What Each Day Has to Offer…How Does Your Week Flow?

Sunday evenings are always a time of reflection and planning for me.  I look to the past few days for signs of accomplishment, things that I had looked to in anticipation of the weekend.  Last evening I was thinking of the days of the week in general and how some days seem better than others and other days seem not so great.    I realized that I have expectations and opinions of each day.  Each day has a personality of its own.

• Sunday– I find Sundays restful, time when I give myself permission to relax, read and retire.  It’s the one day of the week when I don’t feel like I have to be “on duty”.  As a mother of four kids when they were young this was difficult to do.  My kids are grown now and demands on my time from them are  not as great.  It’s okay to read a book all day long if I wish, take a walk or even a nap. 

 

• Monday– I have energy and a to do list like no other day of the week.  I bound into work ready to get things done.  The only problem with this is that there are so many others out there like me.  My phone rings the most often on Mondays and I have the most interruptions on that day in part because I have been out of the office since noon on Saturday and things happen over the weekend that need to be dealt with on Monday.  I spend part of the day setting up schedules with customers for work to be done the rest of the week.

 

• Tuesday-This is the day of the week that I tend to get the most accomplished at work in my office.  My energy level is high, the phones are a little less busy and everyone at work has settled into what will be the rhythm of work for the week.  If we have a lot to get done everyone is working at a little faster pace, if not as much needs to be done a steady, a not so frenzied rhythm takes over.

 

• Wednesday-This is a day I look forward to each week.  Some call it “Hump Day”  when you have reached the middle of your work week and the end of the work week is in sight .  The anticipation of the weekend starts to kick in.  My reason for liking Wednesdays is different.  For some it may seem a bit quirky but I like Wednesday because it is trash day.  The garbage man comes to our home and business each Wednesday.  For me it is a physical and mental unloading of “stuff” day.  I try to cross a few things off my to do list each Wednesday.  If there is something out there that I have procrastinated on I try to attack it.  I may not get it completely done but I try to make some progress each week.

 

• Thursday-A day for  physical work for me.  My mental energies are less by this time each week and I move out of the office to more physical work.  The kind of work that has me up and on my feet.  Thursdays tend to be my day of Thanksgiving while I work.  I love that when I am doing more physical things I have thinking time available which allows me time to give thanks for the good and the bad in my life.  It’s hard to be thankful when you are in difficult circumstances but I find that is a time I can truly shine in my abilities.  Just ask my husband.  If I am upset, that is when some serious cleaning gets done at home. 

 

• Friday– A day to pull my week together.  I try to wrap it up in a neat little package with nothing hanging out of my box of work for the week.  It is not always possible but I try to finish something if I can and not take on something new.  I love to start new things and get them 90% done and move on to something else.  Fridays are my 10% days, not that I am giving only 10% of my time and efforts to work but trying to complete some of those 10% items.  This is an opportunity to start my next week with less hanging over my head. 

 

• Saturday – I love the anticipation of Saturdays.  Most people have them off from work.  I work most Saturdays at least until noon but I anticipate them just the same for the things I will be able to do outside of my regular work week.  I’m a project person.  I usually have at least one or two home improvement projects I’m working on .  I love Saturdays that allow me to see some forward momentum on my projects.  I love Saturdays for the change of scenery from work to home.  I truly appreciate my home more on Saturdays than any other day of the week.

When I think about how work flows for other people at work I noticed that they have their individual preferences for their schedule.  My husband rarely schedules warranty work for Monday unless no other day will work.  He usually schedules it for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.  Our detail person rarely starts cleanup on a new car on Friday.  She has her own rhythm and pattern for her work.  The service department usually doesn’t schedule big jobs for Saturday.  This is in part to a reduced staff but still they don’t want to leave Saturday with a big  job partially done waiting for them on Monday morning.

Knowing and recognizing  rhythm of work can make our workplace and home a better more efficient place if I try to work with the flow instead of against.

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Procrastination doesn’t make the job any easier

Growing up with my two sisters and three brothers had its challenges especially on Saturday mornings.  Each Saturday morning before I could go and spend time with my friends my room had to be cleaned.  Dad always checked our rooms in a Drill Sargent sort of fashion.  I shared my room with my two sisters.

We would get up each Saturday and sit on our beds after breakfast.  We would survey our room and the mess that had happened over the past week.  I was the oldest and was not a pack rat.  My next youngest sister wasn’t a pack rat but she wasn’t very neat in general.  My youngest sister was definitely a pack rat.  She saved everything all week-long and strategically stashed it under her bed.  Always overwhelmed by the mess we would begin complaining about who made the biggest mess.

Eventually we would get down to the business of cleaning the room.  We would start with making the beds.  The room always looked cleaner with the beds made.  Next it was on to the floor.  We would put all the dirty clothes in the clothes chute and the garbage in the trash can.    The room looked great.  Time to tell Dad we were ready for him to check our room.

Dad would come to our room and look around.   “Looks pretty good”  he would say and then we would hold our breaths waiting to be told we were done.  Almost in the clear and free to go and then the unthinkable would happen.  Dad would look under my youngest sisters bed.  An entire week’s worth of junk, dirty clothes and whatever else she crammed under the bed remained to be picked up.

My younger sister and I would get at each end of our youngest sister’s bed and lift it up and move to the side so we could start on the mess.  We would divide and conquer the mess.  We told our youngest sister to pick up all the dirty clothes and put them in the clothes chute and then the two of us would sort through all the trash and toys until we were done so we could put her bed back where it belonged.

It didn’t take that long to finish but it was the getting started that was always the hard part.  It was so easy to start with the blame game and tell our sister that it was her fault that we weren’t outside yet.  We could sit and refuse to help her with her mess but that wouldn’t get us outside any sooner.  The easiest and quickest way to get what we wanted was to pitch in and help her do the job.  Eventually she learned how to do the job from us.  She would choose to pick up toys, laundry or trash and we would do the other parts.

When I was working at McDonald at the end of the day when we closed each of us had a job to do.  When we were finished with our job we were expected to go and help others who weren’t finished with their job.  It was a team effort.  No matter what the job is around home or at work, it always goes better with an extra set of hands.