Work / Life balance is a pretty popular topic these days and with good reason. Businesses are finding that high salaries aren’t enough to keep top employees. Especially with the Googleization of companies, every business out there offers different perks to combat the hours spent in the office.
Some businesses have michelin star catered meals every day but expect you to work 22 hours/day. Is it worth it? Some would argue yes, others no. I believe that work/life balance is critical in creating a high performing business. Every employee needs enough downtime to unwind and refresh.
But with the constant demands of everyday business, Sundays have become a dreaded day of the week. Why? It’s basically become Part 1 of Monday — effectively cutting the weekend down to a single day, Saturday.
But I think it’s high time we all made more of a conscious effort to take back Sundays. Attention businesses! Sundays are no longer part of the work week. Didn’t work did it?
Well, here’s some tips to stop focusing on work on Sundays.
  1. Let’s start with the no-brainer. Plan ahead. This is obviously easier said than done. I’ve written before about having good project management to improve your work/life balance so there should be no need to reiterate those points too much.
  2. Stay Busy. You know what a good way to keep yourself from working on Sunday’s is? Staying busy with family and loved ones. Go those restaurants you always wanted to try, check out the latest movies, or hang with the family. Sports events or concerts are a great way to
  3. Enjoy Nature. Spending lots of time enjoying the outdoors is a great way to completely unplug for the day. While you’re out kayaking or hiking, you’re not going to get very good reception. So what are the odds you’re going to use that phone? Slim to none — except for posting your next Instagram.
  4. Get a Hobby. Whether it’s cycling, working out, martial arts, knitting, or competitive lawn darts, a hobby is a great way to keep yourself from working on Sundays.
  5. Turn off work email notifications. Does it seem impossible? It’s like an addiction isn’t it? Turning off your work email notifications will help you unplug from everything at the office. If you find yourself constantly checking your email, then you need to break the addiction.
  6. Close your laptop. Your computer is like a gateway drug for working — keep that sucker closed on the weekend. As long as your computer stays closed you’ll keep yourself from working through the entire weekend.
  7. Pre-schedule emails on Friday afternoon. I used to always use my Sunday evenings as a night to preschedule and plan out emails that had to go out on Monday morning. That basically makes Sunday another Monday. I started using a tool called Mix Max to pre-schedule all of my emails that I wanted to send out on Monday morning, but I do this on my Friday afternoons.
  8. Use Task Management Tools to Create Tasks and Reminders. I use tools like Evernote to manage most of our client content and projects, as well as ActiveCollab and Remember the Milk (personal and small tasks) to basically manage my life. One of the handy tools for me is the use of reminders. Whenever I have emails that need to be completed or projects that will take me longer than I day, I set reminders to get notifications that I need to complete work by a given day. This helps me to avoid the Sunday night hustle of reviewing every task because I know everything is prescheduled to remind to complete the day it’s due.
  9. Give yourself a different problem to solve. I’m a problem solver. I like to think about and find solutions to marketing related problems. One of the tricks I find helpful to is to use this same brain power for other activities at home. Does the house cleaning process need optimization? Do we need to build a shed or cabinets? How can I use technology to make our lives at home easier?