280. Winning Monday Starts on Sunday

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: You know, it’s almost Halloween. I mean, there’s Halloween decorations out everywhere, but I don’t think there’s anything scarier than. Sunday night. And the thing is you get like 52 of those a year, not just one. It’s nearly haunting People dread it all weekend long. It’s like Friday comes, you feel relieved to be off work.

[00:00:22] You go home Friday evening is fine. You wake up Saturday, you’re in a bit of a days, you know you have a a million things to do. You get started on those million things and then somewhere in the middle of Saturday it starts to dawn on you. That amazingly frighteningly. Predictably, there will be a Monday and then Sunday arrives and you’re in this low grade fright all day long.

[00:00:47] This horror that Monday will in fact arrive and it’s like you can already imagine how Monday is off track, and in fact, the whole week, it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s already a disaster scene. That’s just not a fun way to start a week, and yet we do it all the time. So here’s the question. What if you could just flip that script so that Monday felt like a win before it even starts?

[00:01:12] So that the scary Sunday thing, not so scary. In fact, it’s a delightful day. It’s just a wonderful day. And instead you walk into Monday feeling like everything is on track, and that train will stay on track the entire week long. That sounds like a good thing to me. I wonder if we can do it.

[00:01:35] Marissa: Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I’m Marissa Hyatt.

[00:01:40] Joel: And I’m Joel Miller.

[00:01:41] Marissa: This is where we remind you of something that you already know. It’s not about getting more things done, it’s about getting the right things done,

[00:01:50] Joel: both at work and in life. And today we are gonna talk about.

[00:01:54] Why winning Monday actually starts on Sunday. If you want to get rid of those Sunday scaries as they are called, you can, and we’re gonna talk about how,

[00:02:04] Marissa: yeah, I think Sunday gets a bad rap. I actually love a Sunday. Yeah. And I love this kind of feeling of feeling excited about the week ahead and feeling like I’ve got a plan.

[00:02:18] But that is so. Often not the case for most people. I would say the majority of people I know would have what is called the Sunday scaries.

[00:02:28] Joel: I mean, it is the majority for sure, people that have run the numbers, and that means like the monster.com people, the CBS News of the worlds, like the various polling companies, when they’ve checked in on this, it’s like 76%.

[00:02:41] Maybe more of people feel some version of the Sunday scaries, the professional class call them. That’s what they feel, and yeah. Just imagine three quarters of us are walking into the week dreading Monday.

[00:02:54] Marissa: Well, it’s like we get to the end of the weekend and we plug our ears and it’s like, la, la, la, la, la.

[00:02:59] I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna think about it. I don’t wanna even, right. Think that work is approaching. And even if we love our jobs, we often feel like that. It’s like responsibility, adulthood, whatever is knocking on our door and telling us it’s time. Right. And it’s a terrifying feeling, especially if you haven’t.

[00:03:19] Done any kind of prep work to understand what’s ahead. And this is where most people end up falling in. They realize, oh my gosh, I have no clue what’s coming. And it’s like there’s a train coming and I don’t know what’s on the train. I have no idea where, where this train is going. What is on board of this train?

[00:03:39] Joel: Scary clowns are aboard that train.

[00:03:41] Marissa: Yeah, we don’t need to go there. We definitely don’t need to go there. But it does feel like that. It feels, yeah, so much like that. More often than not. We hear this from our community all the time, that this is one of the biggest reasons that they end up finding full focus is because of this feeling of dread every single weekend where they get to the end of the weekend.

[00:04:02] Maybe they’ve had a great weekend and they were present, they were enjoying themselves, having fun, connecting with their friends, and next thing I, they know. Monday morning’s approaching, and every bit of them is feeling that sense of dread, that sense of anxiety and anticipation for the week ahead.

[00:04:22] Joel: That response that people feel like dread for Sundays, there’s like a physiological reason why that happens.

