When did we allow ourselves to be conditioned to hate 5 out of 7 days of our week? For most of us, Monday is the day we dread.

These “beliefs” have trapped us into work habits of low productivity.

Not only is stuff not getting done, but we keep beating ourselves up with negative chatter that feeds the bad habits.

Monday arrives, for many of us, a groggy shock to the system. It’s difficult to remember where you left off on Friday.

Unfortunately, according to productivity app Flow, most workers experience a slump on Friday when it comes to productivity. That means Mondays are forced to be the busiest days. They are compensating for Friday.

Mondays will never be productive if you wait until Monday to figure out what to do with the day and the week.

We start Monday’s having to find the energy to “start again”. For most of us it is literally starting over, which is not motivating.

We haven’t even left ourselves a trail of bread crumbs from where we left off on Friday.

This feeds our procrastination.

It results in unfinished projects. We appear unprofessional when we don’t remember what phone calls need to be returned. We have set ourselves up for a bad day and potentially a bad week.

Doing a bit of prep work is like packing the night before you leave on a trip. Packing the early morning of a flight is stressful. Packing the night before and having everything ready to go means you can hit the ground running the next day.

Handle Your Fridays Better.

Do some prep so that when Monday arrives, you don’t spend the first hour or two trying to figure out where to focus your time and energy.

By making the most of your Friday—a day most of us are in a good mood—you can reduce the angst and workload of Mondays.

• Kill unpleasant tasks.

  Friday morning should be the time to complete those pesky tasks that have been hounding you all week. Finish them before Friday afternoon so you can coast into the weekend—and so that you don’t leave them for Monday.

• Make Friday notes.

  One helpful trick I’ve always used is to make a list and notes in the last 20 minutes or so of work on Friday so that I know where I left off and what I was intending to do next. This eliminates the unproductive time-sucker known as backtracking. By leaving myself notes on Friday for when I get back to work on Monday, I shave a lot of wasted time off of my Monday morning. Your Friday plans need to instruct where you’ll start on Monday.

• Plan the next week.

  Friday is a good time to plan the next week. It depends on how far in advance you plan your calendar. Whatever you plan, Friday works well because you’ve come off a full week of activity and it’s fresh in your mind. You have a good idea of where to head next week. Tap into your high-energy times of day and schedule your work and meetings to maximize your peak energy times.

• Get to inbox zero.

  You should not start Monday with last week’s email still nagging at you. Answer, delete, and clear out your inbox.

Do the heavy lifting during the week and finish it up by Friday.

By turning Monday into a highly productive day, you give yourself a boost for the rest of the week. Nothing feels as good as completing tasks. The right Friday can turn your Monday into a productive powerhouse that keeps you ahead of the curve all week.

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