Weekly Planning, Part 1

Each week I have a meeting with myself. David Allen’s GTD system would call this a weekly review. During this meeting I go through the steps in my weekly planning checklist. This includes both professional and personal planning, but more time is spent on the professional side. 

Some things on the list:

• Look at last week’s calendar – are there any loose ends to tie up?
• Look at the coming week’s calendar – what are my appointments? 
• Look through my task manager app – what’s important? Are any deadlines coming up? 
• Do a brain dump – what is on my mind that I might need to take care of? 
• Go through trigger list – list of important things in my life (such as kids, friends, exercise) that might jog my memory of things I would like to do 

Time blocking 

Once I have a list of things I might do, I prioritize, and also try to estimate how much time these will take. Then I get out my printed weekly schedule and I do my time blocking – this is where the rubber meets the road. I am basically scheduling appointments with myself to get tasks done that I decided are important to me. This weekly calendar has 30 minute time slots, mostly during working hours. Other times of day are less scheduled family time. 

I try to also follow the advice of the ALPEN method (read more here: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/aplen-time-management-technique ) and include buffer time. This is helpful because it’s hard to estimate how much time something takes and it’s always good to give myself some breathing space. 

Weekly schedule

During the semester my printed weekly schedule will include standing meetings such as classes and faculty meetings, but also things that fit into my “ideal” schedule. This can include time for lunch, exercise, and dedicated email time. 

I use a pencil to write in my weekly calendar (time blocking) because I want to be able to erase it and be flexible. This is also why I don’t do my weekly planning in my google calendar! Too rigid. My google calendar will include standing meetings and also exercise time so that I can protect that time. When I put every single thing in my digital calendar it looks very busy and that makes me feel overwhelmed. It’s easier for me to erase pencil than go into my digital calendar.

Time blocking is great because…

The great thing about time blocking is that it helps me make progress on concrete tasks but also amorphous projects. If something is important to me, then I will schedule time to do it, even if I’m not sure how long it will take – like writing blog posts! Weekly planning also helps reduce decision fatigue. I make a bunch of decisions at once, rather than daily (or hourly?) staring at blank spaces in my schedule. 

What about email? 

Is reviewing email a step in my weekly planning checklist? No! This is because I don’t use my email inbox as a task manager. Instead, if an email alerts me to a task that takes more than a few minutes I create a card in my task management system (I like to use Trello, a kanban style system). When I have my weekly meeting I review these tasks and decide when in the week to complete them. 

Who came up with this? 

Where did these ideas come from? The techniques that I use for my weekly planning meeting come from a few different sources. I probably first started thinking about an ideal schedule from trainings from Cathy Mazak (now Scholar’s voice). I learned about time-blocking from the Trello blog, specifically the ALPEN method. I have heard time blocking promoted by many time management and productivity experts, including Ali Abdaal. As mentioned above, David Allen’s GTD system also advocates a weekly review meeting. Last but not least, I have learned a lot about weekly planning (and monthly, quarterly, and yearly planning) from Megan Sumrell. She has a great podcast as well. 

What is GTD? I think this website explains it well: https://hamberg.no/gtd