Look at American calendars — whether digital or in print — and what do you see?
Weeks begin on Sunday and end on Saturday. This makes no sense.
Instead, the week should officially begin on Monday. According to an organization called Time and Date, only 67 countries begin the week on Sunday, as opposed to the 160 countries who prefer to begin the week on Monday. Why shouldn’t we follow the masses?
If the week began on Monday, we’d have a continuous weekend. Rather than keeping Friday and Saturday — which are both effectively part of the weekend, since once that bell rings you won’t catch me anywhere near school — as part of one week and leaving Sunday stranded in the next, having all three days together creates a cohesiveness that pleases my brain.
Intuitively, we all know Monday is the beginning of the work week, so it makes sense that it should also be the beginning of the actual calendar week. Whenever I’m booking doctor’s appointments or interviews, they always refer to the “week of the fourth” — the fourth being a Monday — not the “week of the third.” Even professionals think about the week as beginning on Monday, so why shouldn’t we?
Finally, the most important reason: If the week began on a Monday, we’d finish school a day earlier, on the fifth day of the week versus the sixth day. This slight change in our perception of time would make enduring the school week easier, since it would feel like the weekend comes sooner.
While the matter of whether the week should begin on Sunday or Monday may be seen as trivial, calendars are relied on by millions of people to accurately depict the demarcation of time; that accuracy should extend to the reflection of the “Monday mindset.”