When I decided to start a blog, the name Hectic-Dad was really easy to come by. At the time, all eight kids were living at home and were involved in sports year-round. We owned a handful of businesses and life was a mess. The only other adjective I considered was Chaotic, but that seemed too negative. So Hectic-Dad was born. 

One of the goals for the blog was for me to get my act together and share with folks how to do that. I was the trailblazer, traversing the rough terrain and finding an easier, safer path for those who followed. Everybody could learn from my mistakes and my successes. In my own little way, I was striving to make the world a better place. 

Who knew, when I started, that it would still be this Hectic so many years later? 

But I have learned a lot along the way and I’m still doing what I can to share those nuggets of wisdom. 

One of the lessons I have to keep learning is there simply isn’t time to do everything. There are always more tasks and projects than I will every be able to complete. While they beg at me to address them, I simply can’t do it all. That means things fall through the cracks…and the amount of guilt I feel when I drop the ball is enormous. I know I need to get over it, but I’m not sure I ever will. 

Part of the driving force behind my desire to achieve productivity is the inclination to get more done. Not in a chicken-with-its-head-cut-off manner, rather, I want to get as much done as is reasonable while not feeling exhausted and guilty all the time.

That’s not an easy task! 

Over the years, I’ve discovered taking something of an assembly line approach to my tasks works well for me. Rather than trying to do things from every Area of Focus throughout every day, I’ve discovered having a primary focus for each day is much more efficient. For years I tried to figure out how to address this. I experimented with all sorts of systems. I created lists upon lists. I transferred tasks from list to list, trying to get myself organized. 

Then I stumbled upon the work of Mike Vardy at Productivityist. 

He introduced me to a concept I’d never thought of before, namely Daily Theming. The idea is you set out an overarching idea for what you’re going to accomplish on a particular day. He tends to use some froofy terminology for this themes (that’s a technical term, btw LOL) like Watching, whereas I’m a bit more practical. He’s also a stickler for having the same seven themes repeat over the course of a week. In contrast, I look at my themes on a quarterly basis and rotate through a set of 13 daily themes. Because I’m a total nerd, I also keep track of the number of times I’ve used a theme and review that at the end of the year. Over time, I’ve added a couple, and I’ve retired seven. The themes I currently use are: 

My Daily Themes

• Administrative Work
• Creation Day
• Family Day
• Household Tasks
• Marketing
• Outside Tasks
• Recharge
• Research
• Review & Planning
• Sharpen the Saw
• Travel
• Writing & Editing
• Unthemed

As you can see, I cover all the bases, including themes from all the Areas of Focus. Sometimes a theme will work for more than one area…for instance, Administrative Work can include tasks for the Business, Financial, or Household AOFs. As I’m planning out my week, one of the first things I do is assign daily themes to the days. So this week, I’ve got the following setup: 

Day	Theme
Monday	Creation Day
Tuesday	Creation Day
Wednesday	Administrative Work
Thursday	Household Tasks
Friday	Creation Day
Saturday	Research
Sunday	Research

My Creation Day covers a lot of ground, so I often qualify the daily theme with something that will make it clear what I planned to work on that day. On Monday and Tuesday I decided I was going to spend a lot of time editing blog posts, since I have a lot of raw posts in the funnel. The first part of Monday was actually spent organizing all the raw posts into groups so editing would be easier and I could decide when the various posts were actually going to go up on the blog. Having a structure like that helps me battle my laziness and the confusion that results when I have too many options. 

Wednesday is going to be a day to get all our financial transactions from last month settled and into Quicken (the financial tracking software I use) as well as getting a start (finally) on our tax return for 2018. I had hoped to have our taxes done by the end of last month, but I’m still waiting on some forms to come in…so I procrastinated. I even created a reminder on Wednesday that popped up midday asking whether I’d started working on taxes yet. You see, I’m even good at putting myself on guilt trips! 

We’re working through a major house project in the kitchen this month, so I’ll focus there on Thursday. Essentially we’re rearranging everything we have in the kitchen to make it more useful. Actually, I should be more specific and say I’m rearranging everything in there so I’m more efficient. Honestly, I’m the one who does 95% of our cooking, and having the kitchen setup so it works for me will help immensely. I don’t think anybody else in the Hectic Family really cares!

This week I’m specifically addressing our pantry, refrigerator, freezer, and island. I’ve got sub-projects setup for each one, and a list of tasks to accomplish for each of those areas. Over the years, I’ve learned I need to be pretty specific about what I’m going to work on, especially in a room like the kitchen. Without the discrete list, I’ll easily find myself down a rabbit hole and waste the whole day doing something that’s not going to move the project forward. 

Friday I’ll be back wrapping up the work on the blog that didn’t get done on Monday and Tuesday. 

On Saturday, my daughter has a volleyball tournament. Usually this day would be themed Family Day and I would spend a load of time with her, enjoying our time together. But the schedule for the tournament is such that she’ll either be playing or reffing throughout most of the day. When she’s playing I’ll be on the sidelines, taking hundreds of photos (like I always do) and cheering until my voice goes out. But during the down-time, I’m going to work on some research, especially reading from two books I’ve been working through. I know if I set out the reading and have some goals as to what I’ll accomplish, I’ll make good use of the time when she’s busy and I would otherwise just be sitting around, scrolling through social media. 

Because the research is going to drive some things over the next two weeks, I decided to also theme Sunday a Research day. That will allow me to leverage the time spent on Saturday and hit the ground running on Monday. 

While the daily themes represent the main focus for the day, that doesn’t mean I’m not doing other things on that day. For instance, on Monday and Tuesday, I know my creative energy will only last so long. So I’ve outlined some other tasks that will be on my Todo List. Specifically, I did a ton of laundry the prior weekend, but as I always do…I didn’t fold the clothes. I did sort them into who they belonged to, and in a couple of cases into logical groupings (t-shirts, socks/underwear, things to hang, etc.). But I didn’t actually process the clothes so they could be put away.

When my energy flags on Monday I’ll attack the laundry. By mixing in an entirely different task from my main thematic tasks for the day, I’ll get a burst of energy and will be able to go back and do some more blog editing after folding those clothes. 

The same goes for Administrative Day. I’ve outlined some errands I need to be run so I’m not tied to the computer entering financial and tax data all day. Not only would that be boring, but spending too much time doing that sort of thing will dry me crazy. So I’ve mixed in some things to give my brain a break. 

The idea is to setup a system whereby you’re focusing on a single category of tasks. The goal is to get into the zone where your ability to concentrate on the tasks at hand is enhanced. By approaching the things you’re working on in this assembly line manner, you can get a lot more accomplished. 

The added benefit is that things don’t fall through the cracks. 

For instance, let’s say I realize the floor needs to be scrubbed in the pantry…and the idea comes to me on Monday. Well, that’s Creation Day, so I can’t get out the bucket and soap and stick to my theme. So what should I do with that task when it occurs to me? First off, record it in my task manager (Todoist) and it into the Household area of focus. Then I further add it to the Pantry Reclaim project. And finally, I know that the Pantry Reclaim project is scheduled for the next Household Tasks day, which happens to be Thursday. So now I’m confident the task I just captured won’t fall through the cracks. It’ll come to me on Thursday, when I’m working on other household tasks. 

It’s a win-win, I can freely capture tasks as they come to mind and be certain I’ll get reminded to do them with other similar tasks. 

Have you considered daily theming before or is this a new concept to you? I’d love to hear what you do to organize your days, whether you use daily theming or some other method.