Themed Days: A surprisingly powerful way to make time to create
If you’re here, you’ve most likely got big dreams, a big heart, and somehow… never enough time to create the things you want to create.
Whether it’s writing, art, bringing new offerings into the world, or anything else that brings you joy.
Now if you’re a creative soul, traditional time management advice isn’t usually your cup of tea. For good reason, most of it feels shame-y and icky.
However, when used in a curious and compassionate way, I’ve seen the most anti-structure folks find a way forward that works for them and helps them do the things they’ve been trying to do for years.
If you’ve been struggling with never having enough time to create, themed days are here to help you make the most of your day.
Keep reading to learn more.
Why is finding creative time such a challenge?
Bills! Survival Mode! Valuing working/doing over creating! Self-sabotage! Limited capacity! Feeling undeserving of creative time! Etc! Etc! Etc!
There are so many reasons why finding time to create such a challenge, and so many things fighting for our precious time and energy. Know you’re not alone in this.
If you wear tons of different hats, finding a way to collaborate with time is extremely important. And themed days are a surprisingly powerful way to heal what might be keeping you from creating and finally, create.
Who might benefit the most from using themed days?
If you…
Never have enough time to create/make things for any reason. Often because you seem to always do other things.
Struggle with the “time is up” phenomenon (you feel inspired one day and would like to spend more time on something. Yet the schedule you’d made tells you that time is up and you need to move to your next time slot. UGH, the worst!)
Want to be more space + flowy + intuitive with your scheduling. Click here to read about why intuition is so important when it comes to your schedule.
Want to make easier or faster progress on a project you care about.
Find yourself multi-tasking or getting distracted more than you’d like to.
Struggling with being consistent and/or self-disciplined.
Resonate with any of these? Then themed days might be a good next thing to experiment with!
What are themed days?
As defined by Leonard Alexandru, themed days are about “Having each day of the week (or the work-week) dedicated to a certain topic or project.”
Blaz Kos shares, “Themed days are strategically planned days in your calendar which are completely dedicated to one single thing.”
I wanted to share both of those definitions as they might be helpful for your understanding. However, I’m a rebellious, creative, spiritual soul language is really important to me. How things are said makes a huge difference in being able to buy into and effectively use tools and strategies.
That being said, I would define themed days as, “Regular scared containers of time dedicated to deeply important things.”
Is language important to you too? Do you have a different definition? I’d love to hear it in the comments below.
How to create themed days that feel good to you
Identify the things that are deeply important to you (see definition of themed days above).
Open your calendar or the thing you use to visualize your time. See what time you have or can make available.*
If you don’t have something, pick someplace you’re going to use to visualize your time (I use my google calendar for everything!)
Pick a set amount of time (half-day, day, etc.) that you can turn into a sacred container.
Pair the important things with the sacred container, and that’s your theme!
After you’ve set up a themed day, you can get more granular and turn that time into smaller blocks of time connected to specific things you’d like to do.
Ask yourself what you need to have in place or do to commit to your sacred container.
This can range from communicating boundaries with others, changing your availability in your scheduling system, or sitting with it until the theme feels right to you.
These steps might feel simple, but they are profound when integrated. When themed days are properly set up, following them feels natural and 10x easier to do.
*A solid foundation for themed days is knowing your capacity, availability, and responsibilities and having a home for them. Again, I use a weekly schedule template in my google calendar to holistically capture all of this.
How I’ve historically used themed days in my life
When I was starting out with my business, I was also an engineer working 5 days a week. I themed out 3 hours each day of the week for all of the things I needed to do to grow my business.
Monday’s were CEO days (planning, reviewing, mindset, strategy).
Tuesdays were building days (develop offerings).
Wednesdays were writing content days.
Thursdays were grow days (networking, talking to people, etc.)
Fridays were bonus days to do anything I didn’t get to.
Now, my themed days have simplified a bit and have gotten more intuitive:
Monday’s are to create whatever I want to create.
Tuesday - Thursday are call-focused days (clients, networking, podcasting, etc.)
The rest of my time is off/unscheduled.
Watch out for these common themed day pitfalls
1. Automatically assuming themed days won’t work for you.
Of course, never try to force things on you if they don’t feel right. However, when we immediately think about why something won’t work for us, we won’t see what parts might work for us. Ultimately this keeps up stuck.
2. Not experimenting with your themes until you find what feels good.
Themes (aka what’s most important to us) are always evolving and changing. Try not to expect them to perfectly work at first, or forever.
3. Not being flexible in real-time.
Things come up in life and they change things. This is expected, and it doesn’t mean you or your themed days suck. You are completely in control of your themes, sacred containers, and time.
4. Overdoing it.
It can be really easy to overdo planning in an attempt to feel safe and keep uncertainty at bay. If you create many different themed days before integrating even one, it will most likely feel overwhelming and you’ll want to scrap it all.
Give yourself permission to get creative with time strategies!
Themed days are one of those things that can be used rigidly, ineffectively, and shame-y. They can also be used in a powerful, creative, and spiritual way.
When themed days are used with curiosity and compassion, I’ve seen even the most anti-structure folks find a way forward that works for them and helps them do the things they’ve been trying to do for years. You can too!
