Casual Friday Might Ruin Your Saturday and Sunday
Think you can slow down on Friday and take it easy? Think again.
Being unproductive on Friday might be impacting your weekend more than you think.
Rumination…. the scourge of performance
Rumination can be a killjoy. Rumination is when we constantly think about things that are going on in our lives. Those things that have happened during the day that left us frustrated, or the things that are coming up that are making us anxious.
It affects our stress levels, because we can’t stop thinking about the source of our distress, and it impairs our quality (and sometimes quantity) of sleep.
In fact, it often does both at the same time. Ever lay awake at night annoyed about that argument you had with your manager, or obsess and worry about the presentation you have to give to a client the following day? Chances are you found it hard to drift off to sleep, and your night was frustratingly restless.
The Trouble with Fridays…
Recent research shows that people who have unfinished tasks on Friday afternoon tend to ruminate more on the weekend, and have impaired sleep. It seems that those unfinished tasks tend to play on our mind, even subconsciously, causing us to re-think the week that’s been, the week ahead, and prevent us from getting the sleep we need.
So don’t take Friday lightly. Here are three tips to turbo-charge your Friday
Turbo-Charge Your Friday:
1) Narrow your focus
Write a list of the things you need to accomplish. Prioritise it so that the absolute most urgent and important tasks are at the top. Now rule a line under the top three things . There are your non-negotiables. Say to yourself “if these are the only things that get done today, it will be a successful day”
2) Make the morning count
People make one big mistake:they do low priority, easy things first. Not only are they easing into their weekend…. they’re easing into Friday as well! The trouble is, so many interruptions and distractions pop up during the day that those things we leave until ‘later’ get trumped by something else.
Do yourself a favour and do the most important things first.
3) Park things for Monday
Lets face it: not everything on that list is getting done despite your best intentions.
To ease the burden of unfinished business, spend the final 10 minutes of your work day allocating a time on Monday for those unfinished things to get done. When you ‘park’ your taks for a definite time in the future, our bodies and brains seem willing to forget them and accept that they’re taken care of.
Don’t ease into the weekend. Instead, finish the week with a bang