7-Steps Weekly Planning Process to a Productive Week

Imagine completing even just one small goal every week?

You’ll get 52 goals completed in 12 months.

Pretty cool huh?

Even if you complete just half of that, It’s still a massive achievement.

And that is the power of weekly planning.

If you’re new here, here’s free Weekly Planner Notion Template to help you plan your intentional and productive week. You can also read more about this precious Notion Weekly Planner here.

Image of a mock up for Free notion weekly planner

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Why weekly planning matters?

Whether you start your week on a Monday morning or a Sunday morning, weekly planning matters because it helps you balance multiple responsibilities and commitments.

If you want to start achieving your goals, you can start weekly planning sessions to have productive weeks.

You may think you don’t have much time, but by creating a productive week,

You’ll be amazed how much you’ll get done in a week.

Weekly Planning is a great way to create a game plan, set weekly goals and focus on your important work.

You can work on smaller chunks of your short-term goals and long-term goals.

Aside from the obvious, which is achieving your goals, there are other reasons why you need to do weekly planning.

Having an effective weekly work plan helps you:

Boost your productivity because you’re able to focus on your biggest priorities and get the right things done.
Reduce stress and overwhelm, because you get a sense of control over what you do with your resources
Achieve a work-life balance by effectively taking control of your time
Get your weekly priorities done in less time by being strategic with the use of your valuable time daily.
Enjoy free time because you’ll improve your time management skill
Avoid last-minute rushes and missed deadlines: you save time and energy plus less stress
create an intentional and productive week
get things done while also having space and time for fun and creativity.

You can plan you week using digital weekly planner like this free Weekly Planner Notion Template. But if you prefer a printable planner, here’s a Printable Sunshine 2-Page Weekly Planner.

What is a Weekly Plan?

Weekly Planning is a process usually done at the end of the current week to plan for the upcoming week. It’s a must have routine. Here’s how you can create a weekly planning routine for your productivity.

During the process, you pay attention to how the previous week went and focus on what’s important for the next 7 days.

If you like starting your week on a Monday, you can try a Sunday evening to plan your week.

Of course, any day is fine too.

This is just me, but I treat Monday to Friday as my work week, so Friday marks the end of the week for me.

I find Friday afternoon the best time to plan my week.

Saturday and Sunday are bonus days.

Part of my weekly routine is doing a Weekly Review and Weekly Plan on a Friday afternoon.

I use the combination of Notion and Bullet Journal to manage my personal and professional life.

But the actual weekly planning process happens on my Bullet Journal.

I love, love, love Notion but I still like writing my plans in my Bullet Journal.

The tasks.

Current Projects.

Events and Appointments.

I prefer writing them in my Bullet Journal every week.

Because….

Why not? There’s always magic in writing things down.

Learn how to create a weekly planning routine for productivity

Featured image of How to create a Weekly Planning Routine for Productivity

A simple weekly planning process

My weekly planning process is simple.

It starts with self-reflection
Then I do mind sweep (kind of similar to brain dump, but more intentional and a much better term)
Look at the Mother Do List (it’s a running list of tasks I have on my phone)
Plan the whole week (but super lose and flexible)
Organise the days (structured but adjustable)
Progress check
Priority Alignment

What you’ll need

I’ll give you the essentials of weekly planning. You can choose to do it digitally or just with the good old pen and paper. I use both.

You’ll need:

Pen and paper or a notebook
Sticky notes
Your phone or any digital note-taking app
Weekly Calendar like this. Save money by getting the Elegant Trio Calendar Collection here.
A paper planner or a Weekly Planner as simple as this one

7 steps weekly planning process

A good weekly planning process always starts with reflection or a weekly review.

The reflection process depends on how deep you need to cultivate awareness.

During the process, it’s important to externalise thoughts by doing a brain dump or a mind sweep.

This gives you clarity which lessens overwhelm.

Organising the to-do list is also necessary.

Because an organised to-do list gives you flexibility and a sense of control over what you do with your available time.

And of course, a weekly planning process won’t be a real weekly planning process without planning your next 7 days.

Then you need to make time to track your progress.

At its core, the weekly planning process has 3 main intentions.

And that is simply to know

Where you were last week
Where you are at the present moment
Where you’ll be in the following week.

Your progress tells you what you have accomplished so far.

It’s also a good measure to know if you’re moving in the right direction.

I like to end my weekly planning process by aligning my priorities and focus.

Priority and focus can change every week.

