7 Ways Data Scientists Can Get Over Monday Blues & Maximise Productivity

Numerous studies and research results have showcased that their Monday blues are real. From quitting jobs to suicide rates, the first day of the work week can be intense for many professionals. And data scientists are not immune to this. We have often heard what to expect from a data scientist. But we never hear back from this cadre of “hottest job” holders as to what their biggest challenges at the workplace are. Not only are the data scientists expected to have a broader set of skills, but most employers also expect more cohesive specialisation and collaboration. With work spilling out of the 9:00 am to 5:00 pm routine, for most data scientists, the weekends are sacrosanct. That is why when Monday rears its ugly head, many working professionals suffer from a lack of motivation and enthusiasm. In this article, Analytics India Magazine showcases how data scientists can fight Monday blues and start their week in a highly productive manner.

1. Begin With The Weekend: Keep Sunday Simple

Most data scientists we interviewed for our column A Day In The Life Of said that they liked to spend their weekends, especially Sundays with friends and family. Keeping things relaxed and fun has a way of calming the nerves before work begins the next day.

2. Chalk Out Monday Duties On Friday

A poll by an online job search giant says that 62% of people around the world suffer from Sunday night blues, which then spills over to unenthusiastic and placid Monday mornings. To avoid this, Data Scientists should follow the “Eat that frog” routine, and finish all the boring tasks by Friday afternoon. When tedious (but necessary) tasks like data cleaning, checking missing values, then checking for correlations between features within data, are completed the week before, data scientists can enjoy that creative gust of energy on Mondays.

3. Start Your Day With Easy Work

To pump up the motivation quotient, data scientists should ideally start their Monday morning by recapping and revisiting their model results from last week. They can work on data summarization  and exploratory data analysis first thing in the new week. This will help you give a little boost of positive reinforcement and get you in a good mood.

4. Let’s Talk About Tuesdays

One of the little-known tricks to successfully handling Monday blues is that by keeping result-oriented tasks on Tuesday. For example, try all the fun experiments and machine learning tricks on Monday and keep the result expectation low. Keep Tuesdays for regrouping and taking the path that works well.

5. Monday Mornings Are For Interactions, Discussions And Brainstorming

Most data scientists who have talked to AIM have said emphatically that the best part of their day was brainstorming sessions with their peers and colleagues. Exchange of ideas at the very beginning of the week works as a motivation to do better and use innovative methods to accomplish tasks.

6. Keep Your Schedule Light

In most Indian workplaces, Mondays are traditionally busy. A good strategy for data scientists is to keep the schedule generally clear. Ryan Kahn, an acclaimed career coach, says, “When you’re planning meetings ahead, try to schedule them for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This will help you to come into Monday with more ease from the weekend.”

7. Plan Work That’ll Have Immediate Results On Monday

Data scientists can start their week by data visualisation. This task can be done fairly quickly and the results can be used to draw insights from data. This, in turn, can be used for feature extraction and other key tasks. As the results are swift, this will help data scientists get a sense of immediate gratification.