Balance

Fridays in the office are basically dedicated to staring at the clock, making excuses to get coffee, and ducking your supervisor lest they give you a project that makes you stay past 5:30. But the clock watching coffee marathon on Friday can lead to an overloaded and chaotic Monday.

There is a solution to your conundrum: work. I know the concept of actually accomplishing something on a Friday is a little on the radical side but hear me out. Using your Friday to get ready for Monday, you’ll be more prepared and less swamped Monday morning. Clear these small tasks off your desk and they’ll add up for an easier week.

Clear out your inbox and voicemail. Catch up on all your emails and voice mails. Use your clock watching time to follow-up with coworkers, clients, and customers. Don’t start a long email convo back and forth – just be short, sweet, and to the point so you don’t end up with extra stuff to add to the pile. Finishing up your communication for the week means no surprises on Monday morning and no weekend texts or phone calls.

Prep for meetings. One of the companies I used to work for loved Monday morning meetings. Sometimes the meetings were productive and sometimes we all took turns bumbling around and shuffling papers to hide that we were unprepared. If your Mondays and Tuesdays are booked with meetings, carve some time out of the day on Friday to get prepped; make info packets, tweak your power point, double-check your reports. Prepping on Friday means you’ll have a few extra minutes to stagger around on Monday morning and shake off that zombie feeling before you hit the conference room.

Don’t dive in to any big projects. If you have a presentation or a big project coming up, leave that for the middle of the week. Starting something big just before the weekend can throw you off when you come back to it two days later. Odds are, you’re not planning to take the work home with you over the weekend. If you have a big project, don’t just jump in with both feet at 10am on a Friday. Break the project down into small sections, do some outlining and a little bit of research so you have something to show if your supervisor wants an update.

Make a donut run. Seriously, make a donut run. You’ve cleared out your inbox, got your Monday prep ready and you’ve got a good handle on that next big project. Take your fifteen and go off site and bring back some glucose encouragement for the rest of the team.

Not every Friday is created equally and, of course, you’ll probably have days where you’re so busy you don’t notice the day fly by or days when the clock never moves forward. Keeping your Friday lightly busy and organized will help you at 8am on Monday.