[00:04:28] Hmm. Our brains are really good. Our brains and bodies are really good at getting us in a condition to handle danger, to handle the unknown. Even though this is predictable, like we know that Monday’s coming, we don’t know how many scary clowns are on that train, and as a result, when it pulls into the station, when we arrive, our cortisol spikes and so our sort of fight or flight response is activated and we walk into Monday.

[00:05:01] Feeling as if all of this uncertainty is coming at us and it, it is in a sense, frightening. And our body acts like it’s frightening. So this is not just like a head game thing where you’re gonna say, you know, I’m just gonna think happy thoughts, and my Monday’s gonna be great. There’s a reason why it’s happening.

[00:05:18] And it’s like literally in your physiology that can be addressed by getting clear on what’s happening. Throughout the week. So if there are scary clowns, you know what you’re gonna do with ’em in advance and. Hopefully there are actually not scary clowns on your train.

[00:05:34] Marissa: Yeah, and I think this is kind of going back to why this podcast was started in the first place.

[00:05:41] We wanted to help people love Mondays again, people hated Mondays and still do, frankly, and we wanted to give you guys something to look forward to every Monday, and hopefully what we bring to you guys is. Practical that you can implement right away. And so especially what we’re about to talk about, you can go do right now if you haven’t yet.

[00:06:02] Yeah. You don’t have to let today or this week go by feeling that sense of anxiety, feeling that sense of dread and fear for what’s coming. You can actually. Hit the pause button here in just a minute, and actually go do what we’re gonna tell you to go do and you’re gonna get immediate relief. And that is what I love about this.

[00:06:22] This isn’t something, this strategy, this practice isn’t something that you have to do. Over and over and over again to get the benefits. You get benefits on day one in minute one from doing it, which is why I love this process.

[00:06:36] Speaker 3: Yeah. You

[00:06:36] Marissa: know, this is my very favorite tool that we have at Full Focus. I probably talk about this more than just about anything else that we teach, because I think it gives people the quickest wins and the quickest relief for that feeling of overwhelm in their day-to-day lives.

[00:06:55] So what are we talking about today?

[00:06:57] Joel: That is the question, and so I’m gonna ask it to you. What are we talking about today?

[00:07:01] Marissa: Well, we’re talking about the weekly preview, and if you are a full focus planner user, you know this process well, if you’re not one, you’re about to learn how to do it, why it’s important, and why we love this so much.

[00:07:17] But this is a practice that each of us should be doing at some point in the week, typically between. Friday and Sunday, and in this case, we’re talking mostly about doing this on a Sunday, but this is where you’re able to essentially do a, a couple things review. So you’re, you’re looking in the rear view mirror, looking at what happened in the past week and understanding essentially what went really well and how to do more of that.

[00:07:46] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. What

[00:07:47] Marissa: didn’t quite go according to plan or where you felt some stickiness, some friction, and how to avoid that? Then we, we really look at our wins and we talk about what worked really well. We celebrate those because I don’t know about y’all, but for me. It’s so rare that I slow down enough to actually realize what I’m doing that’s working and celebrate that actual win.

[00:08:10] Whether it was a small thing, like I was able to go connect with a friend who I haven’t talked to in a while, or if it was something specific to. What are my goals for the quarter? You know, whether that’s a personal goal like my health or a work related goal that is something about launching a new product or hitting a certain budget number.

[00:08:30] You know, those are really big wins that we often don’t feel like that are that big or we just kind of gloss over. Right? And then lastly, we’re really gonna look at the coming ahead and we plan that to is where, uh. As my dad often says, the rubber meets the road. This is where we actually get those quick wins where we can walk into the week on Monday morning feeling confident, knowing we have a plan for the week.

[00:08:58] No clowns are coming out. Uh, there’s nothing scary that’s gonna happen that typically we don’t know about. Like most of it, we’re gonna have a plan for. And this is where you get that clear sense of focus for the week ahead.

[00:09:11] Joel: I love this process because of that very sense of peace that you get when you’ve got it all kind of figured out.

