How I Plan My Week
For a long time, I’ve gotten questions about my productivity and organization systems, so much so that I definitely had a foray into being a productivity coach.
Fortunately, that didn’t last! 😉
But, today, we’re going to be taking a dive into how I plan my week…and I’m pumped!
Now, as we do this, we’re going to be using Notion and Google Calendar! Notion is and forever will be my go-to productivity system. Seriously, no matter how many times I think I’m going to switch away from it, I come back. I literally recorded videos for my membership saying how I’d switched to ClickUp - nope, I switched back. Notion is my jam, so much so that it’s becoming something that’s going to factor into a lot of what I do moving forward.
But, I digress.
Today, we’re going to be talking about how I plan my week. I’ll include screenshots of my Notion (and a walkthrough in the YouTube video below - per usual #newworkflow ) and if ever you’re interested in learning more about these templates OR you’d be interested in using the template yourself, drop a comment below!
For now, let’s do this!
#1
WEEKLY REVIEW
No matter what, this is always the first step I take when I’m planning a new week: I review the last one. I find this to be super important because it helps me learn and grow.
I think one of the biggest reasons why so many of us stay stuck is because we don’t slow down and reflect enough in our lives. Each and every week, there’s something we can learn from that week, but, even more than that, doing a review helps you identify and capture any loose ends you might need to take care of the following week.
So, regardless, this is always where I start when I plan I’ve already written about my weekly review process here , but, to sum it up really briefly, I ask myself 3 very simple, powerful questions:
What went well?
What didn’t go well?
What can improve?
No matter what, I always am able to identify something here over the course of the process that is helpful information for me. It also helps me game plan the habits that are working and not working, my goals and where I’m at with them, and what (if anything) is overwhelming me. I also identify a memory of the week, just for fun! 🙂
So, that’s step 1 - review myself! Inside of Notion, this process looks like this:
#2
SET INTENTIONS & GOALS FOR THE WEEK
Next (and I’ll admit this isn’t a planning task, but it’s part of my process), I dive into one of my favorite dashboards in Notion and I set intentions and goals for the week.
I do this by filling in the weekly check-in section of my main dashbaord and the “Goal of the Week” section. My answers and focuses in these sections are usually very driven by my weekly review, which helps me pinpoint and identify the things I want to improve upon.
I like having these things in my main dashboard in Notion so I can see them basically every time I log on my computer. I’m a big believer in the whole idea of “out of sight, out of mind.” If we’re not reminded of our goals and our intentions, they’re going to fall through the cracks. So, this is my way of reminding myself of those things.
I can also easily access my habit tracker from this main dashboard in case I have a goal that’s related to a daily habit. I can easily go into my habit tracker and add or track a habit there. For more on my habit tracker, check out my YouTube video below.
#3
CHECK-IN TO GOOGLE CALENDAR
The point of this next step is to, as much as possible, be sure I’m not overloading myself with too many tasks on a very busy day.
My Notion task management system automatically populates each day with the tasks that I have tentatively scheduled for that day. Now, it is all tentative. I assign a ballpark due date, but, with the exception of client work, very few of the tasks I do for my business are set in stone and my day job requires very little outside work outside of the sessions and appointments I have with my student.
That being said, if I have a REALLY busy day in my day job, I don’t want to overload myself with tasks for my business that day. So, I have to take that into consideration. For example, check out the example week below.
For obvious, privacy reasons, I crossed out the games of all my students.
The 21st is a really good example. I have one of my fuller days of the week (which admittedly still isn’t that much) that Wednesday and, as such, I don’t have very many tasks that day. That is typical. I intentionally try not to put much on my Wednesdays as they tend to be busier tutoring days for me in my day job. On the contrary, Tuesdays and Thursdays tend to be lighter, so I will usually put longer, more intensive tasks on those days.
However, this little snapshot is also very revealing to me. I have perhaps too many tasks (in particular the “write blog post” task) on Monday 9/19. If I were doing a review of this week, this would be a sign that I need to move/redistribute those because I’m returning from vacation that day. A lot of my tasks are automatically scheduled, so I don’t do this stuff ahead of time. I redistribute and change things during the week the tasks are due.
Checking Google Calendar at the beginning of the week is also really helpful because if I have, say, a birthday coming up, this serves as a good reminder to either a) wish that person happy birthday or b) get them a gift!
Additionally, I know it might seem overwhelming the number of back-to-back appointments I have on some of these days, but each tutoring session, though scheduled for an hour or 90-mins actually ends 5-10 minutes earlier than that, giving me time to tie up loose ends before the next meeting. This is also something I’ve built into my schedulers, too, for my business and if you’re interested in hearing more about that, drop a comment below!
#4
RE-DISTRIBUTE TASKS IN NOTION (IF NEEDED)
Last, but not least, I dive into my weekly task manager view in Notion and assess if my tasks on each day are managable. I’ll use the screenshot below to demonstrate how I make this determination.
My Tuesday tasks of this week, despite having a lot of them, are actually pretty manageable. Most of the things on the list will take no more than 10-15 minutes to take care of and those tasks that are longer and more intensive will be no problem because I have a 4-hour block of time in the morning to work on these things before my day job starts.
Wednesday is similar, I have a ton of time in the morning and the “launch emails” task is the only one that will take a chunk of time to complete.
However, similar to above, this screenshot definitely reveals that I have WAY too much stuff scheduled for Thursday of this week. I have a memorial service Thursday morning and there are way too many intensive tasks on this list. Looking at this, I might move some of those tasks to Wednesday and Friday.
You can also see that I keep track of cleaning tasks inside of my Notion task manager as well. You may not like this as it might overwhelm you, but I find that my achiever brain likes knowing I’m being productive even on “down days”. Plus, having everything all in one place is REALLY important for keeping me organized.
So, in a nutshell, the only thing that determines whether I have “too much” on any given day is 1) how long tasks take, and 2) how much time I have that day. I already have kind of built into my workflows not putting too many labor-intensive tasks on the same day, but this little double-check that happens at the beginning of each week helps me catch any oversights.
The final thing I’ll say is that I used to ascribe to the “only have 3 priorities every single day” mentality and I have found that it doesn’t work for me. Why? Because my life has multiple different areas of importance. I have my health, my business, my day job, my relationships, etc. Even just from a “career” perspective, I have my day job and my business. Unfortunately, my day job activities always have to take precedence, but I also have a very weird day job where I only usually work, on average, like 4-5 hours a day. So, I end up having “day job priorities” and “business priorities”, and, inevitably, there are more than 6.
I think so long as you’re practical about how long activities take and how much time you have to do that (and you also build buffer time into your life), then the number of tasks on your to-do list is negotiable. Does that mean you should put 12 tasks per day? Eh - probably not. But, if they're all minute, easy-to-check-off tasks, sure. Go for it, my friend!
