How To Plan a Productive Week and Stay Consistent
Take back control of your week by eliminating overwhelm, boosting productivity and managing your time more efficiently.
The secret?
Theming your days!
Here’s the exact process I used to organise my weekly schedule, allowing me to have a more productive week and stay consistent.
I know I’ve been talking about my unproductive rut a lot lately.
But I believe that when things don’t go according to plan or when we are faced with difficult challenges, we find more clarity.
Clarity in what we’re doing and where we’re going.
And I truly feel that I learnt a lot from taking a step back and doing nothing.
Mid-rut I discovered ‘Eliminate Negative Thinking’ by Derick Howell.
This book showed me how to control my negative thoughts and stop overthinking.
It also introduced me to some long-term solutions for overcoming negativity that I had never even considered before. Like being more mindful with how I use ‘should’ statements and creating a daily ‘worry period’.
My productivity rut also allowed me to acknowledge and accept my emotions and focus on my needs first.
I was able to give myself the time and space I needed to heal.
This mental block also made me realise that it’s completely normal and ok to be unproductive.
Because we physically can’t be productive all the time.
With this change in perspective, I was able to truly reflect on how I spend my time during the week. Asking myself, what could I be doing to help me feel more motivated? And how can I manage my time better?
The answer…
A more detailed and consistent weekly schedule where I theme my days!
“Failing to plan, is planning to fail”
I’ve always been a planner.
Ever since I was a teenager I always used to plan my days using an annual wall calendar. (You know the ones we used to buy in the 90s that had pictures of our favourite boy band on it).
Before going travelling around the world, I so carefully planned out where I was going and what I would be doing, eating and seeing.
The thought of not having a plan literally filled me with uncertainty and anxiety.
If I’m going out somewhere, I need to know at least the day before so I can plan around it otherwise I panic.
So, yes I love to plan.
But somewhere during lockdown 1.0, I stopped planning.
I mean could you blame me? There was really nothing to plan for.
I bought a brand new hourly planner to try and inspire me to plan a productive week but after time-blocking for a few weeks, I soon realised I wasn’t sticking to it.
It soon became clear that my mood was dictating what I did that day and I just went with the flow.
And this worked well for me for a while.
But slowly the novelty of going with the flow started to wear off.
My days started to lack purpose and I felt lost.
I found that I was giving myself random tasks to help fill up my day so I didn’t feel guilty for not doing a lot.
And I would switch from one task to the next because I got bored easily.
Some days I would just sit helplessly in front of my laptop procrastinating because I hadn’t planned what to get on with.
My time wasn’t being managed efficiently enough and I lacked consistency.
This ultimately led to me feeling uninspired, unproductive and unmotivated.
I was stuck in a constant cycle of self-doubt asking myself, “am I actually capable of building a successful business?”
All it took was a plan
At some point during my unproductive rut, John said to me, “why don’t you do your blog and newsletter at the end of the week? It’s something you enjoy so you know you’ll do it even on a Friday when you lack energy. And keep the beginning of your week free for clients when you have the most energy.”
My mind was blown.
I had never even considered changing the day I wrote my blog post to encourage productivity.
Because I was in the habit of doing it at the beginning of the week.
So this made me think.
If I keep Friday free to write my blog and newsletter how can I organise the other days to take advantage of my higher energy?
And then I had a revelation.
It was time to theme my days!
I had seen this trend on Social Media quite a bit but I never actually thought about doing it myself because it just seemed way too restricting.
But boy was I wrong!
Allocating specific tasks to certain days, and keeping it the same each week, has taken the pressure off having to plan each day.
I no longer feel overwhelmed with what I have to do as my workload is spread evenly across the week.
I also no longer doubt my worthiness or compare my productivity to others because I know that my schedule is working for me.
My week finally feels productive!
No switching between tasks and wasting time refocusing.
I am managing my time efficiently and there is wiggle room too to be flexible.
There’s no guilt in the evenings as I know I’ve done everything that I set out to do that day.
