How do you master weekly planning and get more done?
You’re in the right place. We’ve spent years mastering the art of effectively planning our weeks.
By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to plan your week for success and productivity.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
💡Key takeaways:
- Weekly planning is a foolproof way to boost productivity, stay organized, and reduce stress.
- The best days to plan are Friday and Sunday.
- To plan your week effectively, you should review last week, set your priority for this week, match your time supply to time demand, and calendarize your to-do list.
Why should you plan your week?
Weekly planning is one of the single best ways to stay productive, organized, and stress-free.
Why?
Because it allows you to set aside dedicated time to map out a clear plan of action for your week while also prioritizing your goals.
Whether you use a pen and paper or Google Calendar (like we do), knowing how to plan your week effectively leads to incredible benefits.
Having a plan in place, even for your busiest weeks, can:
- Enhance your productivity
- Reduce stress levels
- Help you manage your time better and avoid procrastination
- Allow you to set clearly aligned goals
- Increase flexibility
- Improve focus, prioritization, and decision-making
- Give you more control over your schedule
- Improve work-life balance
Demir and I swear by weekly planning.
To find out how we do it, keep reading!
How do you plan your week effectively?
When Demir found himself in the hospital with a stress-induced illness, we knew something had to change.
So, we created our Winning the Week Formula.
In just 30 minutes, you’ll have a plan for a highly productive week without the risk of burnout.
And it works for everyone – members of the Lifehack Tribe swear by it, too.
Learn more: The Inside Scoop on our Revolutionary Membership Community
I’ll show you how to do it, but first, I want to emphasize the importance of choosing a dedicated day for weekly planning.
Choose a day
I recommend Friday afternoon or Sunday.
Friday is great because the week is still fresh in your mind, and getting your planning out of the way signals to your brain that it’s time to relax.
But Sunday is also a good option, since we tend to start thinking about upcoming work then anyway.
Whatever day you choose, make it something you look forward to! For example, Demir and I do our planning over a leisurely brunch every Sunday morning:
Now, let’s talk about how to plan your week.
Step 1: Review the last week
Before planning your week, spend about five minutes thinking about the week you’ve just had.
What did and didn’t get done? What went right? What went wrong?
Now, this isn’t always fun, especially if you didn’t have a great week.
But because it highlights your wins, it’s a great way to create a sense of gratitude.
Plus, the information you learn will help you plan more effectively for the upcoming week.
Finally, it arms you with a “lesson” for the week – which you’ll use for the next step.
Step 2: Set your priority for this week
Using the information you gathered in the first step, you can really dive into your weekly planning.
First up: Deciding what your number one priority for the week is.
Believe it or not, this isn’t always easy.
I see a LOT of our clients focus on the wrong priority or, worse, have multiple priorities when they’re first learning how to plan their week. It leads to unnecessary stress and burnout, and nobody wants that.
One of my favorite ways to determine my number one priority during my weekly planning session is to use the Champagne Moment exercise.
I ask myself, “Which task would I be so happy to finish that I would stop at the store on the way home and grab a nice bottle of champagne?”
That’s your priority.
👀Quick video: How To Prioritize Tasks (with the Champagne Moment Exercise):
Step 3: Review your calendar
Next, spend five minutes looking at your calendar to get an idea of your time supply, which is the amount of time you have available in the coming week.
Remember, you only have 168 hours in a week. You can’t afford to waste it!
So, take a close look at and streamline your calendar.
Are there any opportunities to cancel or reschedule appointments or meetings? Can you spot any “landmines” that could blow your entire calendar up?
An accurate time inventory turns your calendar from something you dread looking at into a powerful tool that keeps you productive without spreading yourself too thin.
Step 4: Review your to-do list
Once you have a better idea of your time supply, you can start matching your time supply to your time demand.
Your time is your most precious commodity – so you can’t do everything, and you need to allocate it carefully.
When a client comes to me and says, “But my schedule is packed this week, and everything is urgent,” I like to introduce them to the Eisenhower Matrix.
Put each of your tasks into one of four quadrants:
- High importance, high urgency: Prioritize this
- High importance, low urgency: Schedule for later
- Not important, urgent: Delegate this task
- Not important, not urgent: Delete this from your to-do list altogether
It helps you avoid an overwhelming to-do list and instead create one that’s effective and, more importantly, aligned with your goals and time.
But if you’re not quite ready for something like the Eisenhower Matrix, try our 1:4:5 rule.
On a piece of paper, write out:
- 1 high-priority task
- 4 medium-priority tasks
- 5 low-priority tasks
Whatever tasks you include, making them actionable by starting each one with a verb is key.
For example, instead of “Client email,” you’d write, “Send client Anna M. an email following up on project ABC.”
I’ll teach you how to plan your week with a highly effective to-do list in this guide.
Step 5: Calendarize your to-do list
The last step of the Winning the Week Method is “calendarizing” your to-do list.
In other words, assign each task to a dedicated time slot on your calendar.
It’s a simple way to ensure that you’re actively making time for each one instead of just doing it when you get around to it.
🗓️For example, I didn’t just write this blog post after I crossed out the task above it.
Instead, I blocked off a few hours in my calendar and called the appointment “Write a blog post about how to plan your week.”
I know this sounds like a simple part of the Winning the Week framework, but it can actually be quite challenging the first time you try it.
That’s because, when you’re planning your week, you have to be honest about what you will and won’t get done with the time you have. And that doesn’t always feel good.
Why?
Because you have to choose which tasks to let go of so your time supply matches demand.
For some people, this feels like an impossible decision to make, and they end up skipping it completely.
But if you skip calendarizing your tasks, you’ll never take any real action despite a high potential for progress.
Read more: The Lifehack Calendarizing Process
Now that you know how to plan your week, let’s talk about the resources you’ll need.
2 best weekly planning resources
Winning the Week worksheet
I’ve just thrown a lot about learning how to plan your week at you.
But our Winning the Week worksheet includes each of these steps and will help you feel less overwhelmed in just half an hour.
You can get it for FREE here:
Asana
I organize my entire life on Asana. In fact, our entire team uses it! I explain how here:
We love it so much that we’ve launched an Asana Mastery Course, which you can learn about here.
What’s next?
There you have it!
Everything you need to start planning your week more effectively and efficiently.
Remember, weekly planning is all about setting the right priority, matching your time supply and demand, and calendarizing your to-do list.
Get our FREE PDF to start using the Winning the Week framework:
Read more: