Planning Your Week
I’m going to start with some honesty here…this is a work in progress for me. I think I have finally adopted a system that uses the right tools for me. A couple of tweaks will likely happen in the future, but for now, these tools work. The way I plan is not really tool dependant, but I will be adjusting it to make use of the features and functions of the tools I use as well as working out which tool best does each part, with no duplication…unless it is helpful.
FYI — I’m writing the draft of this in a hotel. I’m on my bluetooth keyboard, which is connected to my Galaxy Tab A which in turn is screen mirroring on a massive hotel TV. I’m not gonna lie — it’s a writing experience like no other.
Anyway — I will get to the details of my planning method in a future post but right now, I want to stress the need for a plan and the overview of creating it.
A planning analogy
There is a great moment in Return of the Jedi where we see Han Solo, very deliberately seeking a target, taking aim and firing. It’s on the forest moon of Endor and it’s a precision shot. The Stormtroopers seem intent on firing indiscriminately. And we all know how accurate Stormtroopers can be! Or how in Jaws, Brody doesn’t shoot the shark but the gas tank in its mouth. The idea I am getting at is that planning ahead is all about strategy and tactics and then precision execution. It’s about thinking ahead and making effective choices, in advance, about how best to steward your time. It’s involves thinking about what is important, what’s possible (both in the sense of limitations and opportunities), what’s urgent and what might divert, distract or derail you.
If we plan well, we really can steward our time well and get better at doing so.
Why it’s needed
I think I have probably made the point of why it is helpful already but I am not sure I have truly shown that it is necessary. In my work, I am often tempted to feel like ‘everyone wants a piece of me’. This is likely true for many of us. What I mean is, there is always new stuff coming in from people who have no idea what your job is in all it’s fullness and no idea what is currently on your plate. It is also coming in from people who are utterly convinced that whatever it is, that’s the most important thing right now. So how does having a plan help us with all this?
I’m a Christian, and that means that ultimately I am trying to serve people and benefit them. This means that to a degree, I want to help people with whatever it is they need me for. Often, this will be the right thing to do but not always. I used to feel like the main way I served my boss was by dealing with all the stuff he knew nothing about so it never became his problem, rather than than dealing with the many things that were his particular concern that day. This doesn’t mean I didn’t help with those things, but I knew that if I only did that, ultimately he would be far worse off as other things would slip. I also would employ the ‘give a man a fish/teach a man to fish’ mentality with many of the people who needed help with something. Invest a little time now to save time in the long run as well as benefit them for the long term.
But how do you know? How do you know if you physically have the time? How do you know if the request is more important than other things you need to do? You have a plan. You have looked out into the trees of Endor, considered your target and you’ve taken aim. And you fire. You’ve looked at everything and decide that the best way to deal with the shark is to shoot a gas canister rather than the shark. Circumstances may mean that another target you didn’t know about before is a better one or that you can’t actually hit the targets you originally aimed at. That’s ok — we always need to be flexible with any plans we have. But if we don’t have a plan we will pick our targets based on what we see first and what shouts the loudest or looks the scariest rather than what is necessarily best. It’s called being ineffective. How can we be effective? We make a well considered plan. It really is well worth the time.
An overview of my process
So here is an overview of what I do each week. I’ve alternated between doing this first thing on a Monday, last thing on a Friday and where I am at now, first thing on a Friday. It means Friday afternoons can be used for a bit of mopping up and tidying up of things not done. It takes between 45 minutes and 1 1/2 hours depending on how in depth I go.
1. Processing all my inputs
This is absolutely key. I process any physical items in my in-tray, review the last week’s pages in my notebook and make a note in an appropriate digital place of anything that will need my attention in the future. I then go through all my digital inputs. E-mail inbox, text messages, WhatsApp etc. I go through everything from the past week and make sure that in either my task manager, notes app or calendar, anything relevant is captured.
Then I process my task manager inbox and my notes app inbox. At the moment, I’m not concerned about the detail of when I will do something, just putting everything in the right place. When all my inboxes are dealt with, I know that in the next 2 parts I have a fairly comprehensive list of everything I need to know about that I have the info for. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good most of the time.
2. Reviewing all my ‘stuff’
Then I review my ‘stuff’. This is mainly my calendar, projects and tasks. I check the last week on my calendar to see if anything there has any actions that I need to follow up on. I check the next 3 weeks ahead to see if anything coming up needs my attention or preperation and I scrutinise the week ahead to see what is on my agenda so I know roughly how much time I have each day to do other work.
Then I go through my active projects. A quick check on the status. Any tasks I’ve completed but not ticked off? Any tasks no longer relevant? Any new tasks needed? Anything I am waiting on? Any projects complete? Any projects that need to be started?
By the end of this step, the aim is that I have a fairly good grasp of where everything is at.
3. Choosing what’s best
Now I make decisions. I choose which projects to work on, I am for 4–6 a week. I choose which tasks from my areas of focus are most important and most pressing. Basically, where will I be most effective this week?
I tend to schedule project work, at least one project per day as focus time. This means I am to work with minimal distractions. Then tasks from areas of focus or other things get scheduled in my planning calendar. This isn’t visible all the time and serves as rough guide to how I want to use my time. It is the one part of my calendar that may not get done and is just my aim. I allocate tasks from projects and areas of focus to the relevant days that week — I give this a little bit of thought and try to batch similar tasks together to mean I am operating in the same frame of mind all the time. Then I make a plan….
4. Making a plan
There are really two steps here and then a quick check up at the end. I schedule the projects for the days coming up on my calendar and in my task manager. I schedule tasks from that project at the same time in my task manager. I then do the same for the areas of focus and the tasks associated from each area. Now I have a plan for the week. Then I select 2–3 objectives for each day. My main priorities, my ‘must get done’ tasks for each day. I flag them in my task manager.
A quick check is all that’s left. I check that no day is overloaded or underloaded (not a frequent occurrence!), that I haven’t vastly mis-estimated the amount of time I need for something and that there are around 70 or so tasks for the week. This number will vary based on the type of work you do and what other things are happening that week. For me, I have a lot of quick tasks so the number is pretty high.
And there you have it, a planned week. Don’t beat yourself up when it all goes wrong. Just thank God that you followed His plan and not your own and have the humility to accept that your plan wasn’t quite right this time. Try again next week.
