Most Mondays don’t fail because people are lazy. They fail because the week starts without clarity. You roll in from a weekend, carrying last week’s residue, open your inbox like a slot machine, and let other people’s priorities set your agenda.

If you want different outcomes, you need a different Monday. Not a motivational quote. A system.

What follows is the Monday reset I share with teams when we need execution to actually happen. It’s simple, a bit ruthless, and it works because it forces reality onto the page.

The real job of the Monday Prompt

The Monday prompt has three jobs:

1. Reconstruct last week (facts only).
   What actually happened? What did you commit to? What did others commit to? What shipped? What slipped?

2. Surface every open loop.
   Open loops are silent killers. They leak attention, create rework, and generate stress that feels “busy” but produces nothing.

3. Produce a tight plan for this week.
   Not a wish list. A prioritized sequence of outcomes with owners, deadlines, and next steps.

If your Monday prompt doesn’t do those three things, you’re not planning—you’re hoping

The “Monday Prompt” framework

1) Start with a fact-only timeline

No stories. No spin. Just what you can prove from notes, emails, meetings, tasks, and chat.

Why this matters:
Your brain lies to you by default. It edits history to reduce discomfort. A fact-only timeline anchors you in reality.

Output:
A day-by-day bullet list of last week’s meetings, decisions, promises, and delivered work. Every line has a status with traffic light indicators...

🟢 Done | 🔵 In Progress | ⚪ Unsure | 🟠 Not Done | 🔴 Urgent

...to simplify it further for the coffee fueled Mondayite.

2) Build an action inventory

This is just a single table, but it’s the highest leverage thing you can do all week.

Then bucket the rows into:

• Things people asked me to do

• Things I said I would do

• Things I actually did (with evidence)

• Things I expected others to do (and whether they did)

• Status. are they Done, In Progress, Unsure, Not Done, or Urgent

Why this matters:
Most execution problems are not “strategy” problems. They’re “who owns what by when” problems. This table fixes that.

3) Identify dangling threads

List every open loop you can find. For each, write:

• Why it matters

• Who’s involved

• Definition of done

Why this matters:
Open loops don’t go away. They age. They get more expensive. Treat them like debt. Waiting, is one of the 8 deadly wastes of LEAN - don't let people wait on you. 

4) Convert to this week’s objectives

Now you’re allowed to think forward. But only after last week is clean.

Prioritize using this order:

1. Hard deadlines this week

2. High cost-of-delay items

3. Items unblocking other people

4. Strategic/high-leverage work

5. Everything else

Why this matters:
Most people prioritize by mood. This method prioritizes by consequence.

5) Write the Monday reset sequence (max 8 steps)

This is your “order of operations” for today.

Why this matters:
A plan without a sequence is still a wish. Sequence creates momentum.

What makes this work (and what breaks it)

What works

• Brutal separation of facts from inference.

• Single source of truth for actions.

• Clear “definition of done.”

• Short list of outcomes, not a long list of tasks.

What breaks it

• Letting “urgent” mean “loudest person.”

• Keeping actions in five different tools and/or not having your AI connected to your busywork.

• Writing vague next steps like “follow up” or “think about.”

If the next step can’t be done in one sitting by one owner, it’s not a next step—it’s a placeholder.

The payoff

When you master Monday, two things happen:

1. The week stops feeling like a reaction.
   You’re not chasing. You’re executing.

2. Trust increases.
   People around you know what’s owned, what’s due, and what’s moving. That alone raises pace.

This isn’t about being busy. It’s about being effective.

So if your Mondays currently look like inbox roulette and vague intentions, try this system for four weeks. You’ll be shocked how much time you get back—and how much more actually lands.

Want the actual prompt?

If you want the exact “Master Monday” prompt/template I use to run this with teams?

-  well done for reading this far - here it is: The Monday Prompt