That Sunday night feeling, by @Jim1982

This post answers the 29th question from my TeacherToolkit Thinking page of Thunks.

That Sunday night feeling… is looming large without doubt.

There is something about the time, between 6pm and bed time on a Sunday night. Marking work, producing resources, lesson planning, list making, calendar viewing, producing an assembly and thinking about a busy week ahead. Time seems to go so fast during that time on a Sunday and I always wish I had started working a couple of hours earlier!

It’s amazing how much can be done and it helps me to focus myself on the week ahead and give me time to reflect on work things that I don’t do any other time.

Many people get the ‘Sunday night blues’ before work but what can we do to ensure that doesn’t happen?

Well, I have been doing a little reading of the ‘Sunday-night blues’ feeling and really, it is mind over matter without a doubt. If you have had a weekend, where you have relaxed and enjoyed yourself, you are bound to have done little or no work.

Those books or exam papers that you brought home, shouting ‘mark me, mark me’, every time you have walked passed them and you have just checked your work emails and you have lots from other colleagues who have worked all weekend.

The panic sinks in and that ‘Sunday night feeling’ develops.

What if you did the marking or management stuff on Saturday morning?

Would the feeling still be the same?

Probably so!

Loads of colleagues and friends say that the work will always be there on Monday morning, but it doesn’t make it any better if you have got that ‘Sunday night feeling’.

So, what can we do to combat this issue and ensure that we all enjoy the last couple of hours of our weekend? Well, many psychologists say, it all comes down to being organised. Can ‘this work’ wait until the working week, or does it really need to be completed over the weekend?

I can never plan my working week – especially those ‘non-contact’ periods! Problems arise throughout the week that you cannot plan for; most of them unexpected! This means that my ‘non-contact time’ is not as it is named, and I know this is a common issue with colleagues across the country. So, doing what you can during the school day, is as good as it gets… and I suppose that has to be good enough.

“Most people are so busy knocking themselves out

trying to do everything they think they should do,

they never get around to what they want to do.”

Kathleen Winsor (American Author)

—–

I think it is different for different people. The ‘Sunday-night feeling’ will always be there as long as there are Sunday nights. If you didn’t work on a Monday, I’d guess your Sunday-night feeling would be on a Monday night and so on! (On another note, this feeling is even worse after a holiday).

Although work and being organised is important, make sure you are enjoying yourself and take some time to relax. It’s a balancing act I don’t always get right, but it is important to keep a clear mind and be energised for work and that is what the weekend should be for.

So, the Sunday night feeling is not far away, how will you feel tonight?

I am sorry that I have been unable to come up with any solutions to relieve the problem; but remember this, Sunday might be the night before the end of your holiday, or the start of a new working week, but always remember the feeling, of the first Sunday night of the summer holidays (I bet you smiled).

Written by Jim Smith and edited and posted by @TeacherToolkit.

Jim Smith is a Design & Technology teacher (teaching for 9 years) in a secondary school in the Peak District; Head of Department and a Head of House. He loves technology and gadgets. He is also the organiser of Derbyshire TeachMeet and a Pedagoo geek!

—–

You can follow Jim on Twitter here, or read this post on his own blog here.

This article is part of @TeacherToolkit’s TTkitThunks 100 series.