STOP the Sunday Scaries
The Employee Weekend by @Brandonhickscomics. (Instagram)
It’s Sunday evening and a familiar feeling creeps up on you triggered by…
That unfinished report waiting for you on your desk.
The little red icon of unread messages on your phone.
That presentation that is due early in the week that you have yet to start.
The three back-to-back meetings the next morning.
You know that feeling.
The tightness in the pit of your stomach when the reality of the pending work week hits… it’s the Sunday Scaries.
The Sunday Scaries is a real phenomenon and has been studied by many including psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD, with physical symptoms also seen in people suffering from anxiety… because it is anxiety. She explains that this particular anxiety is triggered by the reality of switching from one state (relaxed) to another (work). It’s the recognition that, in finally choosing to shut down and ignore the “one last things”, you will have to pick them back up the next day.
Those “one last things” (I used to call it leaving with my "Hair on Fire") used to accompany me on my weekends, haunting me increasingly before peaking on Sunday evenings.
Years ago, I tried to protect my weekends like a dog does a bone because I knew that I needed that time to recover from the work week. Even though, logically, I could understand that I was a human being with a life outside of work, there was always some residual guilt associated with the disconnect.
Today, I get funny looks when I tell people that I lost my weekends when I became a DI. Those who knew me questioned why I stopped protecting my weekends, they were confused because they assume that being a DI means that I no longer have to work weekends and that I can finally relax.
The truth is… Sometimes, I just feel like working on the weekends.
Maybe the weather predicts a rainy Saturday and forecasted a beautiful Tuesday. My DI life allows me the space to make the executive decision to put in a couple of hours on the weekend and permit myself to enjoy the sun on a weekday.
As I started to add in personal activities during the week, I didn’t feel as though I needed the whole weekend to recoup anymore.
It’s like I put $10.00 in my gas tank every day so it was full by the time the weekend came around instead of just letting it run dry and having to spend the whole weekend filling up (and let me tell you, Jeeps are not cheap to fill…).
I never saw this like I was impeding on weekend family and personal time because I got this time during the week instead. I lost the pressure to compile all my personal time into 2 days and, in its place, I gained the full week to manage as I see fit.
One of the perks of being a DI is working when you feel inspired to work and sometimes that just happens to be the weekend.
As a DI, I have been able to rid myself of the Sunday Scaries and you can to.
Get a copy of my upcoming book "Rewired, Not Retired: Embracing Life as a Digital Independent" here.
