Do you ever get to the start of your day and not know where to begin? There’s often so much to do that it’s overwhelming to know exactly where to start. You choose your first to-do willy-nilly and end up hopping from task to task all day long, but your mind ends up spinning by the end of the day because you’ve jumped around to so many different things. It might leave you feeling quite defeated. You were busy all day but didn’t necessarily accomplish much.
Whether your projects at work vary quite a bit or you have a hodge-podge of chores to do around the house, theming your days may help you feel more in control of your day. You’ll add consistency to the day, which makes things much more efficient than bouncing back and forth between completely unrelated tasks. Themed days also take out the guesswork and minimize decision fatigue, because you know exactly what you need to tackle depending on the day of the week.
In today’s post, we’re going to walk through a few quick tips to implement themed days in your own life. If you don’t like the idea of planning the exact time you’ll do every single task, themes are a good way to add some structure to your week without going crazy and scheduling every minute of every day.
This post is part of the series “From Overwhelmed to Organized: Making Time For All The Stuff.” We’re talking smart time management strategies all month long! All of the blog posts in the series will be added to the bottom of this post as they are published.
How To Theme Your Days
Determine Your Themes
Your first task is to establish the themes needed in your week. I work full time, so I like to theme my time at work as well as my time at home in the evenings. Your themes will vary depending on your situation, so think through the type of tasks you do on a regular basis and brainstorm themes.
Some examples of my themes are:
- Home improvement & maintenance
- Meal planning/prep
- Writing and content creation
- Errands/grocery shopping
- Emails and administrative tasks
- Business planning/strategy
- Bill paying/budgeting/paperwork
Choose the themes you’d like to incorporate into your week. You’ll ideally want to have five main themes, one for each weekday, but you could have more or less if you’d like.
Schedule Your Themes
Now that you have determined your themes, it’s time to decide which day to assign them to. You’ll give each day of your week, or workweek, a theme. For example, my Monday nights may be meal planning/prep time so I’m ready for the week ahead, Tuesday nights could be bill paying/budgeting time, and so forth. You can do the same for your word day if you need help structuring what projects to do when.
I like to add these themes to my Google Calendar. You could also write them into your planner, simply list them on a Post-It note, or color-code a paper calendar. Whatever will help you keep track of your themes!
Follow Your Themes
Now it’s as simple as putting your themes into practice during the week. Theming your days will only help you become more efficient and productive if you actually do the work. By theming your days, you will no longer wake up asking yourself, “What should I work on today?” Following themes also helps prevent decision fatigue. Rather than jumping between all sorts of unrelated tasks during the day, you will stay more focused by working on similar tasks.
Theme your days and you will be able to concentrate on many tasks and projects during your week in an organized, focused way. I encourage you to pack as many tasks into those themes as you can. Even if you currently do things daily or every couple days, work toward doing as much as you can only once per week.
For example, I schedule a ton of social media posts for this blog, my job, and my husband’s business. Rather than schedule a couple posts every day, I focus on social media one day of the week so I can do it in one sitting and not think about it again that week. Once I get into the zone, I can finish that task fairly quickly as opposed to sitting down at my computer for a few minutes a day and trying to get into scheduling posts.
Of course, there will still be some tasks you need to complete daily, which is perfectly fine. As for the unexpected, urgent tasks that pop up? Get those out of the way early in your day or during a break. That way you can use the remainder of your work time to focus on the tasks that correspond with the theme of your day.
Ready to theme your days? Do you already do so? Let me know in the comments below!
If this system to theme your days sounds interesting but you’d like a little more guidance, I encourage you to enroll in my free course, Crush Your Week. The course will teach you how to design an intentional weekly routine in just five days, and it goes much more in depth into how to theme your days.
More From The “Overwhelmed To Organized: Making Time For All The Stuff” Series
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Ready to crush your week?
If you are ready to be more intentional with your time, than you do not want to miss out on my eBook, Crush Your Week: The Complete Guide To Designing An Intentional Weekly Routine. It includes actionable strategies and worksheets to guide you through the entire routine creation process.
This book is designed to help you find time for all of your commitments and responsibilities as well as your big goals. Consider it an action guide rather than your average book. You will come away with a tangible routine you can put into practice immediately.
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Wishing you a productive week,
