6 Things You Should Do Sunday Night (So You Don’t Have to Do Them Monday Morning)

Monday mornings are hard enough, so why not take some of the pressure off? If you take some time out of your Sunday night to get stuff done, you’ll have less to do in the morning (Translation: You can hit the snooze button and not feel guilty about it!). Just a few changes to your weekend routine will make your Monday morning far less stressful and hectic. If you’re not sure how to make it happen, here are a few things to try Sunday night…

You don’t have to prep all your meals for the week (although, if you choose to, you’ll save yourself so much time, money and energy) but you should at least take some time to make your breakfast and lunch and get dinner ready to cook for Monday.

Try putting together an easy breakfast that you can just grab from the fridge and eat when you wake up or take with you to work, like overnight oats or hardboiled eggs and fruit. Packing your lunch is even easier: Cook an extra portion for dinner on Sunday and pack up the leftovers to take to the office. As for Monday’s dinner, you can either cook a meal ahead of time to be reheated the next day, or get a recipe all prepped on Sunday night and pop it in the crockpot when you wake up on Monday morning so it can cook during the day and be ready when you get home. Prep your Monday meals however it works best for your lifestyle, but the more you do Sunday night, the less you have to do later on.

If you have long hair or hair that otherwise requires a lot of post-shower taming, nothing feels more daunting first thing Monday morning than washing—and drying, and styling—your hair. So, save yourself time and energy by washing your hair on Sunday night instead, and giving yourself a break in the morning. You can still shower if you need one to wake you up (just put your hair up in a shower cap to keep it dry), but you’ll seriously cut back your getting ready time if you start with already-washed dry hair. And if you worry about your hair losing its oomph overnight, try shaking in a little dry shampoo in the morning. The dry shampoo will take care of any grease and volume issues you might wake up to (pillow-induced flatness, be gone)—and it only takes a minute.

This is another one where you have the option to go full-on ready for the week, or just for Monday, but either way, choosing what you’re going to wear the night before will definitely make Monday morning a little less stressful. Check the weather Sunday night and see what’s predicted for Monday (or for the rest of the week, if you’re thinking farther in advance). Then, figure out what you want to wear—including shoes and accessories—and either hang it all together on a hanger in your closet, or lay it out. If you’re planning for the entire week, hang up or place your chosen outfits where they’re easily accessible, and have options ready in case the weather changes. That way, if you wake up and it’s raining when it was supposed to be sunny, you don’t have to rethink your entire plan.

If you bring a purse or a bag to work—or you hit the gym before or after work and bring your clothes and gear with you—save yourself the hassle Monday morning by packing your bags Sunday night. Round up all the things you need, from your keys and your work supplies to your sneakers and towel, pack them up neatly, and put it all by the door so that you don’t forget anything on your way out. You can also take this practice with you through the rest of the week to make all your mornings a little less hectic.

OK, so no one wants to do actual work on Sunday night, but you can save yourself a lot of time on Monday by going through your emails the night before. You don’t have to be totally “on” for this, and you don’t even have to respond to anything if you don’t want to—just clear out the emails you don’t need, and flag the ones you need to answer in the morning. That way, you’ll have less to go through on Monday, and you’ll already have what you need to respond to prioritized. Plus, you can do it from your phone while you watch Netflix, so it won’t take much away from any desired weekend couch time.

While you’re at the whole doing-work-but-not-really-working thing, take a few minutes on Sunday night to write out your to-do list for Monday (or, again, the rest of the week if that is more helpful to you). Think about what you need to get done at work, any errands you need to run, any deadlines you need to make, and whatever else you might need to do that day, and write it down or make a list in your phone (wherever you normally keep your to-do lists, or wherever is most convenient for you). When you wake up Monday morning, you won’t have to waste time trying to remember everything you need to get done—you’ll already know exactly where you stand for the day.