Introduction

I’ve always been a short-term planner.

Planning gave me security: it made sure I covered all my bases, with deadlines, events, and all the external goals I wanted to reach. This was especially necessary during my university days. Whenever I started a new semester, I’d add all the tasks I could extrapolate from the syllabus onto a master list, then drop them into my calendar every week, scheduling them in between classes and clubs.

It was at this time where time-blocking became a powerful tool to maintain some perceived control over my time. Even if I couldn’t control what actually happened in the coming days, I could at least control my intentions with that time. And it was in university where I first realized how much of my day-to-day life operated around the weekly unit:

• Clubs are often on a weekly basis, or every other week.
• The standard work days are Mondays to Fridays every week.
• University courses often followed a weekly timetable.
• Bullet journal templates and planners sometimes focused on the week.
• Weekly goal-setting is harnessed by systems such as the 12 Week Year, or the sprint methodology.

To me, a week was the perfect balance.

It was short enough to plan ahead. The bigger your time-frame is, the less you can predict what will happen during that time. While you never know what will happen in the future, 7 days is going to be much more manageable (compared to longer time-frames) if your plans end up changing.

It was also long enough to make progress—a small amount of progress that won’t be observable until the long run, maybe, but progress nonetheless. 500 words per day becomes 3,500 words in a week: if we count 250 words as a page, that’s 14 pages ahead of where you were on day one!

Finally, one of the key benefits of the weekly unit is its inherent deadline; that it has an end and a beginning. Have something you want or need to finish soon? Set it to be done within a week. Was this week stressful? You can start anew next week. Just like any unit of time, it is iterative: it comes and goes.

That’s when it came to me: why not centre my own systems and processes around this weekly unit?

Is Weekly Planning For You?

Planning by the week might be for you if:

• Your schedules are relatively consistent and predictable from week to week.
• You strive on structure, routine, and predictability.
• You don’t get bored doing similar things each week.
• Habits and repeated actions work well for you, and you are internally motivated by the actions of progressing, not just the end result.

Whereas the following may be factors where this might not be for you:

• You don’t have a set schedule, or can’t set your own schedule, due to factors that may be out of your control.
• You relish in flexibility and don’t want to be boxed into a specific pattern.
• You like to switch things up, as you become bored if you do routine tasks.
• You lose track of time or what day of the week it is.
• You don’t have the habit of checking your calendar or planner often, and thus forget what you’ve got scheduled.
• You don’t like planning ahead for longer than the current day, or appreciate the focus that daily planning (alone) offers.
• You often don’t know what you’re going to be working on each week, and thus find it hard to plan something in advance.
• A week simply isn’t enough time to get everything done—you need a longer time-frame to sort out all your deadlines.
• Most of your commitments aren’t centred around the weekly unit.
• Maybe planning just isn’t for you—you’d rather stay in the moment (or you have no choice but to do so).

Note that for a lot of us, we can be both of these people or a combination thereof, depending on the specific situation. I love to have structure and predictability, but even I get bored of doing similar things over and over again, and try to find ways to introduce variety or make it more fun.

Routines for Repeatability

Routines and habits are key to introducing more discipline into your schedule. With my own system, I’ve created, deleted, and modified so many routines over the years to find ones that stick. Tweaks are a good thing in moderation: don’t be afraid of changing things to suit you better.

My main routines include the following:

1. Morning routine, from 7-8AM, with includes a glass of water, a step-by-step skincare and oral hygiene routine, and a quick breakfast. (I need to work on the breakfast more: too often I get stuck with buttered toast or oatmeal and don’t expand my palate—it gets boring real quick.)
2. Daily journal entries around 10PM each day, then shutting off my computer right after it.
3. Weekend planning on Friday nights, and weekday planning for the next week on Sunday nights. (Sometimes, I find myself not following this as I like to tweak my calendar every time something falls through… hahaha)
4. Chores every Sunday morning, accompanied by a good podcast.

Another thing you could try is themed days. Instead of setting a strict routine for certain times and days, you could set a theme for each (or some) days of the week. Sundays could be for chores. Saturdays might be for socializing, and Tuesdays could be for self-study.

After deciding on my routines, I create repeating tasks for these routines within my calendar, and move onto the next step.

How I Plan My Week

Remember that “rocks in a jar” analogy of prioritizing your commitments, where you’d put the rocks into the jar first, then the pebbles, then the sand, to be able to fit everything in?

That’s what I do when planning my own week:

1. Committed Events (Rocks): Around my routines, I fill in the empty gaps with events or schedules I’ve committed to. Some things are of higher priority than others: your full-time job might be your largest rocks, followed by other events, but a doctor’s appointment could be allocated first. In addition, some of the routines you added could be “non-negotiables” that go after your full-time job in ranking of priority. This could help you in deciding which events to say no to, depending on your values.
2. Deadlines & Tasks (Pebbles): Next, I add in any tasks that are due in the week. For university students, this would be studying for that midterm on Friday, or completing course readings before class (though being honest, I often didn’t do this…)
3. Breaks / Goals (Gravel…?): Here is where you could switch the order around: again, depending on your own priorities. I schedule certain breaks at this point, such as dedicated family and social time, and then I schedule in time I work towards my goals. I set weekly goals using the tiered goal method, and block in time that would ideally let me reach those weekly goals. After time for weekly goals, I then schedule in intentional breaks, such as a specific movie I wanted to watch.
4. Everything Else (Sand): Finally, what is left is either kept open for flexibility, or sometimes I’ll have some tiny tasks I throw in. Note that time-blocking always works better with some sort of buffer—I typically leave 15m or 30m windows around each block to account for that. We often underestimate the time it takes to complete a task, and a lot of our plan is out of our control.

Ready to Plan Your Own?

The weekly unit is a powerful way to focus your priorities and manage your own self (as an act of self-care), the intentions you have with others, and the maintenance of your environment. I have used weekly goals to achieve more progress than I had when I only used monthly goals, or didn’t centre my goals on a specific time-frame.

If you believe that the week might be your ideal type, consider the following questions to get you started:

1. What are your rocks, pebbles, and sand?
2. If you were to prioritize the main time-users in your life, what would this prioritization look like?
3. If you could only accomplish 3 things this week, what would they be?
4. Have you considered or thought about the areas of life you’ve been neglecting, and perhaps setting aside some time for them?
5. Is there something you want to do more of? Less of?
6. What are the events, tasks and actions you do every single week? Would they benefit from a set weekly routine?

Take care and until next time,

— Kharis (Worth the Wake) 🌻

Appendix

Image: Black Canon DSLR Camera on Table Beside Notebook by Georgia de Lotz, courtesy of Unsplash