[00:09:20] It’s not gonna go exactly the way you have it figured out, but instead of your body being on high alert, that danger is approaching. It’s like. No, it’s not danger. Even if I know that there are gonna be things that are gonna be difficult or squirrely in the week, I have a sense of what they are. So like I can have an appropriate response to it, which is like to be proactive or to deal with it in a particular way as opposed to being reactive.

[00:09:43] And you know, when you don’t do this process, what often happens is the first time you really look at your schedule is when you open up your calendar, when you get to work, and then you realize. Oh my gosh. Like I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for that. I’m gonna have to skip this one thing to do this other thing.

[00:09:59] And all of a sudden you’re in this reactive mode as opposed to feeling like you’re in control and you have a proactive posture towards it.

[00:10:06] Marissa: And you often aren’t being intentional. You’re just in this place where, like you said, you’re being reactive. And so what often ends up happening, and I see this with our coaching clients all the time.

[00:10:19] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:20] Marissa: When they don’t do their weekly preview, they feel a sense of, uh, reaction. There’s no margin for the things that they’re actually trying to accomplish. And so this happens a lot where it’s like you look at your calendar, it’s already full, and there’s no time to get the other things done that you were hoping to do.

[00:10:39] And so if that’s how we approach every single week, it’s gonna be really difficult to actually make progress on those things that we’re trying to make progress on those goals, those commitments that we’re trying to make progress on. It is so challenging. And I notice within myself that when I have those moments where I say, you know, for whatever reason, I don’t do my weekly preview, whether that’s, I had a busy.

[00:11:02] You know, into the week or the weekend got away from me, or I was on vacation or took PTO or whatever it may be, and I don’t have a plan. I walk into Monday freaking out.

[00:11:13] Speaker 3: Right?

[00:11:14] Marissa: I don’t even have a clue which way is up, which way is down, and how I fit into the whole process. And so this process, this weekly preview process, which is very simple and I think we should like.

[00:11:25] Actually talk through what this looks like. Yeah. So that people who may not have the full focus planner yet can understand what this actually looks like. And then, you know, the truth is obviously we would love for you to adopt this and start using this as a process in your full focus planner. But even you could technically do this, you know, on the notes app on your phone, or in a notebook if you need to.

[00:11:48] Joel: The back of a grocery bag, anything will work.

[00:11:50] Marissa: There you go. Make sure it’s paper and not plastic, you know, whatever. You have to write on, you can technically do this exercise. It’s not exclusive to the full focus planner, although I would argue it’s the best part because it’s built in, so you’re doing it week after week.

[00:12:05] It’s just right there as a prompt for you. So for those of you who are newer or just need a little bit of a refresher, we are gonna walk through the weekly preview together. I’m gonna kind of outline the various steps, and then Joel, I’d love for you to just add a little more color in here and explain to us.

[00:12:21] Yeah. What we’re looking for or kind of what the aim is with each of these steps.

[00:12:26] Joel: Yeah, totally.

[00:12:27] Marissa: So first of all, we start with what is called an after action review, where we are reviewing essentially what has happened in the past week. So first of all, this starts with listing three to five of your biggest wins from the week.

[00:12:43] Then talking about how far you got on last week’s weekly big three. Then answering the questions, what worked, what didn’t, why, and what will you continue or change?

[00:12:57] Joel: When I think about this process, there’s several things stand out to me, but the first on the wins, you already kind of teased it, which is that it’s really easy to blow past this and forget what we accomplished and then not then get the benefit of what that means for our momentum going into the new week and the side benefit of that.

[00:13:18] Part of it is to feel confident that we can do things, to feel confident that we can accomplish, you know, similar things the next week and so on. But another part of it, like the little secret hidden part of it is gratitude. Because while we accomplish these things, and, and you might be. Able in a sense of pride to say, I did X, Y, and Z.

