Feel overwhelmed by work? Try giving your days a theme

by | Sep 11, 2017 | Focus

Takeaway: Try theming your days if you have trouble juggling competing priorities or want to introduce more structure to your work. You can do this by matching priorities with full and half-day blocks when planning your week.

Estimated Reading Time: 55s.

Consider theming your days when going through a period when you’re juggling a lot. Here’s how to do that: when planning your week, block full days and half days to work on just one priority. (After you’ve narrowed down your work priorities, of course.)

I’m using this tactic right now with a lot of success. Here’s what this week looks like:

  • Monday: Speaking (creating and giving talks);
  • Tuesday: Writing (for ALOP, and for my second book);
  • Wednesday: Writing;
  • Thursday: Speaking;
  • Friday: Marketing stuff.

This tactic works best when you have a lot of autonomy and flexibility in determining your days—but those of us who have many competing priorities often also have more control over how we spend our time.

Theming your days can work wonders if you’re self-employed. One of the more difficult parts about working for yourself, or in a job where you have more autonomy, is that this lack of structure can lead to greater procrastination, more time wasted, and less productive days overall.

That’s where themed days come in—they add that structure to your work. For me, doing so has worked wonders.

Written by Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey has written hundreds of articles on the subject of productivity and is the author of three books: How to Calm Your Mind, Hyperfocus, and The Productivity Project. His books have been published in more than 40 languages. Chris writes about productivity on this site and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive without hating the process.

Pin It on Pinterest