"In juxtaposition to the summer, the fall is when we get serious about work. After all, there are fewer places to go and people to see as the weather gets colder, so it only makes sense that we’d put more effort into our careers and kiss those summer Fridays goodbye. The problem with this? The five-day workweek is becoming an outdated concept. It commonly depletes our mental resources, which hinders us from working at peak performance. The only logical solution to this IMO is to continue to streamline our workweeks. Sure, we might have to be online on Fridays now, but that doesn’t mean that Fridays all of a sudden have to go from days off in the sun to jam-packed with to-dos.
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Thankfully, it’s not that complicated to continue having stress-free Fridays. You can, in fact, achieve all of your goals and close out the year strong by implementing a few simple intentions Monday-Thursday. Ahead, we’re sharing how you can maximize productivity and efficiency so you can optimize your work and enjoy an easy Friday at the office.
1. Plan your week before it even starts
Before leaving work the week prior, during your Sunday reset, or before you clock in on Monday morning, you need to create a plan of action for the week. Ask yourself what you have coming up and what needs to get done before you clock out on Thursday. Be sure to take a look at your personal and professional calendar to see what meetings or appointments might take up some of your time. Doing this before your week starts allows you to hit the ground running Monday morning and not waste any of your precious time.
Planning will help you manage your time better, boost your focus, and help you complete your tasks seamlessly and efficiently. Plus, if something pops up at the last minute, you already have a full view of what your week looks like, so you can decide where you can fit it in rather than letting it derail your week completely or become a Friday to-do.
2. Shorten meeting times
Although meetings are important for fostering connection and ensuring all employees are on the same page, long meetings are unnecessary, and yes, some meetings really could just be emails. Not only do some cut into your day and prevent you from getting things done, but they can also be mentally draining, making it harder to be productive. To combat this, identify meetings you can shorten and meetings you can cut altogether. Shorter meetings will give you more time during the week for tasks you need to get to before Friday. Plus, your meetings will be more productive since you won’t have time for long tangents and chit-chatting about the newest TikTok trend before diving into the meeting agenda.
3. Reattach to your work every morning
We’ve all had mornings where we frantically dive into work because we overslept or got stuck behind a school bus on our commute. And on those mornings, we have a harder time staying focused. Apparently, there’s a reason for this. Studies show that taking the time to reattach to work in the morning is the secret to higher work engagement, better use of job resources, and more positivity. Essentially, this means that by taking a few minutes to settle into our workday, we are more likely to get shit done. Try doing a career meditation, visualizing a positive workday while sipping your coffee, or journaling before clocking in for the day. Likewise, you can also imagine how you’ll spend your after-work hours knowing you checked off everything on your to-do list. This always motivates me to knock out more tasks since I’ll be rewarded for my hard work.
During your time away from your desk, rest and renew properly. That way, you can operate at peak performance when it’s time to get to work.
4. Implement monotasking
Monotasking is essentially the antidote to multitasking and emphasizes focusing on one task at a time until it’s completed. While this isn’t a groundbreaking concept, it’s a hard one to master. We live in a world filled with distractions that cause our tasks to take two to three times longer than they should. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time for that when I’m trying to have relaxing Fridays for the foreseeable. To prevent distractions and use monotasking to your advantage, you need to eliminate anything from your work environment that might cut into your focus. I place my phone in another room or put it on “do not disturb” during my workday. You could also wear noise-canceling headphones to block out outside noise or even set parameters on your phone that don’t let you check social media.
Different tricks work for different people, but try your best to play to your strengths and weaknesses; if you can hear a notification on your phone without picking it up, you might be able to leave it on “do not disturb” or keep it on your desk. Implementing this has been a serious game-changer in my ability to cross tasks off my list before Friday. I complete assignments so much faster when I’m not stopping every 10 minutes to refresh Instagram. Who knew?
5. Consider extending your work hours
If you’re struggling to get the majority of your work done before Friday, consider extending your work hours Monday-Thursday. Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to work all day long—because you absolutely shouldn’t, and that’d impede your mental well-being. Rather, it’s similar to what you do when you’re taking PTO on a Friday. You work a little longer, so everything that needs to get done is before you’re OOO.
Instead of working four eight-hour days, try working four 10-hour days, especially on weeks you’re busy AF. During your non-busy weeks, you can finesse your schedule accordingly; you might start and end work a half hour earlier or later on one day, clock out normally for four days, and so forth. Working longer hours might not sound ideal, but an earlier start in the mornings is always worth it when Friday rolls around. It allows me to accomplish all my tasks without sacrificing my mental health and well-being, and for that reason, I highly recommend it.
6. Prioritize your well-being
Your life outside of work affects your life at work. It’s almost impossible, at least it is for me, to show up as my best self in the workplace when I am not showing up for myself outside of it. We all have a lot of responsibilities, personally and professionally, that take up our mental resources (or our sanity, depending on the week). By prioritizing time to yourself in the hours you’re not working, whether that’s enjoying a yoga class after a long day or (dare I say it??) sleeping in on the weekends, you’ll have a better chance at tackling all your to-dos.
Getting all of your work done in four days time isn’t always easy, but it is a lot easier when you don’t feel so damn depleted all the time. During your time away from your desk, rest and renew properly. That way, you can operate at peak performance when it’s time to get to work, and you’re less likely to have work spill into your precious Fridays.
Arianna Reardon, Contributing Writer
Arianna is a Rhode Island native, professional blogger, and freelance writer. She’s passionate about helping women develop healthy relationships with money, become financially independent, and invest in themselves for the future. Arianna is a firm believer in going after what you want, taking time to stop and smell the roses, and the importance of a good cocktail.