For those of us who work 9 to 5 every Monday to Friday, the few precious hours at the weekend can be the best.

It’s time for us to reset after a long week at the office, or catch up on our life admin. It can even be just a couple of days where we get to spend some quality time with our families.

Yet sometimes, by Sunday evening, we find that we’ve not quite achieved all we wanted. We feel rushed as we go about our chores and errands, and we find ourselves back at our desks before we know it.

So how do you dismiss the Sunday blues? Here are a few hints and tips that can make your two-day weekend even better so that you can be more relaxed and refreshed for the start of the working week.

HAVE A BREAK FROM TECHNOLOGY

You can be lured into social media on any day, but it can be all the more tempting when you’re relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. When you’re caught up in all those feeds, you’ll find that hours will just slip away. Then you’ll find it’s late into the evening and what you wanted to do wasn’t done.

Putting away your phone and laptop for a few hours and separating yourself from technology can have a huge effect on your mood. Instead of comparing your weekend with other people’s, you can spend time enhancing your own experience!

MAKE PLANS

The Sunday blues can partly come from thinking you can only do fun things at the weekends, and that weekdays are only for work. That means you don’t have anything to inspiring to do until next weekend.

Instead, make sure you have something to look forward to midweek. It can be a coffee date with someone, or a long-term commitment such as attending a club. You could even arrange to go out for dinner. A great local place like The Flintgate pub means you can enjoy a range of meals from the seasonal menu, and maybe even sample some of the real ales on offer.

ENJOY WHAT TIME YOU HAVE

You might want to rest on a Sunday – but having a lie-in until late or taking that mid-afternoon nap might have the opposite effect on your mood. By taking away those few hours from your weekend, you’re making it feel a lot shorter.

Try getting up at weekends on a schedule. If having an alarm on those days seems trying, set a later one than in the week. You’ll have more hours to get things done, and more time to enjoy what’s left.

DO SATURDAY CHORES

Often we plan fun things to do on Saturdays, and leave all the chores until last on Sunday. If this sounds like you, try switching things around. Whilst chores might make you dread Sundays even more, doing them on Saturday gets them out of the way. You may even gain a different perspective on them.