Keep Calm It’s Only Monday

Good thoughts are not often associated with Mondays, it is the first day back at work after a weekend of relaxation. With the Monday comes the burden of going back to worrying about our bosses, classes, and bills. But it does not have to always be like this! With these easy steps you can beat the Monday blues:

1. Having a look at your calendar before bed. You see the most important step of anything we do is planning. I will say this over and over again, planning lowers stress level, makes you more self-assured and saves a ton of time. So before you go to bed check your schedule, if you have a meeting early in the morning plan out what you’re going to have for breakfast and how long it’ll take you to get ready—I say give yourself about an hour and half to get ready, have some breakfast and catch up with the news so you don’t feel rushed. **Also very important, I make it a habit to place my keys, sunglasses and nametag at the table by the front door that way I never forget them. So I would recommend that if you are a forgetful person, just put your keys or phone right next to what you will need that next day so that you won’t forget them!
2. In Bed. PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE/COMPUTER/TABLET/WHAT EVER NEW PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY. I know some people—like me—use their phone alarm to wake them up in the morning which is why I won’t say to turn off your phones, but please put blackberry or iPhone or Galaxy to rest and pick up a book. Read a book or magazine before bed—no idea what book to read? No worries, just hop on over to my book list!—and let it relax you rather than having your electronic device light glaring at your face, you already have it glaring at your for most of the day I’m sure putting it away at night shouldn’t be much of a problem.
3. Exercise. I know that means you’ll have to wake up even earlier than you may wish to get that exercise in but it is to your benefit because exercising = endorphins and endorphins = happiness. It will seem like a bad idea once you’re rolling out of bed to put your running shoes on, but once your come back  from that run you will be energize and ready to conquer the Monday blues!
4. Arrive on Time/Early. So you’re arriving at the parking lot of your work 15 minutes early, one thing to do is to greet everyone and keep high enthusiasm. Even if you might not really mean it—fake it till you make it! Now I’m not saying to have the fakest smile on your face and make it obvious that you would rather be anywhere but here. Rather have a more natural smile when expressing that enthusiasm, I find what really helps is thinking happy thoughts or having a great playlist for heading to work. That said, your co-workers and boss will appreciate you for that.
5. More Planning. Finally we’re back to step one of having to plan things out again. Hopefully you’ve noticed how planning out your morning worked in your favor, so you now realize that planning out the rest of your day and/or week will also work out in your favor. By that I mean created a set of to-do lists for the rest of day and week. This will help you keep track of what you’ve done and what needs to be done and if you do a good job then you’ll feel no guilt in rewarding yourself to a drink with your co-workers on Friday.

So try this out for the week and tell me what you think! Be sure to leave me comments below, I’d love to hear from you all!