And I can truly relax and enjoy my weekends without feeling guilty or restless, knowing that all I need to do is a bit of content creation and life admin.
What my productive week looks like:
Monday
Monday is admin day.
It’s the day I use to catch up on anything I didn’t complete the week before, promote my blog post and prepare for the coming week.
I also now use Monday to ease me into the week and help switch my mind from weekend mode to work mode.
Tuesday — Thursday
Mid-week are for discovery calls in the morning and client work in the afternoon.
Friday
Friday is for writing my blog post which I set to auto-publish on Monday at 9 am.
I also prepare my newsletter for the following Wednesday.
Saturday
I completely switch off from my business on Saturday and have a rest day.
This is also the day I’ve dedicated to doing life admin.
Sunday
And lastly, Sunday is content creation day!
I find creating content incredibly relaxing and chilled so Sunday is the perfect day for it.
It no longer disrupts my weekly flow and it doesn’t take me very long at all.
I have also split each day into sub-categories for engagement, stories and content.
This allows me to know how much engagement to do each day, what I need to film for my Instagram stories, and what content needs posting.
I’ve also documented everything in Notion so I can keep track and add notes, ideas, and tasks, etc.
6 Steps to plan a productive week and stay consistent
So, if you want to manage your time more efficiently, boost productivity and motivation I suggest theming your days rather than just going with the flow.
This will allow you to have a more productive week and stay consistent.
Here’s the exact process I used to organise my weekly schedule.
Step 1 — Brain dump
First things first, write down everything you do in a week. Get it all down on paper and out of your head so you can visually see everything.
It’s way easier this way than going straight onto the laptop.
Step 2 — Organise
Once you’ve written down all the tasks you repeat each week, group your tasks by relevancy.
For example, group all of your business tasks together and separate them from client tasks. Put content creation tasks in the same group too.
This will then make it easier for you to allocate a group of tasks to one day.
Step 3 — Allocate
I mentioned earlier that my energy was higher at the beginning of the week rather than at the end.
But you might be different.
Look at your groups. Identify which one would take the longest or be the hardest to complete. Put these groups on the days where your energy is at its highest or when you feel the most productive.
And put your group of easy tasks on the day where your energy is at its lowest.
By organising your tasks in this way you are more likely to stay consistent.
You can even label each day as admin day, CEO day, client day, etc.
Step 4 — Document
Transfer everything you have written down in a management app like Notion, Trello or Asana.
It’s up to you how you do this but I’ve used a table to help keep everything neat and tidy. Notion also allows you to add lots of different features to pages so I have taken advantage of this and broken down each day further.
For example, I have used a calendar in my ‘Instagram Stories’ section so I can keep track of which topics I am talking about each week.
Step 5 — Test it out
Before you fully commit to your new schedule, it’s important to see if it works.
Test out your new productive week for at least 30 days to see if it suits you.
Make a note of how this new routine is making you feel. Do you feel more productive? Is it making you more motivated? Are you staying more consistent?
If you’re not happy, change things. Move around your days.
It’s all about trial and error as in the end you’ll have a productive weekly schedule that works best for you.
And you’ll be more consistent!
Step 6 — Be flexible
Earlier on, I mentioned that the reason why I kept putting off theming my days was the fact that it seemed quite restricting
If you know me, you’ll know that I hate being restricted by anything.
I don’t even wear bracelets or rings anymore (bar my engagement ring) because I find them way too binding.
Anyway, my point is, it’s entirely up to you with how you run your week.
If it’s not working for you then change it up.
Move around the days each week to give you a bit of variation.
If you have plans don’t be afraid of switching your days around.
The key is to always be flexible. Be mindful of your mood, cycle and other lifestyle changes and adapt your schedule accordingly.
Before I go…
Like with all my tips, please be mindful when trying them out as what works for me might not necessarily work for you.
Use them as a guide until you are happy with the outcome.
And never beat yourself up if things don’t go according to plan.
Until next week,
♡ Thalia xx
