It’s been a few months since I started using themes to help me manage all the stuff I need to do. As you probably know, I’m primarily a stay-at-home-grandpa spending most of my days watching Hectic Grandson. While that’s my primary job, I also am trying to build my business. Simultaneously, I’ve been running our household. Not to mention helping my kids wherever I can. To make a long story short (as if I’ve ever done that!), I wear a lot of hats and have a lot of responsibilities. To get things done takes some structure and focus…two things that I’ve often struggled with.
Some time ago I ran across the work of Mike Vardy, the founder of Productivityist.com. One of the concepts that he espouses is that of theming. The simplest way to think about theming is to envision your day with a primary focus. The one overarching concept that is going to be the main focus of your day. That doesn’t mean that you don’t do things outside that focus, but it’s the thing that pulls you back, helping you stay centered and productive.
The idea behind theming is actually pretty simple. Don’t make it out to be more than it is…it’s simply naming the thing that you want to concentrate on for the day.
Mike recommends theming on several levels: Yearly, Monthly, Weekly, and Daily.
At this point, I’ve only really been able to implement daily theming. I’d love to move on to the higher levels, but for now I’m working with what I can control. So, at the beginning of every week, I look ahead and try to figure out what are the most significant things that I need to accomplish. Then I try to batch those activities and projects together in a way that makes sense to me at the time. Because I have a ton of control over my days, I’ve settled into the following themes that should happen during every week:
My Daily Themes
- Creation Day
- Administrative Work
- Learning
- Blogging
- Household Tasks
- Outside Tasks
- Family Day
Creation Day
This is a day that I try to set aside for doing things for my websites. Sometimes this involves writing, sometimes web-coding, occasionally editing of prior work, and often social media engagement. I would love to have large blocks of time where I can just sit and write, but my schedule hasn’t allowed for much of that lately. I’m continually working on that. In fact today I’m sitting at our local library writing this post. It’s a summer-time experiment where Hectic Grandson is spending time with his aunt or uncle while I try to get some focused work done.
Administrative Work
This is the work that needs to be done to ensure our financial information is in order. So I did a lot of work in Quicken yesterday. I entered receipts from the last week. I reconciled our accounts with the bank. I prepped some bills for payment. I scanned some documents that needed to be saved. We even signed all the paperwork for our house refinancing.
But Administrative Work encompasses a whole lot more. I updated our calendar for June. I looked ahead to see if there were any conflicts that needed to be addressed. I helped my youngest daughter figure out what week she could work as a Junior Camp Counselor and then helped her make the call to confirm the dates. I made reservations for an upcoming trip. I reviewed our new home insurance policy. Heck, I even scheduled an oil change for my Wife’s car.
To be honest, I really dislike Administrative Work day. These are the tasks that I used to put off until a crisis hit. Bills would become past due. I’d have to rush to take the car in when the oil light came on. We’d forget something that should’ve been on the calendar and have a mini-disaster on our hands. Receipts would be stacked up and I wouldn’t be able to reconcile the bank accounts without hours of work to get everything in there.
Now that I’ve setup an Administrative Work day, I know that those tasks are coming up, but I prepare myself for this icky day and get it over with. On the other hand, I don’t feel the pull to do the administrative tasks that I’ve scheduled on other days. And most importantly, these sorts of tasks fall through the cracks a lot less.
Learning
My learning days cover several things. If I have webinars to attend, I try to schedule these on my Learning Day. More often than not, if I can’t schedule a webinar on my learning day, I’ll simply watch the replay on the designated learning day. I try to catch up on blogs that I should be reading. I spend some time reading books on this day. If there is a particular topic that I need to learn about, then I schedule it for my learning day. Essentially, I try to put my brain in a mode where I’m receptive to new ideas and then I try to do that throughout the day.
Blogging
This is the day that I dedicate to working on the blog. Unlike the more generic Creation Day, which might include pursuits in any creative area related to my business, Blogging Day focuses on work for the blog itself. In theory, this is the day when I will set aside larger blocks for writing and editing. To be quite honest, this is also the day that I have the most difficulty getting started. If I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to be working on during my blogging day…I lose the day to all sorts of other tasks that have piled up during the week.
Household Tasks
This is another day that isn’t exactly my favorite, but it contains things that need to be done on a regular basis. Not just the weekly things that need to be done, but the stuff that needs to be done less frequently. Like changing the batteries in the smoke detectors. Washing the windows. Swapping storm windows for screens. Or putting up the hoses in the Fall. Some things need to be done weekly, some monthly, some quarterly…you get the idea. By batching these tasks together I’m able to get my mindset right for these sorts of tasks.
In a moment of quiet reflection, I can take the time to think about all the upcoming household tasks that need to be done, and I put them into my task manager under the theme Household Tasks. Then on the day I have themed Household Tasks I bring up that list and start knocking them out. Rather than only attacking the things that are obviously in front of me (like the pile of pots and pans that need washing), I’m prompted to defrost the freezer or change the furnace filter.
Outside Tasks
We live on 14 acres of former horse pasture in the middle of Kansas. We have all sorts of landscaping, as well as tons of grass that needs to be cut, trees that need to be trimmed, and fences that need to be mended. During much of the year, I have to dedicate the better part of at least one day to the larger projects that must be completed around our property. So, at least one day a week you’ll find me kitted out in manual-labor clothing working somewhere on our property.
Family Day
I’ve worked very hard to dedicate one day to doing nothing other than family things. I know that if I don’t actually schedule this day, we’ll all go our separate ways and end up never spending any quality time together. In addition, since so many of our kids aren’t living at home, many of these days also include travel to wherever one of the kids reside. In that past, these days were easy to come by and easy to schedule. Lately, I’ve been battling to squeeze work in around other obligations, and I haven’t kept family time sacred. My implementation of a specific day for family activities is my attempt to do that.
Summary
So that’s a look at the themes that I use for my days as well as what I try to focus on each day. Regardless of the theme, there are tons of other tasks that have to be accomplished every day. Operational stuff like laundry, meals, errands, etc. There’s a never-ending list of things that can draw me away from the daily theme, but whenever I can, I look at the theme for the day and try to ensure that I get some things done that fit the theme. In a future post I’ll write about how I use my task manager and calendar to help me ensure that I stay on track, but for now…you’ve got a general overview.
Have you considered theming your days? If you have, I’d love to hear about the themes that you use and how it works for you. If you haven’t considered it, do you have questions?