[00:13:37] The reality is we were dependent on so many people in order to complete those things, to have those wins. And some of the things you put down at wins as wins, they may have just like happened. Mm-hmm. Like maybe you didn’t even do it. And so it puts you in a posture of gratitude, which I think is a great place to be as you step into the whole thing.

[00:13:57] So you get kind of like abundance and gratitude, which are probably the two best. Like things in your mind mindset to have as you step into the rest of it. Another thing that stands out to me is the what worked, what didn’t, and why. A Russian novelist I love is Eugene Kin, and there is a quote of his in the book, the Aviator, where he says, experience teaches you everything you need to know.

[00:14:21] He said, unless you don’t process it, because if you don’t process your experiences, he says, all the bruises you get are worthless. Oh, and. That’s a weighty thing to think about as you think about processing the last week. ’cause we are gonna get banged up. We are gonna have some bruises and if we did it to ourselves or if we didn’t respond well to what somebody else did or whatever.

[00:14:45] It’s just gonna happen again unless we learn the lesson of it. And so we have to process that.

[00:14:50] Marissa: I think this is where we get to practice self-awareness. Mm-hmm. Like we actually are exercising that muscle is in this part of the process. Yeah. And that’s for the positive side of things. What’s working and what went really well and what’s not working so well, or where do we get tripped up.

[00:15:07] Yeah. And to me, this is the single biggest factor in making. Faster change. It’s like we can go this slow in the hard way, which is what most of us end up doing in life, unintentionally. It’s not like we’re trying to, to set ourselves up for failure, but it’s really easy to just not think about things after they’ve passed.

[00:15:28] Speaker 3: Right

[00:15:28] Marissa: or not so much so that we’re changing our, our forward behavior, our future behavior according to what happened in the past. And to me, this is what sets people apart who are really the kind of people that I wanna be like, yeah, the kind

[00:15:43] Speaker 3: of

[00:15:44] Marissa: people that are saying, I wanna do better today than I did yesterday.

[00:15:47] That doesn’t mean anything negative about yesterday. It just means I wanna do better today. I wanna continue to be growing and moving forward in my life and. I don’t know where else in our life Maybe, maybe sometimes therapy, but most often, not honestly, that we get the opportunity to answer questions like this.

[00:16:06] Yeah, it’s very rare. And so to be able to do this on a weekly basis, I mean, just think about this like in your own life, if you started asking these questions each week, what worked and what didn’t and why, and what do I wanna continue and change? You’re gonna be able to make massive progress. Fast when you ask these questions.

[00:16:26] Joel: Absolutely. And self-awareness is like a superpower and we all have it if we want it. It’s not like, you know, you were born on the planet krypton and you like rocketed down to earth and you’re the special one. Like, we all have this ability and yet we don’t harness it remotely enough.

[00:16:44] Marissa: Yeah, it’s really true.

[00:16:45] The next part of this process is the goal review and our list sweep. So this is where we look at our goals, our list, our open projects, our task manager notes, so on and so forth, and we review everything. I would add to this also our calendar, although that looks like maybe it’s a little bit later, but where you are orienting yourself to what you’re trying to actually accomplish.

[00:17:08] Joel: Yes, absolutely. This is the junk drawer moment. You know, like when you. When you pull the junk drawer out and you just start looking at all the pieces in there, and some of the things need to stay like your goals. And the only way you’re gonna make progress on those is if you have visibility. So you have to be looking at them on a regular basis.

[00:17:24] This is like a natural checkpoint for that, but there’s other stuff that doesn’t belong, and this is the time them take those things out. You know? This is the moment where you get to ask questions like, do I really need to finish this project right now? Yeah. Do I need to renegotiate that commitment and that kind of thing, because we all have.

[00:17:42] Overhanging us a list of things that are more than we can handle. Yeah. And we need to use this time to basically get determined on what matters and what doesn’t matter.

[00:17:55] Marissa: Totally.

[00:18:07] The next, we’ve got two pieces that we can kind of somewhat lump together. So we’ve got our streak tracker where we get to track our habit goals, and then we also have our rejuvenation planner where we’re gonna identify three ways to sleep, eat, move, connect, or relax a little bit better in the coming week.

