The Sunday Reset

We share a simple Sunday reset that helps Monday feel calm, organized, and predictable instead of rushed and chaotic. We break down a one-hour routine that clears mental clutter, resets the house, and protects your energy for what matters most. 
• why Sunday night often creates Monday morning stress 
• Sunday reset vs life admin day and how they work together 
• checking the calendar to eliminate surprises 
• choosing weekly priorities so everything stops feeling urgent 
• doing a quick home reset to reduce clutter stress 
• prepping clothes, keys, devices, and breakfast to cut decisions 
• quick admin scan for bills, emails, and scheduling 
• helping kids prep early with shared responsibility 
• resetting your mind through reflection, journaling, or prayer 
• building momentum with small systems that make life easier 
You'll be able to find a list of the Sunday reset on my website, Marcybackismedia.com. You can download it there and start your own. 
Try a Sunday reset, just one hour. 
Go out and do something positive. 

Website:marcybackhusmedia.com

Email: marcybackhus@me.com

Transcript

Welcome And Chicago Weather Whiplash

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Oh, hello, and welcome to Inside Marcy's Mind. My name is Marcy. What a surprise. And this is my podcast. I'm glad you're here. We've got some great stuff to talk about today. Listen to our jazzy music, get us going here. I hope everything in your world is good. Today it's bright and sunny in mine. We've had 70 degrees, we've had 30 degrees, we've had hail, we've had snow. It's been quite a week here in Chicago. And tomorrow we're supposed to have like 70 mile an hour winds. So welcome to springtime in the Midwest, is all I can say. Hard to believe. Craig and I have lived here. Craig starting this month in March, he's been here four years. I came in May, so I got a couple more months, but basically, we've lived here for four years and uh still love it. Not going to convince me otherwise. I do absolutely love it. Life is good, got a lot going on, but all positive, all good. Kids are doing well. Working on things with Craig. And uh, you know, life just keeps moving. Just because you age doesn't mean it gets easy. Just gets different, I'll tell you. Last week we talked about um our admin day. And today is Thursday, which is my admin day. It's when I do my podcast and I get all my paperwork done and emails answered and things done. So today we're gonna talk about something that even if you're retired, you may think you don't need, but I think you do, and it's called the Sunday reset. How to set up your week so Monday doesn't attack you. So we're gonna talk about that today because I think how you walk into your week sets up a lot. You can blame a lot on traffic and things like that. But if you're leaving the house late or your car maintenance isn't right, or whatever have you, um, there's things that we can we can do, just like the admin day that I gave you last week. And if you need a checklist for the admin day, it's on my website, marcybackusmedia.com. You can download it right there. So I'll do another one for um Sunday reset. Sunday is my, I call it my self-care day. It's also my reset day getting ready, even with my retired life. I have appointments, I have things I want to get done, blah, blah, blah. So let's talk about that. I want to welcome you back again to Inside Marcy's Mind, and I am Marcy. This podcast has really become a place where we talk about life skills, life hacks, and the little systems that make life run smoother. Next week, we're gonna talk about spring cleaning. I love a good clean. Everybody that knows me. But for those of you that don't like a good clean, I'm gonna talk about spring cleaning and how to get through it and why you should do it. But today we're gonna talk about the Sunday reset. And if you listen to my life admin day, you know exactly what I mean. We need to, adulthood is basically a long series of figuring things out that nobody ever taught us. You know, we all went to school. Some of you went to college, I went to beauty school, but nothing really taught us life skills. And we've had to figure it out along the way. And if you just didn't figure it out, or you didn't want to figure it out, or you didn't think you needed to figure it out, you didn't. And you could be stuck. And I don't care what age you are, I don't care if you're 70 or if you're 20 listening to this. If you don't have systems that make your life work easier, shame on you. Um your energy is precious, and you should use it wisely. So it's the idea that once a month we sit down and we deal with all those background life tasks. Reviewing finances, checking. So that's what our our um admin day is. We we do all those little things. But I I just lost my train of thought. I'm so embarrassed. Anyways, um, life admin day is about staying ahead of all the responsibilities instead of reacting to them. But today we're zooming in on something that's a little bit more frequent and honestly a lot more fun. Today we're talking about the Sunday reset. Think of Life Admin Day as a monthly maintenance for your life. Now, I do life admin day once a week. You can do it once a month. We talked about this. The Sunday reset is a weekly tune-up. It is a short routine that helps you start Monday feeling calm, organized, and ready for the week. Because here's the truth