The tone of your Sunday defines the tone of your week. Do it right

No matter what your model of employment is – self-employed, office worker, start-up founder, or a stay-at-home mother – Sunday blues are real for almost everyone. And for good reason too. Often, quiet Sunday afternoons serve as a reminder that the monotony of weekdays will make a comeback in just a few hours.

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Having said that, I have found that happy, fun, relaxed Sundays recharge my batteries like nothing else. Every time I don’t regulate the blues and let myself revel in them instead, I set a similar tone for the rest of the week. Over the years, I have found that like most things life and work, proactively taking charge and making small but necessary changes is the only way to counter Sunday blues.

Saturdays work better for chores and personal commitments

Saturday morning is my favourite time of the week, and I hear it is the same for several other people. We’re naturally upbeat. Two whole days of possibilities lie ahead of us, so use this high to get chores out of the way. Have a bank errand? Run it. Grocery shopping pending for weeks? Finish it. This ensures that you enter Sunday with zero commitments, a clean to-do list, and a whole 24 hours of the weekend to decompress and do as you please.

Plan ahead

My weekends are precious. And for this reason alone, I do all that I need to on Friday night so I don’t have a reason to think work over the weekend, especially Sunday afternoons. Get your to-do list for Monday ready on Friday before you shut shop. Sort out the documents and files you are going to need, check your calendar and prioritize the emails you must get back to first thing on Monday morning. This way, you will not feel obligated to use the quiet Sunday afternoons on work or related planning.

Unplug

You are not doing anyone any favours by sending emails on a Sunday just because you have some free time. Make a conscious effort to avoid the urge to communicate anything that can easily wait till Monday. Unplug and let your teams, clients and bosses do it too.

Above all, indulge yourself

There is enough spiel on the Internet on doing Sundays like “successful people” - go outdoors, be social, meet people, see a little more of your city, hike. It is just a long and exhausting laundry list of socially acceptable ways to do Sundays right. I don’t believe in it. So clearly, this is not the kind of advice you will find here. If Black Mirror binge watching pipes you up for a good week ahead, indulge yourself. A mutton curry lunch followed by a long nap to recharge your batteries? Why not? Cooking helps you decompress? Cook up a storm. Volunteering helps you find your feel-good factor? Go for it. A long drive on the highway to get away from the clutter of our cities, even if it is just for a few hours? Hit the road, already. Sitting quiet and introspecting? Nobody said you couldn’t do it.

It is easy to fall into the trap of having a great and relatable weekend story to tell by the water cooler on Monday. There is also the peer pressure of doing what the rest of your city is doing – the weekend matinee of Baahubali or the concert in town that has had people raving on social media for weeks. But we do a whole lot of living by the book and following the rules on weekdays. The one chance we have of truly owning our time is over the weekend. For many of us who have family commitments, housekeeping errands, a side hustle or children with homework, this gets cut short to just one day of the week. Don’t waste it.

The pursuit of what makes us happy and refreshed is the only right way to do Sundays. Find out what this pursuit means for you and chase it relentlessly and more importantly, guiltlessly.