Putting My Weekend To Work

one of my favorite ways to utilize a Sunday afternoon (behind napping and eating Mexican food) is prepping for the week ahead. i’ve found that it helps me to be more productive during the week, especially on Monday morning. i’m one of those people where, if the creativity just isn’t flowin’, i’ll distract myself with some other project until i can sit back down at my desk and get something going. i still do that, but now i work on something else work-related so that i’m still being productive, instead of just wasting time during the workday. 

one of the most distracting things to me is having laundry to do. i hate, nay, loathe having a mental to-do list of things that i don’t want to do. know what the first thing is on that list? LAUNDRY. between having to pay for every single load (#citylife) to hoping i get enough machines to do it all in just a couple hours to folding it…it’s all the worst to me. this is also why i’m stupid excited to have in-unit laundry in the new place in just a few short weeks!!! my laundry basket is within eye shot of my desk, so that full basket taunts me all day long. i am not kidding you. to avoid the distraction and loathing, and the inevitable lack of clean underwear i will soon face, laundry doing it is. and there’s at least 2.5 hours of the workday i don’t have to lose out on.

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i’m a list maker. while i usually have a pretty long mental list of things to do, it helps me a lot to visually see it all written down. and yes, i do it for the thrill of crossing things off, too. i like to take some time on sunday to make a list of everything i absolutely need to get done in the week ahead. whether it’s an email i’ve neglected, an order that needs to be shipped out, or something else, i write it down or stick a post-it on my desktop so that i can constantly be reminded of it. then, come monday morning, i have some direction for the day and can get after it. 

food is one of the hardest things for me during the week. i eat most of my meals at home, save for the occasional dinner with a friend during the week. and while i love Ramen noodles, i just can’t eat it for every meal. yes, i totally still eat Ramen noodles. i like to browse Pinterest to find a new recipe or two to try out that week. i also like to get my grocery shopping done over the weekend, although going to the grocery store, on a weekend, in the city, is a little picture of what hell must be like. but i’d rather suffer for an hour or two than have to spend time on Monday doing it, so i make a list of everything i need and move as quickly as possible through those aisles. some recipes i’ve tried and love are easy burrito bowls, one pan spicy lemon chicken pasta, and quinoa stuffed peppers.

since i try to prep everything else, i figure i may as well treat my skin to a mask, too! i try to do a mask as least once a week, so sunday evening has become my go-to time for that. i love this charcoal mask from Origins and just recently started using the limited edition honey blossom resurfacing mask which smells and feels amazing.  it leaves my skin feeling super soft, smooth, and glowing for the new week ahead. 

while it certainly isn’t rocket science, i’ve found that it helps me a ton during the week to do some of these things over the weekend. i feel refreshed, prepared, and excited to take on a whole new week (without having to think about doing my laundry). instead of only working for the weekend, i also put my weekend to work for me.