The Sunday Scaries Hit Leaders Too

That sinking feeling on a Sunday evening doesn’t necessarily disappear when you become the boss. In fact, when you’re responsible for the people, the problems and the decisions waiting on Monday morning, it can become even harder to ignore.

Sunday should still feel like the weekend. Yet for many leaders, there comes a point somewhere between Sunday lunch and Sunday evening when Monday starts quietly creeping in. You remember the meeting you need to have, the email you haven’t answered, the problem you left unresolved on Friday or the list of things waiting for you when you open your laptop in the morning.

Before you know it, you’re physically still in your weekend but mentally you’ve already gone back to work.

The so-called “Sunday scaries” are often discussed in relation to employees dreading the return to work, but being the person in charge doesn’t make you immune. Leadership simply gives the feeling a slightly different flavour. You may love your job, enjoy running your organisation and still find yourself feeling unsettled as Monday approaches.

When the buck stops with you

One of the difficult things about leadership is that there isn’t always somebody above you who can make the problem disappear. If cash flow is tight, a key employee has resigned, a major client is unhappy or an important decision needs to be made, you may ultimately be the person responsible for dealing with it.

That responsibility doesn’t conveniently disappear at 5pm on Friday.

It can sit quietly in the background while you’re having dinner, watching television, spending time with family or trying to enjoy your weekend. Sunday evening then becomes the point when all those unresolved issues suddenly feel much closer.

The temptation is to get ahead. You might check your inbox, open the laptop for half an hour or start preparing for Monday morning. Sometimes that may genuinely be necessary, but if it becomes your normal Sunday routine, you’ve effectively turned a two-day weekend into a day and a half.

You don’t have to hate your job to dread Monday

It’s worth making an important distinction: experiencing Sunday anxiety doesn’t automatically mean you’re in the wrong job.

You can love your business and still feel overwhelmed by it. You can enjoy leading people and still dread a difficult conversation. You can be ambitious about Monday morning while simultaneously wishing Sunday evening could last a little longer.

Often, the anxiety isn’t about work itself. It’s about anticipating everything that work contains.

A packed diary, unanswered emails, financial pressure, staffing problems, deadlines and dozens of decisions can merge into one enormous mental category called “Monday”. Unsurprisingly, your brain can start reacting to it before Monday has even arrived.

Stop allowing Monday to begin on Sunday

One of the simplest ways to protect Sunday is to decide when your working week actually begins.

If you’re routinely checking emails on Sunday evening, you’re giving work permission to enter your head before you’ve consciously decided to return to it. One innocent look at the inbox can introduce a problem you cannot actually solve until Monday anyway, leaving you thinking about it for the rest of the evening.

Unless your role genuinely requires you to be available, consider creating a clear boundary around Sunday evening. Turn off work notifications, move your email app away from your home screen or simply decide that whatever is waiting can wait until the morning.

The business survived Saturday. There is a reasonable chance it can survive Sunday evening too.

Give your brain somewhere to put Monday

Sometimes trying not to think about work has the opposite effect. Tell yourself not to think about Monday’s presentation and suddenly Monday’s presentation becomes the only thing your brain wants to discuss.

Instead, give those thoughts somewhere to go.

If something important pops into your head, write it down. Keep a notebook nearby or create a simple Monday list on your phone. The objective isn’t to start working through the list; it’s to reassure your brain that it doesn’t need to keep reminding you because the thought has been captured.

You can deal with it tomorrow.

Finish Friday properly

A calmer Sunday can actually begin on Friday afternoon.

Before finishing for the week, spend a short amount of time deciding what genuinely needs your attention when you return. Identify your most important priorities, note anything unfinished and make sure Monday’s first task is clear.

This reduces the need to mentally reconstruct your entire working life on Sunday evening.

Instead of waking on Monday with 47 different things competing for attention, you already know where you’re starting.

There’s also something psychologically satisfying about deliberately closing the working week rather than simply stopping because you’ve run out of Friday.

Be careful with the Sunday night preparation ritual

There is nothing inherently wrong with preparing for the week ahead. Some people genuinely enjoy spending a few minutes looking at their calendar, organising themselves or planning Monday.

The question is how it makes you feel.

If ten minutes of preparation makes you calmer, great. If opening your calendar leads to checking emails, replying to messages, reviewing documents and suddenly spending two hours working, it isn’t preparation anymore. It’s work.

Your wellbeing doesn’t improve simply because you have renamed Sunday-night working “getting organised”.

Put something between you and Monday

Sunday evenings can easily become a countdown to bedtime followed by a countdown to Monday. Creating something you genuinely enjoy can interrupt that pattern.

It doesn’t need to be elaborate. Cook something you like, go for a walk, watch a film, read, exercise, spend time with people you care about or create a Sunday evening ritual that has absolutely nothing to do with preparing for work.

The aim isn’t to distract yourself from some terrible event called Monday. It’s to remember that Sunday evening is still part of your life and deserves to be experienced rather than sacrificed in anticipation of tomorrow.

Look at what the feeling might be telling you

Occasional Sunday anxiety is one thing. Feeling intense dread every single weekend is something worth paying attention to.

Ask yourself what you’re actually worried about. Is there one particular meeting? Is your workload unrealistic? Are you avoiding a difficult decision? Are you carrying responsibilities that could be delegated? Have you created a culture where you’re permanently available? Or are you simply exhausted?

Sometimes the Sunday scaries are just your brain anticipating a busy week. Sometimes they’re useful information that something about the way you’re working needs to change.

Ignoring that distinction won’t make it disappear.

Monday does not deserve your Sunday

Leadership comes with responsibility, and there will inevitably be periods when work demands more of you. But being responsible for an organisation doesn’t mean every waking hour needs to belong to it.

Your ability to think clearly, make good decisions, manage difficult situations and support other people depends partly on having periods when you’re not doing any of those things.

So, when Monday starts knocking on Sunday evening, remember that most of what is waiting for you will still be there in the morning.

Write down anything you genuinely need to remember, close the inbox and go back to your weekend.

Monday gets Monday. It doesn’t automatically get Sunday too.

Keep looking after you

Wellbeing looks different for everyone, and sometimes the most useful thing is simply finding the right information at the right time. Explore more from Daily Round with our dedicated Women’s Health, Men’s Wellbeing and Wellbeing for Leaders sections, or head to the Leaders Library for our latest book recommendations, ideas and inspiration for life in and outside work.