Is there a single word that motivates us more than "weekend"? It's like the promise of a sweet holiday following what seems like long-time exhaustion. It's the spring in our step that gets bouncier with each passing day — until by Friday, we're practically bumping our heads against the ceiling.
The trouble is that the weekend is a rip-off. You think you're getting 48 hours of unconditional downtime, but reality takes a discount. In fact, it takes most of Sunday. That's when anxiety comes creeping in and another countdown begins: 12 hours until Monday. Sure, the weekend is free time. But the mounting stress of an incoming Monday can ease any joy you might get from a Sunday evening.
That feeling is so common among the Monday-to-Friday crowd that there's even more than one name for it: the Sunday Scaries, or Sunday Fear Syndrome. Going from a countdown to the weekend to a countdown to Monday can be difficult. Even monster. com — a website that specializes in binding humans to the Monday-to-Friday cycle — admits it's a problem. In a survey, Monster found that 76% of Americans have "really had" Sunday night blues.
For most people, Sunday is no holiday at all. It may all come down to the same problem: We can't stop thinking about tomorrow. Even worse, we may develop some downright unhealthy coping strategies for that transition from weekends to Monday. Some might resists — staying up late, milking every minute of a fleeting Sunday in the form of mind-numbing distractions.
But why should Monday cast such a long and fearful shadow on our lives? Maybe it's because the counter is reset and the weekend, or happiness, seems at furthest point. If, like most of us, you have a tolerable job, but don't much like the whole idea of working, there are plenty of ways to make Mondays a little less stressful. Most importantly, don't leave any unsettled Friday business hanging over the weekend. So, clear the decks and tie up loose ends.
