Most people fail at planning their week because they have too much freedom and not enough constraints.
I recently wrote about how I have split my weeks into maker and manager time. But between maker and manager, I also have to juggle different roles in my work - and I suspect most of us are the same. Whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur, there are always different types of work you can be doing on any given day.
So how do you choose what you should be doing on any given day? I use daily themes.
My official title is Head of Digital Brand (fancy, I know). Which makes me responsible for paid and organic marketing. As well as that I'm a head coach and program designer for our coaching program. Which means the tasks on my list each week are vast and varied.
My daily themes provide me with bumper lanes that stop decision fatigue setting in and provides momentum in my week that I rarely used to have.
Here's what a week in my diary looks like:
Mondays - Team & Processes
Tuesdays - Paid Marketing
Wednesdays - Coaching
Thursdays - Organic Marketing & Content
Fridays - Education and Programming
I'm no longer using up my limited decision capacity to decide when something should be done. The decision is made and the task is scheduled. And I have the added benefit of being able to focus on one role for a whole day, rather than switching around.
Sure, some weeks different things happen and I have to shift things around. But on the whole, this has made planning my weeks a breeze and something I look forward to because it's EASY and not HARD.