Order by day_of_week in MySQL

This looks messy but still works and seems more generic:

select day, 
case day
  when 'monday' then 1
  when 'tuesday' then 2
  when 'wednesday' then 3
  when 'thursday' then 4
  when 'friday' then 5
  when 'saturday' then 6
  when 'sunday' then 7
end as day_nr from test order by day_nr;

Using if is even more generic and messier:

select id, day, 
if(day = 'monday',1,
  if(day = 'tuesday',2,
    if(day = 'wednesday',3,
      if(day = 'thursday',4,
        if(day = 'friday',5,
          if(day = 'saturday',6,7)
        )
      )
    )
  )
) as day_nr from test order by day_nr;

You can also hide the details of conversion from name to int in stored procedure.