Ask HN: How do I create that mental reset effect Monday has on me?
For the past year or so, I have discovered that my motivation levels are super high(relatively speaking) on a Monday morning. That is true even when I didn't really have a good week or weekend prior to that. True even when I didn't have enough sleep the night before. I am just up with a resolve to fix things that didn't go my way. I experience more of self-compassion.
I have heard people talk about Monday blues and have experienced it myself for several years when I was working regular tech job. Now, I work on my own startup and it's not like it is doing great esp. in current times. In-spite of that I experience the above quite often.
Do other people feel the same ? Is it just normal 'stuck at job' vs 'excitement at startup' effect ? How long will this last ? I feel like there is more to it. I wished I had a way of creating this effect when I was working at a job. Do people have productivity hacks to trick your brains into recreating this mid- week ? Does this effect have a name in psychology literature ?
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[ 13.6 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadThe night before, plan out your biggest tasks. Then when Monday comes, you can hit the ground running. You know exactly what you need to focus on.
On friday you have a number of problems that you can't see how to tackle properly and it's disheartening. Having two days to sleep on it, you've subconsciously seen a way forward so that block's gone.
It's probably not that but I'd urge you to look inwards and see what you find.
Putting those things into kanban helps me get all of that juggling out of my head and onto a board where I don't have to be mentally burdened by it. It becomes easier to focus on what's at the top of my queue -- if something gets blocked I have a place to park it, and if I'm blocking someone I've got an appropriately-prioritized place in the backlog to park it until I can help. It also helps me limit the amount of "Work In Progress" so I can turn my full focus onto whatever my top priority is at that moment.
- I need to reset my login.
- I need to login and pick a primary care doctor.
- I need to call and make an appointment.
This has two benefits: (1) A series of hours-long tasks get broken down into smaller chunks that I can knock out when I have 15-30 minutes each. (2) My end goal ("Get a flu shot") stays parked in my blocked column where I don't have to worry about it -- I can stay focused on the things that are immediately within my power to do. And that's super liberating! It feels good to knock out a todo list. This process keeps you focused on knocking things out and removes the mental overhead of having to juggle all these little things that you can't really do anything about immediately -- it's being tracked somewhere so you can write it down, keep working on what's most in your control, and come back to that item when it's actionable.
If I ever find myself utterly stuck or blocked on the current task, I can pull up some small quick-win task from the backlog in my kanban to get my mind unstuck. Plus I'm always able to say that I accomplished at least something by the end of the day, even if 80% was spent hunting some elusive bug without producing anything to show for it.
If you're working for yourself, and you know why you're doing something, and how you'll benefit from your labor, you'll have a more direct link to your motivation.
If you're working for an institution and you don't feel that agency, you might need a meta-objective. This is where people look to climb the ladder, or learn a skill that allows them to bounce to another institution for more pay and responsibility, etc. If you can't see any of those paths, it can be very difficult to feel the motivation, unless you're intrinsically motivated and all the work you have in front of you feeds your needs.
Category a) Working for the man or
Category c) Working for the institution
Learning something while I'm working on a task seems to motivate me; the learning is the payoff for some of the drudgery.
Not to toss around stereotypes but this sounds like every single MBA I've ever met.
:eyeroll: are my eyes rolling out of my sockets or am i too drunk to be shitposting on hn?
First off, I work for a large tech company, and I experience the excited-to-do-work-on-Monday effect you mention sometimes. Prior to working at this large tech company, I had worked for several startups, and came into work on Monday prepared for tedium sometimes. I don't think it's as easy as startup-vs-big-corp.
Second, it depends a lot on what excites you. One way I've heard it expressed is "Starters" vs. "Finishers." Some people love turning an idea into reality, but lack the patience to polish the experience. Some people prefer the polish work to starting with a blank slate. It helps to know if you are one or the other (or neither). In start-ups, you spend a lot more time in zero-to-reality rather than reality-to-polish mode. In big companies, it depends on what team/project you're on.
Sometimes, excitement levels increase by spending some time away from a task. If, for example, you schedule all your meetings on Wednesday, it will mean you've been away from any project work for 24 hours by the time you look at it on Thursday, potentially with a fresh set of eyes.
There's probably a lot of other factors at play in what makes someone excited for work. I think it involves knowing yourself (or having someone you work with who knows you well and willing to advise) in order to come up wtih a plan.
I find this is only true while I'm working on a job or project I care about, but I generally arrive Monday morning and it's like my fingers just know what to do all on their own. Problems that confounded me on Friday don't even seem like problems anymore. I know what to do and I know how to do it.
I catch myself thinking about work over the weekends often, and I suspect an even bigger part of it is subconscious.
* Uplift with gratitude
* Take breaks
* Breakdown overwhelming tasks
* Celebrate small wins
* Be clear on your motivation
Breaking down tasks is one of the most important ones for me. I find that if a task isn't well-defined or small enough, I dread starting it. I've started doing "braindumps" on any task that isn't small and actionable until I get there.
Post for more details: https://link.medium.com/PSWM5I8Vo6
Because of the context switch between problems. Each one requires more energy to think about and switch to.
Each night is like preparation for the next big context switch.
One thing I do that helps is I set little 10-30min timers and say "I'll do this in this time". Gaming your time helps a lot.
But things like coffee and drugs are just taking energy away that you would have later. So it's not a net gain.
Sleep/naps are the best reset mechanisms IMO.
https://blog.phuaxueyong.com/post/2020-05-03-3-more-cloud-de...
Or perhaps you could start an active lifestyle again. Working out always helps to curb motivation issues at times. Give that a try!
It doesn’t always work with my schedule or the demands of the job, but most weeks I am able to build in some buffers following long, focused work periods.
Example: Monday, I’ll start early, work long (often into the next morning), break only for meals or the bathroom, and accomplish much across multiple projects. Then, on Tuesday morning, I’ll sip my coffee slowly, exercise, read leisurely, and eventually take care of administrative tasks like processing email or writing up project updates. When Wednesday comes around, I’m ready to work long and deep again.
I work best when I can take advantage of my most energized days and give myself space to recover following those days.