What’s Your Monday Motivation – 5 Minutes of Gratitude Nerdiness

Ugh. Mondays. Especially when the late May weather is so perfect and you don’t want to do any work other than getting a few more plants in the ground or going for a hike or sitting on a patio with a margarita, even if it’s 10:30 a.m.

It’s hard to drum up any Monday Motivation, right?

I’m having a tough time this very minute. I’ve promised myself that I’ll create a blog post every day of every week. I’m determined to be someone who creates content that you may or may not like. It’s good writing practice for me and the feedback I get from some of you is more than motivation enough to keep moving.

But then there’s today. Because really, especially on this Monday when the Memorial Day weekend is looming at the end of the week, who wants to concentrate on work details?

Not me. And I certainly don’t want to focus on gratitude.

So here’s my best suggestion for creating Monday Motivation.

Return to your Why. Remember your aiming point (if you don’t know that what is, more later this week). But do it in a way that gets you excited, that creates some urgency in that vacation brain of yours.

There are only three things you absolutely need to accomplish today. That’s all. I learned from early days with my Full Focus Planner that we tend to start Mondays with the entire week’s list in our head.

This is especially true when there’s a long weekend at the end of the week. I’ve been thinking that I need to write twenty pages for the new book, work on the Foundation budget, send out emails to the candidates I’m interviewing for the Executive Director position, make a Supper Club meeting, plan my marketing for the month of June, sort through summer clothes for the consignment store, solicit three book reviews, schedule lunch with two board members, . . .and on and on and on.

I’ve promised myself I’ll blog every day of every week because my fan avatar wants to hear from me. She’s my why. She’s the person in my head who needs to hear encouragement every single day. She’s having a difficult time of it. She feels less than grateful (sometimes I think my perfect fan avatar is ME) and wants to curl up in her blue Adirondack chair on the back patio and read a book.

Luckily I’ve learned from the Full Focus Planner (if you don’t have one, may I suggest you consider getting one here) is that really, truly, we only have a big three each day.

Just like the phrase from The One Thing, which asks, “what is the one thing I can do that by so doing it, everything else will either become easier or unnecessary?”, the Full Focus Planner asks that you write down the three things you have to accomplish each day. Certainly you can do more, and most of us do, but if you break your day into three very manageable tasks, your Monday will seem less overwhelming and much less dreary.

Shorten your to do list to Three Things.

Here are my three things for today, two of which are already completed:

1.  Email to Candidates regarding references;
2.  1,000 words (which is every day, or I get cranky); and
3.  One hour of work on Cancer Foundation budget

It’s Monday. I’ll do my one hour on the budget right after lunch, and probably I’ll do more than an hour. But by breaking it down and treating myself with kindness, I’ll find my Monday Motivation.

I know your days are full. Especially if you have a family at home, or a high demand job, you’ll comment and say I’m crazy, that you have much more than three things you absolutely have to get done.

I’m just suggesting you try this. Give yourself a break. Only focus on three things. Once those are out of the way, I’m pretty sure the day will feel better to you. More manageable.

And you’ll feel more grateful for this Monday.

The “focus on three things” takes five minutes. That’s your five minutes of gratitude nerdiness for today.

Let me know how it goes. And thanks for checking in.