How to make your next week super productive with a Sunday reset

If Sunday mornings are famously easy, then Sunday evenings are infamously not. As Monday draws closer, it’s common for the Sunday scaries to rear their ugly head, bringing dread about the upcoming work week and anxiety about all the things you didn’t manage to get done.

If that sounds like you, then perhaps a Sunday reset can help. 

A Sunday reset can do more than just fight off the Sunday scaries. It could make you more productive at work, keep you more focused throughout the week, and help better deal with what life throws at you. 

Sounds like magic, but it’s just a productivity trick—one you can easily take advantage of. 

So, what is a Sunday reset? How does a Sunday reset routine impact your work productivity? And can the workplace play a positive role in it all? 

Find all the answers, as well as 21 Sunday reset ideas below. 

What is a Sunday reset?

Think of all those little personal tasks that pile up during the week and then hang over your head—the ones that you know you should do, but always end up procrastinating. This can be anything from answering that email and watering the house plants to meal prepping and changing your bedding. 

A Sunday reset is a productivity method for taking care of these kinds of tasks in one fell swoop. 

At its core, a Sunday reset routine is a dedicated period—typically a couple of hours on a Sunday, but can be any other duration and day—where you take care of those chores to prepare yourself and your environment for the upcoming week. It’s not about doing all the things, but about doing the things that will clear mental clutter, minimize future distractions, and create a sense of control. 

Think of it as hitting the “reset” button on your life before the work week even begins—hence the name. Not only does this let you check off annoying things from your to-do list, making you feel better and more accomplished, but it also contributes to minimizing the Sunday scaries by making the upcoming week feel less overwhelming.

21 Sunday reset ideas for inspiration

Need some Sunday reset ideas? Just think—what are the tasks that will weigh on my mind and schedule during the next week? Different people will have different answers. For example, finding the time to cook healthy dinners might be the problem, and a meal prep is the solution. 

Here are 21 ideas to help you along. But remember—this is NOT a checklist. 

How can a Sunday reset routine impact work productivity?

A Sunday reset routine directly boosts your work productivity in a variety of ways. There are three that stand out. 

First of all, productivity is improved by sharply reducing distractions and the effects of context switching. When your personal to-dos—like unanswered emails or looming errands—are handled on Sunday, your mind is free from those nagging pulls during the work week. This allows for longer, uninterrupted periods of deep work, letting you concentrate fully on the tasks at hand, without suddenly having to pay a bill or get back to a relative about a family reunion. 

Secondly, a Sunday reset also helps combat decision fatigue, preserving your mental bandwidth for critical work. Every small choice, from selecting an outfit to planning meals, consumes mental energy. By making these trivial decisions on Sunday, you avoid depleting your willpower before your workday even begins. 

Thirdly, not having procrastinated tasks hanging over your head also significantly reduces stress and enhances your well-being. For many people, myself included, the awareness of unfinished personal tasks creates a persistent background hum of anxiety—you rarely think of it as a problem at the time, but it’s easy to notice how draining it is in retrospect. By addressing these worries during your Sunday reset, you clear mental clutter. A calmer, less burdened mind means improved focus and a more upbeat attitude. 

Why are Sunday resets needed now more than ever? 

Modern life has brought with it new kinds of chores and responsibilities, while the traditional ones remain as relevant and inevitable as ever. You still need to take care of yourself and your direct environment, as well as meet your social obligations. But now the digital world also clamors for your attention. Think responding to emails and messages you’ve left on read, managing bills and subscriptions, curating your online presence, and more. 

Not only do we have more of those chores, the rise of remote and hybrid work has impacted how we deal with them. Specifically, a lot of people learned to take care of chores during work hours. 

On its own, that’s not a bad thing. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that taking breaks is key for productivity, and breaks where you move around are best of all. So, doing a batch of laundry as a break can be a boon for productivity! 

The trouble starts when you start planning chores into your work time—why do laundry on Sunday if you can put a batch in during lunchtime on Monday? Suddenly, it’s not a nice extra activity you can take care of during a break, but it’s a to-do. One that weighs on your mind, you have to make space for, and that has a direct impact on your work and productivity. 

In other words, personal chores are growing more numerous and bleeding into every part of our lives. This makes methods like Sunday resets invaluable, as they help compartmentalize a part of your personal life, keeping it from impacting your professional one. An added bonus is that it also has a positive impact on the other aspects of your personal life—less guilt and worrying, and more living in the moment. 

The workplace can play a part

What can you do as an employer or manager to encourage your team to take advantage of the productivity of Sunday resets? Not much, really. Try telling your employees they should change their bedsheets on Sundays, and you’ll be rightfully laughed out of the room. 

If you’re a manager practicing Sunday resets and you’re seeing a positive impact on your own productivity, you can share your positive experience with others in the hopes people will listen. And some might—nobody likes the Sunday scaries, and your example might inspire others.

As to workplaces at large, you can play a part in minimizing personal distractions by giving employees more space to deal with them. For example, at DeskTime, we have a 35-hour work week. We don’t tell our team how to use those 5 extra hours a week—that’d be silly. But we see that many take advantage of this to catch up on appointments and chores that might otherwise bleed into their workdays. 

Are Sunday resets having a positive impact on your and your team’s productivity? 

One way to check is just to look at how you feel personally—if you start practicing Sunday resets and your general mood and perceived productivity improves, then there’s your answer. 

If you want an answer rooted in data—try DeskTime. 

DeskTime is an automated time tracking software that works silently in the background. Many people and companies use DeskTime to track their work patterns. Since it’s easy to generate detailed reports, you can gain quick insights into everything from hours worked to productivity levels. 

But you don’t even need reports. With DeskTime, you can check your productivity at a glance—see for yourself in this demo. 

Article written by

Viesturs Abelis

A fan of crunching complex topics into digestible bites, Viesturs helps tech companies – and startups in particular – convey their unique stories to broader audiences. In addition to his work on DeskTime’s blog, you’ll come across his writing in Tech.eu, The Next Web, Crunchbase, and more.