Turn Mondays into your best business days

The first day back to work after a weekend can feel like you’re dragging yourself to the office. Mondays have been called ‘the worst day of the week’ and there’s even a name for the anxiety some people feel just before the weekend ends: Monday Morning Sickness or MMS! The shift from home life/relaxing with friends/doing what you want to focusing on work projects and situations can be challenging even for the most positive and motivated among us. But what if Mondays were focused on  fun, creativity and out-of-the-box strategizing? What if ‘Wear your jeans to work’ day was Monday instead of Friday? What if your work environment treated Mondays as high-level imagination days focused on dreaming up new and innovative ways to market your company or product?

Many years ago, I was fortunate to work for a public relations agency that knew how to do that, even if sometimes it was just a fun-filled power hour versus a whole day. A large candy-dispensing M&Ms character was a permanent fixture in the boardroom and our VP happily encouraged everyone to start the day with a handful of the colourful chocolate candies. Of course with chocolate and coffee coursing through our veins first thing in the morning, things were bound to perk up! However, she would also encourage hilarious office chair races and other silly games to shake things up and get our creative juices flowing.

Reframing ‘Crazy’ to ‘Innovative’

From those crazy, silly episodes came BRILLIANT ideas! In fact, award-winning ideas. The point was to loosen up our serious focus, engage our imagination and come up with something inspired and innovative. It worked.

So, how about creating something to look forward to on Mondays by encouraging fun, creativity and playfulness? You may just get some of your best marketing ideas ever!

Tips for making Mondays more creative and productive:

• Decide to shift the energy on Mondays to one of fun and creativity with the goal of uncovering a marketing gem for your business. Reframe a dreaded day into one of your best!
• Think of some ways to add a bit of silliness to the day and raise the energy  bar. Google ‘ice breaker games’ as a starting point. Or get out of the office for an hour with a creative scavenger hunt of some kind. If that seems too over-the-top, find a new or unusual place to hold a lunch meeting.
• Put your marketing calendar in a prominent place (if it isn’t already!) on Mondays and ask staff to vote on which project they want to ‘play’ with that day or you may to choose to focus on your firm’s overall branding.
• Ask questions! Some ideas are: How can we make this better/more exciting/inspired/new/different/whacky? What would we need to do to gain more attention/more customers/more feedback/etc.…? What if we did something really out there…what would that look like? What’s the craziest thing we could do? What’s something no one expects us/our company to do? Not to say you’ll follow through on the craziest idea — maybe you will — the point is to inspire an idea you may not have thought of or considered before.
  
• Have a system to record all the ideas, whether it’s on a flip chart or a note pad, and have it typed up into a document to share afterwards with your key staff.

Here’s to a great Monday!