Mayhem Monday

I realize the day doesn’t quite fit the description of mayhem - but it does pair nicely with Monday. Monday kind of looks like this:  The day starts fairly well, a good night sleep, a simple breakfast, a great conversation with TR. Then, I commute in to the office.  It’s not a bad commute today. It’s a little heavy, a little bit of stop and go, but smooth overall.  I listen to Melissa Etheridge’s Fourth Street Feeling on the way in.  If you’ve never heard it, I highly recommend it. It’s a great album.

Then, I slide into the office.  The early part of the morning goes well.  I work with a great bunch of people and we exchange morning greetings and tell tales of our weekends.  I dive into the morning email load.  It is not too bad.  It takes an hour or so to go through the mornings email, then into the first meeting of the day.  I have no idea why I start Monday’s thinking I am actually going to be able to accomplish something.  It never quite works out that way.  The morning steadily spins out of control and this time I have the awareness to simply let it go.  I simply cannot control the Monday Mayhem. Rather than get caught up in the grinding whirl I simply step back and let it go.  It is still a bit stressful, but not as bad as it can be.

A few minutes ago (six hours into the day), I hung up the phone on an impromptu meeting and the spinning was basically over for the day.  Now, I have a spot of time here in the afternoon where I am going to be able to get some productive work done.  I am going to tackle a spot of troubleshooting and then the review and analysis of a report. Monday is definitely a day that I should approach with minimal expectations.  I should consider it an intake only day, perhaps intake and filter, without trying to do tasks.

When I go through this on any given Monday, or on any day that spins out of the control for that matter, I often wonder why it is necessary. In the work environment, in general, chaos is optional.  High pressure and high volume can be a requirement of specific tasks and processes - but chaos is entirely optional.