at-risk of procrastination task into smaller, bite size pieces not only makes it sound a lot less intimidating, but it’s a great way to prioritize what needs to get done. Plus, once you complete 20% of a larger project, chances are, you’ll start to see your momentum snowball and maybe even want to keep going. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and sometimes you only have to eat a single frog leg to get started.

If you’re really feeling stuck, an even more bite sized method to smash procrastination is the “Name The File” strategy. Tell yourself that the only thing you need to do today is to physically open, name and save the document that you’ll eventually be working in. It might sound crazy, but just taking this tiny step might help you get over the mental block that is stopping you from getting started. And tomorrow when you revisit this project on your to-do list, viola! — it’s ready and waiting for you to get started.

Accelerate, Delegate, or Eliminate 🗂️

Unless you’re Super Woman (actually to be fair, you kind of are!), chances are that there’s a few things still left on your to-do list from last week. Tasks hanging over your head can be one of the greatest factors that contribute to the Sunday Scaries — but don’t fret, because there is an easy solution to make the endless treadmill of to-do’s actually come to a stop:

Grab a notepad (or better yet, one of Tidy Plan’s printable daily planners!) and draw three columns — label them accelerate, delegate, eliminate. In the first category, list the things that you overlooked last week and need to get done, ASAP. This is your “accelerate” column, and we promise that you’ll feel a lot better once you’d identified your week’s top priorities — maybe there’s even fewer than you thought!

The second column, “delegate”, are important tasks, but things that you don’t necessarily need to do yourself. Ask a team member for help, consider outsourcing these tasks to assistants or freelancers and try to clear your plate as much as possible. Better yet, aim to identify repetitive, mundane tasks that need to get done but don’t really move the needle in the grand scheme of things — not only will this save you time today, but in weeks ahead, too! As they say “those who work alone go fast, but those who work together go far.”

Last is the most fun — this is your “eliminate” column. These are those pesky, time consuming tasks that may have seemed important at the time, but on second review, are no longer mission critical. Try to eliminate a few items that are no longer a good use of time or maybe that can be revisited in a few weeks’ time. I bet you'll be surprised at how freeing it feels to physically write these tasks down and then immediately cross them off — it sounds silly, but there's definitely some science behind that sweet, sweet crossing-out feeling. You should also think about eliminating any tasks that have been lingering on your to-do list for over a month. If it hasn’t been important enough to complete in 30 days, maybe it’s not necessary after all.

Do a Five Minute Afternoon Review 📝

Have you ever looked at the calendar, realized that it’s already Thursday, and felt a wave of dread pass over you because the week is slipping away? Yeah, same here. But don’t fret, because here’s got another tip to help juice the most productivity out of your week before it passes you by (yet again):

Every Monday afternoon, carve out ten to fifteen minutes of your afternoon in order to prepare for the rest of week ahead. You’ll be set up for success early on, be able to identify what still needs to get done, and be able to review any upcoming meetings, appointments or plans for the week. I personally love rewriting my to-do list several times a week — and there’s no better opportunity to do so than at the end of the first work day of the week.

Bonus Tip: If it happens to be towards the end of the month, spend an extra ten minutes planning out the next month to come. These days, it feels like our weekends fill up with weddings, family obligations, and vacations faster than ever. By getting a grasp on your schedule a few weeks ahead of time, you’ll be able to see the bigger picture, and know when it’s time to start saying “no” to things. If you’re a visual person like me, you might even want to grab a blank calendar template to see the entire month mapped out in front of you.

Monday Night = Non-Negotiable “Me Time” 🧖🏼‍♀️

We’re all busy, but you deserve some alone time, girlfriend! Reserve a few hours every Monday night just for you, so you can finally read that book, work on that personal project, spend some time answering a few journal prompts — whatever it is that your little heart desires!

It might be easier to physically block out your calendar and give advanced notice to your spouse, kids, friends or other family ahead of time. Treat this solo time as sacred, and don’t let anything interrupt this new weekly routine. Feeling guilty? Remember, there’s nothing selfish about reserving a few hours each week for yourself — by keeping your own cup full, you’ll be better able to serve others, right? Now go run that bubble bath.

One thing is for sure, there’s no lack of productivity tips or self-improvement advice out there. And sometimes, it can start to feel so overwhelming that we just want to scream “screw it!” and give up. But the next time an overwhelming Monday schedule starts pulling you in competing directions, try to slow down, take a breath and aim to accomplish whatever needs to get done one step at a time.

After all, slow progress is better than no progress, and just a little bit of planning ahead on a Monday can provide the motivation you need to crush all of your goals during the rest of the week. You’ve got this!