most stressful Mondays happen because Sunday night ended in chaos. And if you have kids, if you're in the thick of it, that is true. Now I'm not in the thick of it, but I don't want to wake up late on Monday for a doctor's appointment. I don't set an alarm. I just get up. But if I need to be up, I need to think about these things. So today we're talking about why Sundays quietly determine how your week feels, the simple routine that sets up your week, and small habits that organized people do automatically. I'm an organized people, by the way. And how one hour on Sunday can make your entire week easier. So let's get into it. Why do Mondays feel so chaotic when you're working and you've got kids and you've got pets and you've got dogs and you've got a husband and you've got it all? Let's paint a picture. Most of us can recognize Monday morning, the alarm goes off. You reach for your phone and suddenly your brain wakes up at full speed. What meetings do I have? Did I reply to that email? Do I have groceries? Where are my keys? Oh, the where are my keys? My son is the worst at that. What am I wearing today? Did I forget something important? Your brain goes into reaction mode immediately. Do you have library books? Do who's got this? Who's got what? Where needs to be? A reaction mode is exhausting. But here's the interesting part. Most of that chaos doesn't start Monday morning. No, it doesn't. It starts Sunday night when we haven't prepared for the week at all. And it could start even sooner. It could start with Friday and the kids not telling you that they have a project due Monday or what have you. We drift through the weekend. We relax, which is what we absolutely should do. But then Sunday evening rise and suddenly we realize all right, tomorrow's Monday. That's where the Sunday reset comes in. Instead of drifting into Monday, you prepare for it. And the good news is it doesn't have to take hours. 30 minutes to an hour is plenty. Think of it, closing out the weekend and opening up the week. Here's the core of the Sunday reset. So, what does Sunday reset actually look like? It's a handful of simple steps that remove the friction from your week. So let's walk through them. First thing, easy peasy, check your calendar. And if you're not keeping a calendar, well, that's a whole nother problem. But check your calendar. What's happening this week? What appointments do I have? The kids have. What are the meetings? Believe it or not, I still have meetings. I'm on boards, I'm on this, I'm on that. I have meetings. Social plans. What are the social plans? Do I have traveled this week? My niece Angie travels a lot now. She needs to think about that on Sunday night. Phone calls. What phone calls need to be made this week? Do I have any deadlines? Did I put any deadlines on my calendar because of my admin day? Your admin day is going to trigger some of this. This step is powerful because it eliminates surprises. You suddenly see the rhythm of the week. Maybe Tuesday is packed. Maybe Thursday is wide open. Maybe you need to prepare for something Wednesday. Your brain relaxes when it knows what's coming. It's akin to waking up in the middle of the night with your head speeding. And if you take a moment to write what's in your brain down, you can go back to sleep a lot easier because now it's taken care of. So your brain relaxes when it knows what's coming. You may need to choose priorities for the week. Now that you see the week ahead, ask yourself one simple question: what actually matters this week? Not the endless to-do list, just the priorities. Maybe it's rescheduling an appointment because you didn't realize your week was so full. Maybe it's recording a podcast episode, planning a trip, finishing a project, handling a few errands when you're not so busy. When your brain knows the priority, it stops spinning. Without priorities, everything feels urgent. How do you feel? Is that how your life feels? Think about it. Are you doing a Sunday reset? You may not even realize it. Maybe listen and you get a few thorough facts that might be helpful too. If you're not doing a reset, is this sounding familiar to you? All right. So now your brain knows its priorities. It stops spinning. Nothing is feels urgent anymore because you've seen it. I have a few things that feel urgent because I've been neglecting them. And that is a problem for me right now. And I know if I handle it today when I get off this podcast, I'll feel a lot better. I'm going to re-rewrite some things down. All right, now the house. We do a quick physical reset, not a deep clean, just a Sunday reset of your space. Take about 10 or 15 minutes. Clear counters, put things where they belong, start laundry. Personally, my laundry's done on Friday. It's done before the weekend, and I don't do it again until the following Friday. Make sure your dishwasher is empty, tidy, the main living areas. Monday mornings feel completely different when your environment feels calm. Clutter equals stress, order equals calm. Prep Monday morning. This is one of the biggest life hacks there is. Make Monday morning easier. Small things make a huge difference, and they do. Layout clothes. Now I don't go to work every day, but Sundays, Craig and I go to 8 a.m. service, which means we have to leave the house at a quarter to eight to walk across the street. But I do set an alarm and the night before I choose what I'm going