[00:18:26] So do you wanna just talk about those? Together.

[00:18:29] Joel: Yeah. You know, when you think about habits, they are tricky to start. They’re even trickier to maintain. And so this just, just a simple way to have a check-in, like. Every day you’ll be coming back to this list to check off like, did I do it this week, uh, this day.

[00:18:48] And then at the end of the week, you’ll be able to see like how well you did on, I don’t know what, maybe it’s walking 30 minutes a day, or, you know, drinking a certain amount of water each day, or you know, having a quiet time or whatever it is for you. And what it is for you is related to the next thing, which is that rejuvenation planner.

[00:19:05] Because you’re gonna have a few things that you want to do every week to really help create like the support you need to flourish, the support you need to thrive. And that includes. Things like eating well, like getting the kind of rest that you need, like connecting with others and so on. And so you don’t have to like create a list that’s as long as your arm of all the things that you need to do.

[00:19:28] You just wanna pick a few things that you could do this week to optimize your self-care and this is the place to do it.

[00:19:34] Marissa: And again, like typically we as successful professionals and high achievers, we miss this step and we’re just only looking at the part of our life that is work related, is career related.

[00:19:47] Don’t often put a lot of intention about rejuvenation, flourishing, thriving, as you said, and this is such a great opportunity for us to do that ahead of the week so we know. Mm-hmm. That’s baked in before we even get there. Which kind of leads into the next part, which is our weekly overview. So this is where we’re looking at the next week, the next seven days, and really.

[00:20:12] Looking at our calendars, what events, what projects do we have? What tasks do we have that we have committed to or we’ve got on our plate, or we’ve got due dates for, and any other commitments that we’ve got for the coming week. And to me, I love this part of the process because this to me is where we really fight that dread feeling on Sundays, where Monday morning we walk in, we already know what our calendar looks like.

[00:20:36] And not only that. We’ve probably optimized it at this point. So that’s what I do in this, is I go through and I don’t just look at my calendar or the events or project, right? I ask the question, is this necessary? Is this something I still wanna keep for the week ahead? And as a. Bonus, uh, extra credit on this.

[00:20:56] I make sure that in the next step I’ve accounted for what I’m trying to accomplish. Our weekly big three, which we’ll get to in a second, but I make sure that I have white space on my calendar to actually accomplish those things.

[00:21:09] Joel: I think this is a really important and kind of underappreciated part of it.

[00:21:13] If our calendar is completely stacked, there’s no way we have time to actually do the other things that we’ve decided are essential for achieving our goals, for, you know, honoring our commitments. And you have to schedule time for that, or at least block time or preserve time or something. And if we don’t, you know, this is where you get to the end of the week and you’re like, I don’t even know what happened.

[00:21:37] You know? Yeah. Or. I made no progress on anything and it that’s like, it’s predictable. If there’s literally no time on your calendar to do it, you’re not gonna do it

[00:21:45] Speaker 3: totally

[00:21:45] Joel: because you only have hours. That’s like the only thing any of us have to work with. And if they’re already spoken for. If you can’t reclaim some of those, there’s, you know, no hope of a different outcome.

[00:21:56] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and I think this is where I feel like I see people go wrong more often than not, is, and this leads into our weekly big three. They create mm-hmm. What their priorities and objectives are for the coming week, which is what your weekly big three is. It’s basically. Based on your goals and projects, you wanna pick three objectives or outcomes for the coming week ahead.

[00:22:19] Where I see people go wrong is they create this, this awesome plan for the week ahead. Yep. And then they do not factor in the time to actually make it happen.

[00:22:28] Joel: By the way, guilty definitely have done that. You know,

[00:22:31] Marissa: same. And we get to the end of the week and we feel frustrated and defeated and discouraged because we didn’t accomplish what we set out to do.

[00:22:40] And so let’s talk about the weekly big three. What is it? And what is it not? Because I think people get this kind of wrong.