So, aligning them with my goals, ensures that I can maintain a healthy balance in different life areas I’m focusing on. And this is just one of the many benefits of intentional planning.

That way, I can start the new week, knowing what needs to come first.

Featured Image of a bLog post with a title Intentional Planning

1. Self-Reflection

First things first.

If this is your first time planning your week seriously, you need to start with a deeper reflection for clarity and self-awareness.

Spend a few minutes to reflect on important areas of your life that matter most right now.

Your core values and beliefs.

This is going to be your guiding light every time you do weekly planning from here on.

Some of the life areas you may want to think about are family and home, well-being, finance, relationships, and career or passion.

You can ask yourself these questions:

What matters to me most right now?
Am I clear with my personal values and beliefs?
What are the life areas that are important to me right now?
Do I have long-term plans?
What do I really want?

You don’t need to do this deeper reflection every single week.

During the normal weekly planning process, you can spend just a few minutes to review the previous week.

Consider the following:

Focus on how you feel in the past week. Remember, it’s not always what you have accomplished but how you felt.
Take note of what went well so far, what didn’t work, and what you’ve learned?
What could you have done differently?
Can you think of a way that you can make the following week better than the previous week?

This is also a good time to check your big goals.

They are ideally reviewed either monthly or quarterly, but it’s helpful to include this in your weekly planning every now and then.

I have a post-it note where my big goals are written and they get transferred from week to week. This reminds me of what I’m aiming for.

Image of a notebook, pen and planner with text Focus and reflection

2. Do a mind sweep

You’ve done your reflection which gives you an idea of where you are right now.

The next step is to do a mind sweep.

Have you heard of Getting Things Done by David Allen?

Mind Sweep or the act of capturing anything and everything in your mind is the first step in the Getting things done method.

The purpose is to externalise what’s in your mind.

It’s similar to doing a brain dump, it’s just better because it’s more intentional.

When doing a mind sweep, you’re not only taking thoughts and ideas out of your head.

A part of this process is deciding what needs to be done with what you’ve captured.

Doing this clears your mind and creates more space in your head.

Those streams of thoughts…

Swirling ideas…

Ahas and “Oh I forgot to”…

They aren’t tangible while they are floating in your head.

But the moment you write them down or externalise them either on paper or note note-taking device, they suddenly become tangible.

You can see them.

There’s a space now between your mind and those thoughts. And now that they’re tangible, they’re much easier to manage.

When doing a mind sweep, remember to check your calendars too,

Even though you’re planning for a week, I recommend checking the next 2 to 3 weeks for events and appointments, to give you ample time to prepare.

3. Organise your to-do list

Before you organise your to-do list, make sure that you have scheduled your events and appointments accordingly.

And your notes are placed where they need to be.

Give yourself enough time to process what you captured during the mind sweep (in step 2).

Then go through each item and determine if it is a task or a project.

Knowing the difference between a task and a project makes a massive difference in your productivity.

The book Getting Things Done by David Allen is a “dry” book to read but one of the biggest takeaways I had is learning the value of understanding the difference between a task and a project.

A TASK can be completed by doing one single action-step. Example: Call Mother.

A PROJECT can be completed by doing more than one action step. Example: Plan Moon’s birthday celebration.

As you go through your to-do, mark the task with a T and a project with a P.

Now that you’re clear with your Tasks and Projects, you can start organising them based on urgency and importance.

TODAY – tasks to complete today
THIS WEEK -tasks to complete this week
NEXT MONTH – tasks to complete this month
SOMEDAY/MAYBE – a task or to do that you want to do but you have zero time right now. You’re not even sure if you’re actually going to do it.

You can also try adding a “Due Date” or a “Do Date” to each of your tasks.

Put simply, a “Due Date” is a specific date when a task needs to be completed like paying a household bill. A “Do Date” is your target date or desired date when you have scheduled yourself to do a task.

4. Plan your week

At this point, you already know how your next week will be in terms of events and appointments.

Your notes are in one place and your to-do list is organised.

It’s time to plan the upcoming week.

But before you do, I want to gently remind you that it’s important to be intentional about it.

Make space in between appointments or tasks.

I like it loose and flexible.

When you’re planning your week or weeks, focus on the essentials and let go of the rest.

Use the information you have from steps 1 to 3 and do the following:

Take note of the events and appointments in the next 7 days in your weekly calendar
Looking at your current tasks list, schedule them on the day you want them to be completed.
Review Active Project Plans and schedule the tasks associated with them

Remember that you’re planning only for the next 7 days, so be reasonable with scheduling.