to wear to church. I don't want to have to think about it. I want to enjoy my coffee a little bit more and not be harried about what I'm going to wear. So lay out your clothes, make sure you have your breakfast basics ready to go, refill water bottles, charge devices, put your bag or your purse where it belongs, find your car keys, look at the weather. These tiny preparations remove dozens of tiny decisions Monday morning. And fewer decisions equal fewer stresses. Okay? Make sure you know where your car keys are. Make sure your computer is charged and ready to go in the backpack. Think of all those things Sunday night. Set yourself up for success. Do a quick life admin check. This is where we lightly connect to last week's life admin day. Remember, Life Admin Day is a monthly deep dive, or for me, it's a weekly deep dive. But during your Sunday reset, you may do a quick scan. Did I forget to pay anything? Look at your calendar. Do I need to schedule something? Did I miss an email? Do I need to organize something for my next admin day? Nothing heavy, just keeping life going along smoothly. Also, that's a time. I'm not talking a lot about kids because I don't. Excuse me. Oh my goodness. It's nap time. I don't really deal with that anymore. But if you do, check in with your kids. Make sure they're prepared. Make sure they're ready. As the permission slip signed, all those things. Do it Sunday night. You're not doing it Monday morning. Have them lay out their clothes. Task them with some of the same things here. Now there's a part, this is the part that people often skip, and I don't think you should. The Sunday reset is not just about tax, it's also tasks. It's also about resetting your mind. Take a few minutes to reflect and ask yourself a few questions. What went well last week? What do I want to focus on this week? Is there anything weighing on my mind? Sometimes the reset is simply writing things down, journaling, praying about it, thinking about it. When thoughts are spinning in your head, they feel feel overwhelming. But when they're written down, they become manageable. For some people, it looks like journaling. For others, it's a prayer, quiet reflection. Whatever works for you, the point is entering the week with clarity. Now I'm going to tell you, Sundays is also my, um, most of my showers, I go to the gym five days a week. So most of my showers are at the gym. I always take one day off from showering to let my natural oils rebuild because I'm in the pool all the time. And then Sunday, not only do I do a Sunday reset, but it is my self-care day. It's the day that I take the long shower in my own shower. I shave my legs, I condition my hair, I exfoliate, I scrub, I dry brush, I do a mask, I paint my nails during the afternoon, whatever it may be, Sunday is my self-care day for me as well. All right, we're going to take a quick pause for a second. If you're enjoying Inside Marcy's Mine, I want to remind you that this is actually one of several podcasts I do. I also host Aging A for Sissies, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's funny, honest conversations about getting older and navigating life with a little humor and sass. I also host a podcast called Unbottled, which focuses on sobriety, recovery, and livering alcohol-free. It also touches on just addiction in general. So if you're an over-scroller, an overeater, an over buyer, check on in. You might learn something. If either of those topics speak to you, check them out. You can find everything, all the podcasts, episodes, and updates over on my website, MarcybackisMedia.com. You can also get a hold of me and ask me any questions. I do my best to answer. If you want to be, if you have something you want to share on my podcast, I'd love to have you as a guest. I'm not really great at getting back to people that want to be guests. I never really know if it's um fake or real. So make sure you know I'm you're real when you when you email me. Um you can email me at marcybackusmedia.com. I'm sorry, Marcybackusmedia at gmail.com. It's everything is at Marcy Backus Media. You can also email me from my website. So if you like the life hacks we talk about here, there's plenty more waiting for you. All right, back to the Sunday reset. Why this simple habit works. It creates momentum. Instead of starting Monday feeling behind, you start feeling prepared. You know your schedule, your environment feels calm, your priorities are clear, and suddenly the week feels manageable. That's what small systems do. They quietly remove stress from your life, not with dramatic changes, just a small intentional habit. And the Sunday reset is one of the easiest habits to build. You'll be able to find a list of the Sunday reset on my website, Marcybackismedia.com. You can download it there and start your own. So I'm going to give you a challenge this week, like I always do. Try a Sunday reset, just one hour. Look at your calendar, tie to your space, prep your Monday morning, and choose your priorities. Give your brain a few minutes to reset before the week begins. Because the goal isn't perfection. The goal is simply making your life easier. And sometimes the smallest habits make the biggest difference. Again, I always want to thank you for spending some of your time with me today. And I'll see you next week. This is Marcy Backis, and this is Inside Marcy's Mind. Go out and do something positive.