Much like another student for this class, I came in with the idea of 'too much free time/not enough structure.' I will be officially unemployed starting next Tuesday, so I will have a whole lot of unstructured time coming up. This would be great, except I have some longer term goals to work towards and not a lot of willpower to make myself do things if I don't have a plan. 

Enter: The Plan.

Theming my days doesn't make a whole lot of sense (yet, I'll get back to that), but Horizontal Theming sure does! Turns out this is pretty much what I've been doing for ages, only now with more awareness of how I'm doing it. I've posted below my "sample" of next week. Theming includes:

"$$!" where I do things that most directly affect income
"BRAIN" where I study a few different subjects- Math with Khan Academy, Portuguese & French with DuoLingo, and most importantly ACTION, my personal trainer certification materials
"CARE" which includes physical, mental, and emotional care- morning routines, workouts, creativity, and family/friends time.

The idea is that (for the most part) I will start my day with some pleasant warm-up stuff, jump right into the task-oriented stuff that might otherwise stress me out, spend the middle part of my day exercising my brain in a more learning-oriented capacity, then finish up the day with loads of self-care. Friday is a bit of a grab-bag, in an attempt to see how working more feels that day.

The actual time stamps can essentially be ignored, and each item has a buffer to allow for how long something actually takes me, time to get up and walk around, avoiding burnout, etc. Over time, the days might theme more towards 'math days' and 'language days', and I hope to see more green hours in a day. The flexibility of having, simply, mornings GREEN, midday PINK, and early morning/evening BLUE will allow me to figure out where to put any 'extra' stuff that comes up- "Adulting" things (balancing the budget, making important phone calls) will go in the morning, and other learning/researching things (like other SkillShare courses) would go in the midday pink area.

I'm hoping to eventually have my own independent Personal Trainer gig, and at that point I think I'll be able to incorporate more of a daily theme approach. In the meantime, I'll start out by trying the above for next week and I'll try to check back afterwards. I tend to find digital calendars a little clunky, so I'll probably have all of this mapped out on a whiteboard next to my desk, and a copy in my bullet journal for on-the-go referencing if needed.