Your Best Week Ever Sunday Checklist: Do These 7 Things in Your Home Today
How does one craft the kind of work week that soothes the soul, flows smoothly and leaves you energized by the time the weekend rolls around again? By taking advantage of a built-in good mood and tackling a few key home to-dos on Sunday. It’s not about aiming for perfection or scrubbing every surface — it’s about setting yourself up to win starting on Monday morning to stay strong through all the conference calls, traffic commutes and PTA meetings. We’ve got your seven shortcuts to a nicer week.
1. File a pile
You got yourself a stack of bills sitting in your entryway? A pile of homework, newspapers, magazines and more on your dining room table or kitchen island? You don’t have to attack all the stacks of paper that pile up around your house throughout the week, just the ones that stress you out the most. Be quick about it — recycle or throw away everything you don’t absolutely need — and put anything else where it needs to go.
2. Quick clothes de-clutter
While reorganizing your entire clothes closet would definitely make things run more smoothly come Monday morning, not everyone wants to spend their whole day (especially if the weather’s nice) doing that. Instead, tackle one of these bite-sized laundry tasks today: Organize your dresser drawers, fold/put up some laundry or appropriately place any errant articles of clothing on floors and chairs (either re-hung in the closet or tossed in the hamper). The trick is to choose the one that might make you feel most at ease (ideally the one that will help you dress faster throughout the work week).
3. Hot zone pickup
Again, if you wanna get wild and do a full clean of your house on the weekend, go for it. But if you just want to make a measurable mark on Monday morning, pick up a hot zone like the area around your couch, your kitchen sink or maybe your bed. If you’ve done tasks one and two, after quickly completing this assignment, you should see a noticeably less-cluttered looking space (even if you didn’t have time to vacuum every surface).
4. Refresh with flowers
Snag one of these affordable flower tips and brighten up a spot in your home with a floral bouquet. Want to make the biggest impact on your week? Place them in a spot that will be one of the first things you notice when you wake up or when you walk back into your home after work for maximum cheeriness.
5. Better weekday lunches start on Sundays
Isn’t the first time we’ve suggested it, and it won’t be the last. Take a bit of time today to pack up a couple of days worth of lunches to take to work next week. Don’t want to make it an hours’ long, planned out cooking ordeal with make ahead lunch-specific recipes? Just make double of what you’re cooking today for dinner and have at least a day or two of leftovers.
6. Meditate, be mindful or work up a bit of a sweat
It’s honestly about finding your center — your balance — when you’re in your non-stressful happy place in your home on the weekend. Bring yourself to a place of peace on days when it’s easy so that when you find work stress creep in throughout the week, you can be more practiced to bring yourself back to calm. Or grab some exercise for a natural way to feel good.
7. Try a better morning nightly habit out
We’ve given suggestions before on how to have a better morning. Good suggestions — but sometimes hard to implement when you’re busy, work-week stressed and used to your normal bedtime routine. Sunday night — after a day of relaxing and a little decluttering — is the perfect time to try out a new behavior or trick in your nighttime routine to see if it gives you a better night’s sleep and makes for a better morning Monday (the one day of the week we could use the most morning-bettering juice we can get).