Sunday afternoon has done nothing wrong. Quit making it pay for Monday.

Dread borrows from time you still have. A perfectly good afternoon gets spent bracing for a week that has not started, so you lose the last of the weekend and gain nothing. The mood is anticipatory rather than accurate. Nothing bad is happening at three o’clock on a Sunday.

Catch the moment the dread starts and hand the rest of the afternoon back to itself. Do one thing you like, out of the house if possible. If there is something specific about Monday you are avoiding, write it down and do the first two minutes of it, since the dread is usually standing in for one undone task.