Mondays seem to be a catch up day for almost all employees. We come in to the office, go into meetings that may or may not be productive, go through all the emails sent late Friday and during the weekend, and before we know it we haven’t really done anything but get caught up. This can be changed. Mondays can be just as productive as Tuesday.
1) Finalize items on Friday and prioritize for Monday. Yes, it’s very common to slack off on Friday because the mental energy level has been depleted, but it doesn’t take much to close up pending tasks on Friday and create a list of the most important things you need to complete on Monday. This way, when you come in on Monday, you can jump to items that need attention first (without feeling overcome by thoughts such as “there’s so much to do, where do I start first?!”).
2) Slowly tackle busy work. In all jobs there is some amount of busy work that needs to be done. You don’t need to do it all at once but set a timeframe every Monday to complete so it doesn’t slowly pile up throughout the week and onto the next week.
3) Check in with your manager. Since we spend some time following up with people on Monday anyway, the best person to follow up with is your manager. Ask about important goals for this week or tasks that need to be prioritized over others. Or simply ask about the progression of projects and what this week holds for them.
Selectively go through emails. Emails will have piled up by Monday, so go through and select the ones of most importance and attend to them first. Don’t spend too much time reading emails that don’t require immediate attention.