If you ever want to watch a group of highly intelligent, ok the intelligent part is arguable, adults spiral into existential confusion, ask them to meet you “next Monday.” Then stand back and watch the chaos unfold.
Is “next Monday” this coming Monday? Or the one after that? Is “this Monday” the next Monday coming up? And why do some people use the words this and next as if they’re interchangeable while I sit here feeling like I’ve slipped into a parallel timeline?
Let Me Be Perfectly Clear:
- “This Monday” means the first Monday coming up from today. If today is Thursday, “this Monday” is just a few days away.
- “Next Monday” means the Monday after that. As in, we’re skipping one.
Simple. Elegant. Logical. Hell even straightforward if you ask me.
And apparently… completely wrong?
Why the World Disagrees with Me
Somewhere along the way, we collectively decided to throw logic into a woodchipper and just say “next Monday” to mean this upcoming Monday. Why? No one knows. Maybe it was an English professor 300 years ago. Maybe it was Outlook. Maybe it was Clippy. Maybe it was that one person who asked, “Wait, do you mean this Monday or next Monday?” and broke the timeline forever.
But here’s the thing: language is fluid, not fixed. And while I’m clearly in the minority here, I know I’m not alone. There’s an entire underground of calendar nerds, project managers, and traumatized meeting-goers who share my pain.
My Proposed Solution: ISO 8601 or Bust
Until we all start timestamping our plans like time-traveling robots
“Meeting scheduled for Monday, July 15th at 10:00 AM CST”
we’re doomed to live in the gray area of “this vs. next.”
So, I say we lean into the awkwardness. Ask people to clarify. Send calendar invites. Or, better yet, just say:
“Let’s meet Monday a week from now. I mean the next next one.”
Clunky? Sure.
Clear? You bet your Gantt chart it is.
TL;DR:
- “This Monday” = the closest upcoming Monday.
- “Next Monday” = the Monday after this one. (Unless you live on a linguistic crime scene.)
- Just include the date. Save your colleagues, and yourself, a migraine.
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