Sunday is the traditional day of rest and an edifying opportunity to knock off from your typical jobs and tasks (and perhaps from your devices as well).
But Sundays are also awesome days to prepare for the resumption of work and weekday busyness come Monday morning. They are very profitably used as a day to get all your ducks in a row — a chance to lay the ground for a smooth, productive week ahead.
Here are six things we do each Sunday that help us prepare to tackle the coming week and that we highly recommend:
1. Plan Out Your Week
I’ve been planning my week out every Sunday morning for the past 15 years. I still roughly follow the format I shared in an article a decade back. First, I review my calendar for the week, so I’m aware of any appointments I have. Then I perform a big mind dump: I go over this Getting Things Done Trigger List to help prompt my brain to think of all the things I need to do in the coming week. As these personal and professional tasks surface in my mind, I put them into the Todoist app, setting dates for when I want to complete them. (Make sure to read this article for more details on how I use Todoist to get things done.)
My planning session takes about 15 to 20 minutes and puts me in a position to have a productive marriage meeting with Kate. Which brings us to . . .
2. Do a Marriage Meeting
This is a practice we’ve been doing every week for seven years now and couldn’t more strongly recommend to the married folks out there. It’s incredibly beneficial for your relationship and individual and shared lives.
To do a marriage meeting, you and your spouse sit down together to dedicate some time to reconnecting, catching up, and getting onto the same page. The meeting is broken into four parts:
- Appreciation: You and your spouse tell each other everything you appreciate about them/about the things they did over the last week.
- To-Dos: Discuss what household chores/tasks need to be done, the next steps in tackling them, and who’s taking them on.
- Plan for Good Times: Discuss what kinds of fun things you want to do as a couple, as a family, and individually in the coming week(s) or month(s) — you can do vacation planning here too.
- Problems and Issues: Discuss big issues in your lives concerning finances, sex, in-laws, parenting, changing schedules, health worries, etc.
A marriage meeting only takes about 20 minutes, and it’s a game-changer; the appreciation section helps you, well, remember how much you appreciate your spouse, and the other parts help you maintain a strong partnership and run a household that’s more harmonious and fun.
3. Clean Out and Back Up Your Computer
My computer accumulates a bunch of crap during the week. To free up space, I do a weekly digital “decluttering” session. I delete any files I’ve downloaded throughout the week but no longer need. After that, I run CleanMyMac. It cleans up the invisible cache junk that accumulates in your computer and runs maintenance scripts to keep my MacBook humming along.
After that, I back up my computer onto an external hard drive. This ensures that I have redundancies for my business and personal life. Backing up your hard drive also frees up space on your computer.
4. Conduct a What-Do-I-Need Inventory
Hopefully, as soon as you realize you’re in need of something (eggs, socks, toothpaste) during the week, you make a note of it somewhere; the “To Buy” list is one of the 8 lists you should currently be keeping.
But realistically, you don’t always have a chance (or the will) to write down something you’re out of as soon as it crosses your mind. So it’s helpful to do an intentional inventory on Sundays.
It’s hard to think of what you need simply by searching your brain. Instead, conduct an intentional inventory by physically looking through your stock of things in the different rooms in your house — especially your kitchen and bedroom. Looking over the contents of your bathroom counter, shower, cabinets, fridge, pantry, etc. will trigger you to remember what you need to restock. “Right, we need more toilet paper. I’m out of pepper. The printer needs ink.”
Write these things down on your “To Buy” list. You may want to separate this list into categories like “Stuff to Buy on Amazon” and “Groceries.”
5. Plan Out Your Meals
Think about what you’re going to be eating during the upcoming week. Plan out some meals. Make a list of the ingredients you’ll need for the meals and the groceries you need in general. Add these to your “To Buy” list.
6. Order What You Need
Once you’ve got your “To Buy” list filled out, order those items you can online and cross them off. If you do online grocery shopping, put in an order set to be delivered/picked up the next day. Or you can pull out the list the next time you go to the store.
Use your Sundays to reorganize and reboot, and when the sun rises on Monday morning, you’ll be able to hit the ground running and have a much more productive and fulfilling week.
