Inbox Zero is Easier When You Theme Your Days

“Day-theming” is a simple concept that goes like this: identify a basic set of related tasks for each day of your week. My framework looks like this:

Monday: Content creation

Tuesday: Program development and marketing

Wednesday/Thursday: Fundraising and friendraising

Friday: Deep work and long-range projects

Having themed days is valuable to me. It puts me at ease, knowing that all of my work will get done. I never have to worry about if I’m spending enough time on a project.

It wasn’t always like this.

I can remember, years ago, worrying all of the time. Was I spending enough time on project Z or project Y? When would I next sit down with project X?

Themed days take the worry out of this.

Themed days also connect with how you manage your email. A good process, as long as your work permits it, would feature 2–3 times during the day when you process your email (as opposed to constantly checking during the day).

As there are typically four actions related to email, delete-do-delegate-defer, your themed days come in handy. Especially in relation to the action of “defer”, themed days and inbox zero go hand in hand.

Here’s a scenario to demonstrate my point.

It’s 3pm and you have 15 minutes set aside to process your email for the last time today. You notice that you have four emails related to the theme that you typically use on Tuesday. Since none of these four emails are urgent, you defer them until next Tuesday. It disappears and then will reappear next week on Tuesday morning.

This process really works well. Of course, you can only defer an email once or else it will become procrastination. But, if you can use this approach on a regular basis, it can become a powerful ally in your productivity system.