Your Sunday Reset (Even If It’s Not Sunday)
I am starting a “You asked, let’s talk about it…” series. Real life answers to our tough questions. About energy and change and productivity and mental health. Today is the first!
I love a good Sunday night Reset.
I started to write this article and episode on a Monday morning, and I have to laugh - I was thinking about this topic and others yesterday, and when I would take a break and distract myself with my phone, there were many videos of people completing their Sunday night Resets.
On the other hand, I saw a video a few weeks ago of a person who seemed to be shaming a Sunday night Reset, saying she didn’t believe in “Resets” because she is so on top of her home management and cleans so much that she doesn’t need one.
(Which, to me, sounds like a perpetual reset, but I digress.)
First up, there will be no shaming here, not even of the person who did the shaming- ever! What there will always be is invitations for perspective shifts, sharing of ideas and suggestions to help us find more peace of mind while living productive lives!
I am in the “Create a Simple Reset for Yourself” camp, to support peace of mind and decrease stress and anxiety, making it so simple you can manage it even on low energy days or in really frantic days when you have little time to implement things and certainly NO time to think about what needs done.
Most people I know live their lives, do their best, and work through their own personal joys and struggles every day. They use their homes and their clothes and their stuff and their dishes and their toys, and things may get disorganized at a faster pace then they can keep up, or the disorganization happens in the midst of busy days that don't have flexibility for catching up.
Enter - A Reset.
So, what is a Reset?
Per Brainflow.com, because they said it better than I could, “A Sunday Reset is a weekly ritual where you prepare your environment, your schedule, and yourself for the week ahead. It’s part cleaning, part planning, part self-care. The goal is to close out the current week properly and set yourself up so the coming week feels manageable rather than overwhelming.”
This concept satisfies my hopes for you and for me - a more organized life, a less stressed life, a more productive life, more peace of mind and less hassle. Sounds pretty good, right? I thought so.
A Reset restores order physically and mentally after a busy week and prepares us for the week ahead, or whenever you need it, really. It depends on how you want to think about it!
A good friend has 2 kids the same age as my youngest son, and when they were all much younger, she would say she needed to do her "Sunday basket." That was planning for the week, paper management for the kids' school, packing lunches, paying bills, tidying up, etc., and she was very protective of this vitally important time for herself and her family.
For me, I have a Sunday night Reset, but also a mini reset on Thursday or Friday. This is a personal choice, maybe yours is more often or less often. My resets coincide with transition times in my week.
Sunday nights are an obvious choice. I spend about an hour total taking care of our physical space. An hour total spent tidying up each room, collecting laundry and items that have migrated around the house and putting them where they belong, emptying trash, a quick vacuum, starting laundry / putting away laundry, and running the dishwasher - all of these tasks help me and my household feel ready for the work week ahead. Thursday / Friday is the same set of tasks and for the same reason, but to recover from the busy week and get ready for the weekend. Again - this is my routine for these habits, you're welcome and encouraged to create your own.
We tend to travel a lot on summer weekends to spend time with family in other states and our Resets intentionally coincide with packing and prep and then returning home / unpacking. Because, you guessed it - my Reset tasks are also our get -ready-to-leave for the weekend tasks, and return home tasks. (Yep, same list.) There are also planning tasks attached to my Resets, like meal planning, looking at the weather and the calendar, and getting my bags ready for presentations.
I have written before about “Back To Ready”, especially in the context of returning home after travel, or returning to a more normal week after an especially busy week or season of life. “Back to ready” is what I have always called it, but these days, on SM, it's called a Reset.
Let’s get specific: What is part of a Reset? What is on the list?
If you are interested in creating a Reset and Reset Habit, we start with the basics. The basics are always going to be the basics. That's why they’re the basics.
With our environment - being organized on the big three - clothes / laundry, kitchen and dishes, and trash and recycling - can cure so many ills in our homes. There are higher level tasks, of course. There always will be. But checking in a few times a week on the Big 3 will keep your home life flowing smoothly and help you feel prepared for life. Maybe you have pets, maybe you have little kids, maybe you are working on big projects and your list is more complex - I get it.
The list remains the same, but some days I am pleasantly surprised to find some tasks are already complete and I can move on to the next. But I always assume I need to do them all, and start there.
What is on your list? For your environment?
For our physical environment, I’ve already mentioned and therefore suggest:
Tidied physical spaces, surfaces wiped down
Trash and recycling out
Laundry in progress
Clean laundry put away
Kitchen sink clear, dishwasher running
Grocery order and meal planning
I like to put shoes away, and hang extra outwear back in the coat closet, too.
And how about our mental environment?
Review this week’s schedule
Review this week’s weather forecast
Bill paying? Errand running ready to go?
Plan outfits for yourself and / or children?
Next, how often do we need a Reset? And When?
Do you like a Sunday? Great, go for it.
Would you prefer a Tuesday morning? Cool, go for it!
Whenever that is for you, go for it. Even if it's not on a Sunday. Just make sure that you have that in some form, that you have that check in opportunities once in a while, Sunday or not.
The point is not necessarily the when. The point is THAT you do it, not when you do it, so consider what is right for you.
Who should be involved? Household or family members? Perhaps it is just your personal choice? Just ask the question.
For illustration sake, let me talk about my Reset.
For me, a Reset is resetting all the different systems in my home. Collecting laundry and clutter and trash, and dealing with each. Maybe it’s checking out the grocery situation and ordering groceries, or making the menu plan for the week. Often it is resetting my schedule and recalibrating my to-do list for the week based on time I have available this week so that no one day feels overwhelming.
When all my kids still lived at home, we might have had a family meeting to talk through the week, look at who needed to be where when and how to make all that happen.
My suggestion this week is to work on your own!
To sum up:
“A Sunday reset is a weekly ritual where you prepare your environment, your schedule, and yourself for the week ahead. It’s part cleaning, part planning, part self-care. The goal is to close out the current week properly and set yourself up so the coming week feels manageable rather than overwhelming.”
We all need a reset sometimes. Creating a standard reset for our physical and mental environments sets us up to succeed from week to week. Create your list so that it’s ready when you need it. And keep in mind, a Sunday Reset doesn’t actually have to be on Sunday, and can even be more often than once a week, if that helps you!