[00:22:47] Joel: What it is fundamentally is like a linkage back to your goals or commitments. So if you’re starting off the quarter with a quarterly big three, these are commitments that you’re gonna keep.

[00:22:58] These are things that you’re gonna do to, you know, kind of like be militantly on your own side when it comes to your flourishing, when it comes to your success, and you’ve identified three. Uh, of these commitments. These could be distilled down to like really concrete, smarter goals, or they could be more open-ended.

[00:23:16] But the idea here is that you’ve said, I’m gonna do X, Y, and z. The easiest thing to do is to say, I’m gonna do X, Y, and Z and then go do A, B, C instead because you forgot all about X, Y, and Z.

[00:23:27] Speaker 3: Right.

[00:23:27] Joel: And you know like, again, guilty as charged. The solution to that is that you need a regular check-in at least once a week where you are going back and you are saying.

[00:23:38] What is it that I’ve committed to do and what is it gonna take in this coming week to do it? And so the weekly big three gives you a chance to prioritize one or two or maybe even three of those things along with the other things that are happening in your life. So if I know for instance, that I have a commitment to.

[00:23:57] Let’s say it’s my commitment is to walk, uh, 30 minutes a day. We mentioned that one a minute ago. Let’s just say that’s the commitment. Well, I’m gonna have to carve out time on my calendar to do it. Let’s say I have two other commitments or, or whatever. But that week I also have a huge project that’s due, and I know that it’s gonna be all hands on deck to get that done.

[00:24:16] Well, that might be my second. My weekly big three. So it doesn’t have to be always directly related to your commitments. It can also relate to just the other urgent and important projects that are part of your life, but you always wanna have at least one, and you, you know, ideally might even have two that relate back to those commitments that you’ve set.

[00:24:36] Otherwise, what will happen is. The quarter goes by and you just don’t make the progress that you wanna make on it. And this life that you’ve set up for yourself ends up being disappointing.

[00:24:45] Marissa: Totally. And I think the other thing to remember about your weekly big three is usually these aren’t like one and done tasks.

[00:24:53] True. They’re not so small that you could just like knock it out. These are. Objectives. They’re true objectives, yes. You’re trying to accomplish in that given week. And so for you, Joel, you talked about walking. It wouldn’t just be to walk one time. It would be to continue that habit on a daily basis.

[00:25:09] Exactly. However often you’ve committed to doing that. It may be that you wanna deliver a certain part of a major project that you’re delivering or you’re working on, and maybe that looks like you need to spend two full days. To create that content, you know, or whatever that is. So keep that in mind as you’re working through your weekly big three.

[00:25:29] These really are true objectives or outcomes that you wanna have at the end of the week that you can say, great, I made significant progress on this goal or this commitment that I’m working on.

[00:25:40] Joel: Yeah. You wanna be able to go back to it and see that you’re making the progress.

[00:25:45] Marissa: Yeah. And

[00:25:45] Joel: that means you gotta put in the work to do it, or it won’t happen.

[00:25:48] Marissa: Well, and I think this is where if we’re left our own devices as high achieving professionals, we tend to over index on work and we forget the rest of our life. Mm-hmm. And this is a good opportunity for us to say, Hey, how do we actually want to use this next week to our benefit in all our areas of life?

[00:26:08] You know, we’re talking a lot. In this new season of the podcast about flourishing, and this really is true, this goes kind of beyond just the double win. This is like we wanna be flourishing in our life. And I would say that this really relates to the idea of doing work that matters. Mm-hmm. And frankly, all the other five practices of flourishing, we’re able to incorporate those into our week at the onset.

[00:26:35] So we aren’t just hoping and wishing that it’ll happen, we’re actually creating a plan for it to happen.

[00:26:41] Joel: Totally. And you know, doing work that matters, like as a concept is important here in that. It’s really easy to fill up our calendar with work. That doesn’t matter. You know, like there’s all kinds of projects that are of lesser importance or there are things that could be done, but they don’t have to be done.

