It’s time to take our list of monthly goals and projects and put them into our weekly schedule. I’m warning you now, I love details and lists, so hang in here with me. We’ll take it step-by-step. Everybody’s life is different, so you’ll need to make adjustments according to your own responsibilities.
1) First, you’ll need to make a list of all your typical responsibilities and tasks that you do every week. For example: work, errands, phone calls to family and friends, cleaning, budgeting, paying bills, and grocery shopping. Now think about your typical week if you have no extra events or appointments. Write each day of the week down and beside each day of the week, determine which day you will do each of the tasks on your list. At the top, label this page as” WEEKLY ROUTINE“. This is a list you will save and refer back to every Sunday or Monday when planning your week. Every week will be a little different, but you should try to keep every week as close to this as possible.
2) Every Sunday evening or Monday morning, you’ll get another piece of paper. At the top, write” WEEK OF—“. Then list each day of the week leaving about three blank spaces between each day. Start with Monday and continue through Sunday. Now look at your calendar for the week and put beside each day anything that is planned for the week. This includes your work days, social events, and appointments. We do this because you obviously have to work your weekly tasks around these. Next, we’ll look at our calendar and see if there are any special events in the next month that we need to get ready for. If so, then decide which day of the week you will work on those things, to be prepared for upcoming events. Then, plug in your typical weekly tasks from step #1 into the day that you want to do it. This will help to keep your week balanced and to spread all your weekly responsibilities out evenly. Also, try to group similar tasks together. For example, try to do errands while you’re already out, such as after an appointment. You now should have a list of each day of the week and the events, appointments, and tasks for each day.
3) The next thing you need is a planner. You can use any kind or size you like, but I prefer a planner with month-at-a-glance pages and, especially, a full page for each day. For each day of the week, I like to have room for the daily schedule on the left, and room for a to-do list on the right side of the page. I’ll get into A LOT more details about this later, but for now you need one to start planning each week. From your “WEEK OF – – – – –” plan, you need to put each day’s task on the appropriate day of the week in the planner. By the way, write them towards the top of the to-do list on right side of page. This gives you your priority projects for each day. If you balance out all your tasks throughout the week you, hopefully, won’t have too much to do on any particular day. Of course, you’ll have other things to do and add to your planner, but for now, these are the “PRIORITY PROJECTS” that need to be done weekly.
4)So, what about all those special monthly goals and projects? We need to add those to the schedule to make them happen! If you don’t put them into your planner, they aren’t very likely to get done. Look at each section on your list of monthly goals and projects. Decide what day of the week you will work on these. Some things will need to be done daily, such as exercise and healthy eating. Some will be done maybe once or twice a week, such as phone calls to family and friends. They’re YOUR goals, so you decide and put them where you want. This is also the best way to prepare for upcoming events. Work on those preparations a little each week and you’ll be ready!
You should now have a plan for your weekly schedule. Remember, everything on your list of monthly goals and projects should be somewhere on your weekly schedule. We’re breaking these down into manageable parts. I’ve included a helpful printable Lifetime My Weekly Schedule. This gives you a view of your entire week and can be used to help you stay on track. Next, we’ll work on our goals and projects by putting them into our DAILY SCHEDULE.