3 Tips For Tackling the Mid-Week Slump
Perhaps the only “person” that enthusiastically says “It’s hump day!” is that camel from the Geico commercial. For everyone else, Wednesday represents the dreaded “mid-week slump.” You aren’t coming off of the relaxation of a weekend, and Friday seems oh-so far away.
So how do you overcome this mid-week slump? How can you best your sleepy lack of motivation? Let’s talk about how you can make the middle of the week not only more bearable but a great part of your work week.
1. Diagnosing the Mid-Week Slump
You can’t tackle a problem until you fully understand it. Every mid-week slump looks different, and everyone experiences this feeling differently.
Let’s take a look at some of the symptoms people experience in their mid-week slump to see where you fall.
- Groggy. You’re feeling sleepy. It feels like Wednesdays require an extra cup of coffee to get you through.
- Grumpy. People better not bother you today. You don’t feel like cleaning up other people’s messes.
- Unmotivated. No matter what you do, the thought of doing anything at all just feels like torture.
- Unfocused. It feels like you can’t pick a task and dedicate time to checking it off your list. Your mind is going in a million directions and you don’t know how to focus.
- Sad. You’re just feeling down in the dumps. Every Wednesday, you just feel “off.”
Once you’ve decided how you feel, you can uncover the causes. After you determine the cause, you can brainstorm a solution.
If you’re groggy, you might be relying on the weekends to catch up on sleep, rather than getting an even number each night. Without a consistent sleep routine, you’re going to run out of steam.
If you’re unmotivated, maybe the weekend is too far away to truly serve as motivation. Give yourself something to look forward to in order to keep that pep in your step. Maybe Wednesday could be date night or take out for dinner. Just a little treat to get you through the week.
With those two examples to serve as your guide, go ahead and diagnose your feelings, find the cause, and then create a solution.
2. Make Wednesdays Enjoyable
If you only allow yourself to have a good time on the weekends, it’s no wonder you hit a mid-week slump. When you dedicate the work week to just work, you’re sure to burn out every time you hit the middle of the week. If you feel like you have to drag yourself through your Fridays just to get the light at the end of the tunnel, you need to introduce “light” into every day.
In order to make time for things you love on weekdays, you need to set boundaries. If work can call you after hours or you’re beholden to your inbox all the time, you can’t step away from work. You need to make space for yourself to be away from your boss and coworkers. If you fear that this makes you a bad employee, it’s actually the opposite. By setting aside time for yourself, you’ll be happier and more present when you actually do clock in. Think about how much time you lose to the mid-week slump. If you’re lethargic, grumpy, and unproductive, you aren’t being a better employee simply because you responded to an email at 8:00pm.
Now that you’ve set aside time for yourself, pick something fun to do. What small things make you happy? Making a fresh home-cooked meal? Doing a puzzle? Spending time drawing? Make Wednesday fun by giving yourself time to invest in what brings your joy. It will help you finish the week strong if you aren’t relying on the weekends to be your only source of fun.
3. Reset and Relax When You Hit a Wall
Mid-week slumps can feel frustrating when we just can’t seem to focus on the task at hand. Sometimes it feels like our mind is focusing on literally everything else but the task you’re trying to accomplish.
If you have a million racing thoughts flooding your head, it’s time to meditate and do some deep breathing. Try this exercise next time you need to detox your headspace.
- Grab a piece of paper and write down every single thought you have: to-do list items, intrusive thoughts, worries, and distractions.
- Take the to-do list items and put them on their own list. Now that the “have-tos” are out of your way, you can focus on emptying your mind.
- Do a deep breathing exercise. You could try something as simple as box breathing or downloading a meditation app and listening to one of their guided breathing exercises.
- Now that you’ve recentered, pick one task from the list to focus on. Don’t think about any other tasks until you can check that one task off.
- If more tasks that you “have to do” flood your mind, write them down and then let them go.
Turn Mid-Week Slumps Into a Source of Inspiration
We can become quite prejudiced towards days of the week. Friday gets all the glory while Garfield continuously hates on Mondays (even though he’s not dragging himself to a 9-5).
If we truly take the time to determine why we feel the way we do during our mid-week slump, we can give ourselves the opportunity to enjoy every day. After all, life can become pretty wonderful if we let it.
When you make every day of the week special, you’ll have a continuous source of motivation to pull you out of every mid-week slump before they even begin.
Author, Artist, Photographer.
Sarah Margaret is an artist who expresses her love for feminism, equality, and justice through a variety of mediums: photography, filmmaking, poetry, illustration, song, acting, and of course, writing.
She owns Still Poetry Photography, a company that showcases her passion for capturing poetic moments in time. Instead of poetry in motion, she captures visual poetry in fractions of a second, making cherished keepsakes of unforgettable moments.
She is the artist behind the Still Poetry Etsy shop, which houses her illustrations and bespoke, handmade items. She is the author of intricacies are just cracks in the wall, a narrative poetry anthology that follows a young woman discovering herself as she emerges from an abusive relationship.
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