[00:26:58] There are things that, let’s say they’re not even on your calendar, they’re just things you default to. ’cause they’re like downhill work and they just kind of do it ’cause it’s there. There’s all kinds of stuff that we fill our time with that doesn’t. Matter. And so the weekly preview is a chance to get really clear on the work that does matter so that you can save the rest of the time for all the other things in your life that matters.

[00:27:21] Otherwise, we just get this creep that happens where we are watching. Our work cannibalize our calendar, and then we have nothing to show for the rest of our life at the end of the week. And maybe not even anything to show really for the work that we did. ’cause it wasn’t even that meaningful.

[00:27:37] Marissa: It’s really true.

[00:27:38] Yeah. It’s so true. Well, I personally do my weekly previews on Fridays. Mm-hmm. And that’s, that’s a change for me. I, I formerly was doing them on Sunday afternoon or evening usually, and I’ve now switched to Fridays just. Honestly, because I now do it where I lead a call each week with our double win coaching clients.

[00:27:58] We do a a group weekly preview call. It’s 30 minutes, so it’s totally doable. We do this around lunchtime for most people so that even if you’ve got a poll calendar, usually people have some kind of white space for lunch. And we take that where we actually are creating this sense of momentum. Going into the weekend and obviously going into Monday morning, which is really fantastic.

[00:28:23] This has worked so well for me. I was kind of shocked by it, honestly, because what it’s enabled me to do is that I can fully shut down for the week ahead. I used to do this on holidays and I liked that, but now it’s like I don’t have to think about anything work related for the entire weekend because I know Monday morning I get to walk in and have my plan right in front of me.

[00:28:46] Joel: You know, the other thing I like about doing it on Friday is that sometimes I’m like, I’m brain dead by then. Yeah. And it’s not really a heavy lift to sit down and sort out your next week. It’s not like the most creative use of your you, you don’t need all your creative faculties, you don’t need a lot of energy.

[00:29:04] You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer in that moment. And the great thing about that is that it’s still super meaningful work, but you can do it when you’re kind of at, like, at the end of the week, at the, at a low ebb in your energy. It’s not that demanding at all.

[00:29:17] Marissa: Yeah. I would say usually we recommend doing this sometime be between Friday and Saturday.

[00:29:22] So again, you’re walking in Monday morning with a complete, I know a lot of people in our world do this on Sundays. Mm-hmm. And that’s a great strategy. The point is, whatever time it is, whatever day it is, we want you to commit to it and have it as a calendar item that you’re actually committed to showing up for.

[00:29:41] So. No matter what time, if that’s Friday at noon like me, or if that’s Sunday at 5:00 PM whatever time it is, we want you committing to it and following through, and really you only need probably 30 minutes to get this done. It’s not that

[00:29:56] Joel: long. One other, uh, tip is to bring your spouse or partner into it if you’re with someone because.

[00:30:03] Their schedule impacts your schedule. Your schedule impacts their schedule. In a family environment, like let’s say you’re like us, we have kids all over the place, and if you don’t know what all that is, you may feel like you got work totally nailed, and you may still have the scary clowns hopping off that train because.

[00:30:21] You’ve got, you know, appointments with a teacher or like, uh, you know, school conferences or you know, a kid running off to this practice or that practice. And maybe the schedule changed and you don’t know. And it can be completely maddening. And yet it can all be handled if you just look at it collaboratively.

[00:30:38] Marissa: It’s such a great tip, and I think. Having, and, and you can do this too if you’re, uh, not in a, a romantic relationship, but if you like me, have, you know, team members and everything else, making sure that they’re clear on what your priorities are as well, so you’re in alignment. I mean, I think the big point that we’re trying to say is.

[00:30:57] You need to be in alignment for the week ahead with the people who you’re spending the most time with.