Life can happen at any time, distractions are everywhere and unscheduled events can pop up at any time.

So make room for flexibility and be ok with making adjustments as you go.

You may want to consider using time blocks to schedule your day. This is helpful so you can do similar tasks in a block of time which saves energy and time.

Ideally, your week at a glance has:

events and appointments
active projects – with notes on tasks to complete for the week
scheduled tasks (from your current task list)
room for self-care, fun and creativity

Want to achieve your goals faster? Try the 12week year planning method.

Image of a weekly goal planner with text above it that says 12-week year planning guide to achieve your goals faster.

5. Plan your day

Once you have your week at a glance, you can start planning your day.

There are different ways to approach daily planning.

If you’re ultra-organised, you can plan each day in one go. You can do this at the start of the week.

You can also plan your day as you go.

And this can be a part of your evening routine. If you like to start your week on a Monday, then you can do this on a Sunday night and repeat the following day.

Because every single day can look different no matter how organised you are, it’s best to consider your energy levels when it comes to planning your daily schedule.

Schedule your most important tasks or deep work when you have more capacity.

Do a small task when you have limited capacity.

It works well for me when I schedule the most important things to do in the morning or at the start of my working session.

6. Track your progress

Now that you have a plan for each day of your week, and you can see your week at a glance, spend a few minutes tracking your progress.

How are you going with your goals and projects?

Track your progress to stay motivated, accountable and consistent.

The best way to feel motivated is to see yourself moving things forward.

Every time you reach a milestone, you get a boost of energy and confidence.

It shows that you’re capable.

Use trackers to help you stay consistent.

Having a tracker always pulls you where you need to be.

We all know that no matter how great the goal is, or how detailed a plan is, if the action is not consistent, achieving goals would be an uphill battle.

And tracker will keep you consistent.

Another thing about trackers.

Trackers help you check whether your current actions are still aligned with your goals.

While you’re checking on your progress, take a pulse on what’s working and what’s not working.

Pay attention to how you feel about what you do.

No point in doing something that makes you feel miserable.

You wouldn’t want to keep doing something for a few weeks only to realise that it’s not working.

I guess it’s ok too, but the earlier you find out that something isn’t working the better. It will save you a lot of time.

At the end of the day, what you do now determines what you’ll accomplish in the future.

However, you also need to consider your well-being while you do what you do now

7. Pick your priority or focus for the week

I want you to let this sink in for a bit.

Yes, maybe it’s true that EVERYTHING is important, but it doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING IS URGENT and needs to be done at the SAME TIME.

By now, you’ve got almost everything that will make your week productive.

From the events, appointments, projects and tasks.

You’ve got it.

But there’s one more thing…

You need to pick your priority or focus for next week.

To complete your weekly plan, you need to decide what your priority will be in the next 7 days.

Did you notice I said “priority” not priorities?

If you want to be productive for real, pick just one thing to focus on, and make time for it.

Create a sacred time and space for that thing and do only that.

Whether you have 5 minutes or 5 hours, it doesn’t matter.

What do I mean by this?

This means you’re going to pick ONE task, project, or a habit and you’ll make it the priority of your week. You can always have a running weekly task from where you will pick your one important task.

It means every day, this one project, task or habit comes first before anything else.

And you commit to do this or take action on this priority no matter what.

Remember these

These are important.

Approach reflection with curiosity instead of judgement
Your choices do not define you. You choose them with what you know and what you have at the time.
Don’t regret your choices. Be kind to yourself when things don’t work out. You would never know how things would have been unless you took the path. So, if you had chosen Path A over Path B and it didn’t work, move on and don’t beat yourself up thinking that you could have gotten better results had you chosen the other path. You wouldn’t know that for sure. Even if you did choose the other path, you would have made different choices and the result would have been different anyway. So move forward, take what you learned and just keep going.
Tomorrow has no promise, but you can always try again. You can always turn things around.
If you think you failed at something last week, give yourself some grace. Failure makes you stronger and better. Failure and mistakes are often associated with something negative but if you think about it, through mistakes we learn and we grow. Failure is a good thing because it’s one step forward to success.
If something is not working, either change it or change how you look at it. One bad day is just one bad day.
Life is a journey. Working on a project or a goal is a journey. You and only you can experience that journey at its depth. So enjoy. Take the most of each moment.