Theme Your Days

This one is my favorite—Theme Your Days. Even my daughters will comment to me that’s it’s “Website Wednesday.” My schedule seemed impossible to get a handle on. As an entrepreneur, I could work the hours I wanted to, but that seemed to be most the hours in my day.

Kevin Kruse, author of 15 Secrets of Successful People Know about Time Management, recommends setting aside certain days for certain chores and sticking to it. Updating my website is not one of my favorite chores. It’s time consuming, and once I’m in there, I want to tinker and change things. When I went about theming my days, I blocked off most of Wednesday to work on my website and to learn new things within it. Now if something comes up that I need to add to my website, I paste it in the notes section of my calendar for the following Wednesday, so I don’t forget to do it. On Wednesday morning, I open my calendar and the notes, and I get to work. Because I am not constantly logging in and out of my website, it saves time.

I start my week by going through all my author accounts on Mondays to make sure things are progressing as they should. You may not have recognized the pattern, but I have been blogging on Tuesdays. I save Thursdays for meetings, so I only have to dress up once. Friday is my education day. I have publishing magazines stacked up waiting to teach me what I need to know. I always put them aside because I didn’t have enough time. Now, I have schedule time to read them. That’s the only way I and my publishing company will continue to grow.

To me, there is a sense of order to my week now, and I feel like I’m getting more accomplished by following the theme. I try to anchor my calendar on those few things and work other items in around them. Somehow the guilt seems less as well. For example, if I sat down to read, I would think, “I should be doing xxxx.” Now, I remind myself that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

It’s a great feeling.