[00:31:01] Joel: Yeah. You know, one thing that is super important to remember about this, which just just hit me there, is in like organizational psychology, a concept called emotional contagion. And this is where, you know, whatever the crap is buzzing around in people’s heads, it starts buzzing around in everybody’s heads.

[00:31:18] Yeah. And so if you walk into Monday with a high sense of anxiety. That’s gonna impact your other teammates. Yes. And if they walk in to work with a high sense of anxiety, that’s gonna impact you. And so this is almost like something we owe our own teammates. So it’s not even just about us, it’s about how we show up for our teams.

[00:31:38] If we show up for our teams like a mess, we’re actually gonna be transferring that inadvertently to them too. Even if they’ve got their, they’ve got their stuff together. You know, we can ruin that for them.

[00:31:50] Marissa: Well, one of the things that we’ve started implementing on our teams is sharing our weekly big threes on Monday mornings with each other so that we can know what each other is working on.

[00:32:01] And. You know, make sure that we’re in alignment. Uh, we can cheer each other on. We can protect each other’s boundaries when we need to because we know in order for us to make collective progress, if we each are doing our weekly big three, we’re gonna have huge strides as a team, which is really exciting.

[00:32:19] All right, so one thing that we’ve got for you guys is just kind of a, a tip about this is to make this a ritual. So no matter which planner that you typically choose, for me that’s the full focus wellness. Joel, I think you’re using the minimalist.

[00:32:35] Joel: I’m using the minimalist right now. Yep.

[00:32:36] Marissa: Safe to say. So whatever version of the planner you want to grab, that you wanna get your favorite pen.

[00:32:44] A playlist. I love doing this to music. I have a, it’s called Focus Flow Friday playlist that I put on When we do this as, um, a coaching group that’s a very, like instrumental calm, but not too like sleepy of a playlist that will help kind of inspire you for the week ahead. And lastly, you need to grab your favorite beverage.

[00:33:06] So typically for me that’s. Coffee if you’re doing this on like a Sunday evening, that could be a glass of wine or a sparkling water or something that makes you feel like this is kind of a ritual around it. And you’ll realize probably after just one time. Of doing the weekly preview process, that this really is a ritual that you wanna protect, that you wanna make sure you’ve got time carved out for, because it makes a massive difference in how you’re able to show up for the week, how you enter in, how you’re able to engage in your day-to-day activities, and ultimately what you’re able to accomplish again, both at work and in your personal life.

[00:33:45] Joel: I didn’t do it this week. Megan and I were traveling Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and we came back on Monday and. I didn’t have the Monday scaries, I had the Tuesday scaries, and that could have been totally avoided if I had just taken on the plane ride back. Right. Just taken 30 minutes to do it. But it didn’t occur to me for whatever reason.

[00:34:04] I wasn’t, you know, back to the ritual thing, I wasn’t in my normal time or place to do it. I just didn’t prioritize it and it sent me for a loop.

[00:34:11] Marissa: Yeah. Has a compounding effect for sure.

[00:34:15] Joel: I think what we’re saying here ultimately is that Monday Chaos Monday, like the. Frightening foreboding sense of Monday hurling towards you with like a train full of scary clowns.

[00:34:26] That is a choice. That’s optional. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s as easy as setting aside 30 minutes on Sunday. Maybe Saturday, maybe Friday, to reclaim your whole week. All you need to do is get a sense of what’s coming and you can dial back that physiological response of like fear and dread about not knowing what’s coming.

[00:34:46] ’cause that’s what’s driving it. And if we do that, you can be not in that 76% of people that confess that they are like fretting about Monday. Instead, you’ll be part of that select. 24% or so that feels confident as they walk into the week.

[00:35:09] Marissa: Thanks for joining us on Focus On This,

[00:35:11] Joel: the most productive podcast on the internet. Please share it with your friends and be sure to subscribe and join us at focus on this podcast.com.

[00:35:20] Marissa: And we’re gonna be here next week talking about the double win at work and at home.

[00:35:27] Joel: So until then, stay focused,

[00:35:30] focused.