Why do we wait for Friday?
On borrowed structures and anticipation
Hands up if you wait till Friday to feel like you’ve done a good job?
Friday carries some hefty weight for our validation mindset, it’s called this the “fresh start effect” , because we’re wired to use calendar markers (Mondays, new months, birthdays) as reset points.
End of week landmarks help us partition time, creating “before and after” narratives and Friday in traditional work culture, marks completion and permission: “I did enough. I can rest.” But it’s a borrowed structure, and from a feminist perspective it leans into the sterotype that we have been ‘good enough’.
Weird isn’t it? for many of us, our work doesn’t follow a traditional schedule, and yet we have these rhythms that no longer fit.
So here’s your nudge, you don’t need to wait until Friday to feel like you’ve done a good job.
This weekend, I want you to set a TINY goal to complete on Monday (or Sunday!) something so doable, it’s almost laughable. Writing a title for your next blog or a sentence. A walk. A phone call. A ten-minute stretch. Eating one piece of fruit. Having a 10 minute power nap.
Here’s why: your brain doesn’t just reward results, it rewards anticipation.
Anticipation can shape your memory of an event before it even happens, it’s called affective forecasting: the way we predict how something will make us feel. Research shows we don’t just forecast feelings, we actually start encoding the emotional tone of the experience before it begins.
This means that how you feel before an event can colour how you remember it, even if the event itself was neutral or mixed. If you dread a meeting, you’re more likely to remember it as tense. If you look forward to a dinner, your memory is more likely to be warm, even if the food was just okay.
When you look forward to that tiny triumph you feel good and Psychologically Speaking, that’s a double dopamine boost for the lead up and the result!.
Small goal. Short reward window. Big shift. A Tiny Triumph.
Let me know what you pick, I’ll be cheering for you.
Leila
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