Home Lifestyle TGIF – Treat Friday Like a Monday for a Productive Weekend

TGIF – Treat Friday Like a Monday for a Productive Weekend

It’s another Friday and the same phrase of relief is on the lips of everyone: “Thank God it’s Friday!”

Fridays have become the line of demarcation between work and play. It’s almost like they mark the end of something miserable and the start of something promising. I am someone who is all about enjoying life just as much as working hard, so with Friday, I too, welcome the promise of the weekend. However, Friday’s have gotten lazy!

We are all accustomed to casual Friday because for some reason, wearing jeans to work means we have less work to do or somehow, because of the jeans perhaps, the work is less important this day. What if we approached Friday’s like a Monday though? What if we approached Fridays with the feeling of positivity and productivity like we do on a Monday? How much more effective would we be if we actually prepared for the week ahead on Friday?

In school, I played softball and basketball and one key thread about sports is that a strong finish is much more important than a strong beginning. How often do teams come back after halftime to win the whole game? One thing I remember, specifically in softball, is my coach saying run through first base. We ran our hardest not just to the bag but past it. The objective was not just getting there, but going hard to beat the ball and ensure that you were safe on the base.

Fridays should not be days off that we start to slow our pace, but rather it should be greeted with our last bit of energy to sprint to the finish line. Fridays should become our incentive days. The day we push to check the rest of the boxes off from the work week, rather than just placing these items at the top of our list for Monday.

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What if instead we challenged ourselves? What if we said, “I will finish these items today and then treat myself this weekend for completion?” Imagine how much more you would enjoy the weekend if your Friday was super productive. Isn’t the water much more needed when you’re breathing your hardest? Our weekend should be a reward for a successful work week.

Treating Friday as a lazy day simply takes away a day from our weekend and our reward of peace. Think about it: if you have unfinished items from that week, you start worrying about them on Sunday, not Monday, thus taking away from the full enjoyment of your weekend.

Sunday is the weekend, too. We too often treat it as a day to prepare for Monday, but if we viewed Fridays as a day to get ahead, there wouldn’t be a need for such preparation. There’s no better feeling of euphoria than being productive and finishing something you started. So, our approach on Friday should be to come in and focus and get it done, not count down the hours till we clock out.

Fridays are a gift if used appropriately. It is a day to sprint to the finish, an opportunity to push to ourselves and use every prescribed moment in the work day for its intention for the full indulgence of the weekend. I want us to reclaim our weekends, our play time. We spend five days out the week stressing and completing tasks, so our weekends should be spent in its entirety to relax, socialize with family and friends, and to focus on our hobbies and commitments that bring us joy. Life is about experiencing, and having a full, productive work week can release the tension that inhibits us to experience without guilt and worry because everything is done and checked off. Life is great and doesn’t have to be a collection of worries and concerns if we use our time properly. One thing that is infinite is time, but wasting it makes us feel as if there isn’t ever enough.

So let’s change the energy behind our declaration. Let’s yell, “Thank God it’s Friday,” not simply because it’s the end of the work week, but rather an opportunity to finish strong and go into the weekend with peace which would make each day and week that follow that more enjoyable. Now every day can be the start of something promising, not just Friday.



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