How To Plan Your Week With Purpose
For more productivity and wellbeing.
I have a system for mostly everything.
Even for how I do laundry.
Yes, I’m a Virgo, if you’re wondering.
But creating greatness in your life needs a good plan and systems. Without them, you’ll probably be unable to have consistent action.
Here’s how to plan your week for increased productivity and more personal time.
Plan your week on Sunday.
It took me a while to grab the mindset of planning my week on Sundays.
My “perfect Sunday” usually includes brunch with friends or family and a good movie or book; if I’m not mainly teaching, I’ll engage in a yoga session and take an hour in the evening to schedule my week.
It will take me longer to plan on Monday morning as things that require my immediate attention are starting to pop up. What I like the most about planning my week on Sunday is that I’m ready to dive into what’s most important to me on Monday morning rather than spending a couple of hours planning.
Know your top priorities.
When I started intentionally scheduling my week for more productivity, I mostly added only business-related tasks.
Oh, boy, big mistake.
No matter your aspirations, we’re talking about life here.
Your business, career, or side business is part of your life and not the most important part of your life.
You need time to reset, reflect, slow down, care for yourself, and be social. So when you plan your week, list your most important priorities from your most important life categories.
- Significant other: date nights.
- Social: Meet friends & family etc.
- Admin: Groceries, laundry, cleaning.
- Business: Deep work for your most important tasks.
- Health: Meal prepping, gym workouts, yoga sessions, etc.
- Relaxation and fun: me time, weekend activities, more extended holidays every 4 months, etc.
- And any other category important in your life.
Schedule everything in your calendar.
As a business owner, I learned that following a structure is gold, and I look at the calendar as my “boss.”
Scheduling everything in your calendar moves you forward like nothing else. But the structure works if you add your tasks to your calendar and rigorously respect it.
What happens if I don’t stay on track with what’s on my calendar? I’ll get frustrated at the end of the day. So, no matter what comes up, I’ll check my calendar to see if I can add anything else.
Your calendar comes into play because it responds to the question: when will you do what you’ve planned?
That’s the power of scheduling everything in your calendar.
- Do what’s most important in the first 2–3 hours. My most important tasks are related to writing. So, in the morning, I either research, find ideas and inspiration for my following articles or write blog posts or social media content.
- Deal with everyone else after these hours. Meetings, calls, emails, messages, and Slack can wait until after I deal with what’s most important. Like this, I won the day by lunchtime. It makes me feel good and ready to deal with other tasks.
- Batch tasks from the same category. If I’m recording yoga classes for my YouTube channel, I batch them with another online class I’m hosting or plan to record multiple simultaneously. The rule is simple. Creative tasks go together. Admin tasks go together.
- Days for focused work. I have dedicated days for my coaching sessions. It is easier to coach people on certain days. I can handle the level of my energy better if that’s the only thing I’ll do on those days. I have a better mindset and can show up fully for other people and their needs.
Leave space for unexpected things.
Over-planning is real.
It happened to me a couple of times. One of the biggest mistakes I made was seeing an open slot on my calendar and thinking that I could fit in a teaching yoga session without considering my energy level.
We are humans, not robots. We can’t work for 8 hours straight. We need space to breathe and shift our energy during the day.
- Plan buffer times. Between my coaching sessions, I have a 30-minute buffer time to reset and enter into the next session without the energy of the last client. That’s just an example of how I organize my time, but depending on your work, schedule 15-minute breaks after 45–90-minute in-depth work sessions.
- Room for unexpected things. Refrain from rushing in the morning, 1-hour lunch breaks, commuting, etc.
- Time to do nothing. I start early most days, but I teach in the evening on some days. Of course, the level of my energy goes down by 6 pm. To shift into the energy of teaching and deliver at my best, I need at least a 2-hour break. I either take a power nap, read, move my body, or go for a walk.
- Make sure you’re having fun, too! Planning your days and weeks is great for moving forward with what’s important to you. But our days are not copy-paste. We can disrupt the days with a movie, massage, or quality time with our loved ones. All that matters is having a system to count on achieving your goals.
Take away
Intentionally running your days and weeks is about creating more ease in your life.
For me, it started with having a clear structure on what’s important to work on for achieving my goals. But while optimizing my business-related goals, I remembered why I wanted to be on my own: to have freedom over my schedule and more free time for my personal life.
