Hello and welcome to episode 159 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

So, do you do a weekly planning session every week? If not, have you asked yourself why? I ask that question because as I review the questions I get through my YouTube channel, my online courses and some of the issues I see in my coaching clients, most of these are related to the weekly planning session. You see, if you are not consistently doing a planning session each week, you are leaving yourself at the mercy of the events around you.

This week’s question goes to the heart of that problem and so hopefully you will learn why these sessions are important and what you need to look at so you create a plan for the week that is manageable, motivating and more importantly doable.

Ooh, before we start, I am being asked about this years Create Your Own Apple productivity course update. Yes, it’s coming. I am almost finished with the update and all being well it will be available from next weekend.

So, if you are already enrolled in the course, go to your learning centre dashboard next weekend and it should be there for you. And don’t worry, as always this will be a free update for any already enrolled in the course.

And, of course, if you are not enrolled and want to create your own productivity system using only Apple’s fantastic productivity apps, then you can enrol at any time and will receive updates every year.

Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice for the week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Jack. Jack asks, Hi Carl, I hear you talk about the importance of the weekly and daily review. I’ve never been able to find time to do these and was wondering if they really are all that important. Could you explain why you think they are necessary?

Hi Jack, thanks for this question

It is true, I have spoken a lot about the importance of the daily and weekly planning sessions. You see the reality is if you don’t have a plan for the week, then you will end up working on someone else’s plan and that is not likely to be a great plan for you.

But aside from that, one of the reasons we feel stressed out and overwhelmed is because our brains are not really our best friends when it comes to the things we have to do. If you do not have any idea where all your projects are, then your brain will take over and start telling you are behind, tasks are overdue and all sorts of horrors are just waiting for you around the corner.

Spending a few minutes going through your project notes gives you a reassurance you are on top of things and you will clearly see what needs to happen next. Once you know that, the only decision you need make is when you will do whatever it is you need to do next. And that does not take a lot of time.

These days, I do my weekly planning on a Saturday afternoon. That process of going through my project notes allows me time to decide which projects I will work on next week.

At any one time I have around ten to twelve active projects, but I cannot work on them all in one week. So, I need to decide which ones I will work on next week. Sometimes that decision is easy because the deadline for a particular project is approaching. Other times it can be more difficult.

Generally, I only work on two to three projects each week. Most of the time, one of those projects will be in the planning stage so most of the work will be reading, meetings and thinking. Other times, the next steps to completing the project are clear and all I need decide is which tasks I will do next week and even then these are mostly obvious.

Just knowing all my active projects are moving forward is enough to settle my anxious brain. And that, for me, is one of the most important reasons for doing a weekly planning session.

Another reason for the weekly planning session is it gives you time away from the daily hustle and bustle to get your inboxes clear. Now, for the most part, I will clear my inbox every 24 to 48 hours, but I can get a little lazy on a Thursday and Friday and leave the processing until Saturday. I love processing these on a weekend because there are fewer demands coming from clients and colleagues. I have time to think about what something is, whether it is connected to an active project or whether I really want to do the task. Once I know I want to do something with it, all I need to decide is when I will do it. Will I do it next week and if so, when? When will I do the task?

And for that, I will have my calendar open so I can see what my week looks like. Where my meetings and calls are and if I have any prearranged work blocks.

For instance, this week, I will be putting the finishing touches to my Apple Productivity Course. I have blocked Tuesday and Wednesday for doing that, which means I need to get all my writing and any other work done on Monday. Essentially, I will be losing two normal working days to project-specific work.

Now, doing the weekly planning session means I see that and can reduce the tasks I plan to complete next week.

You may have added a training workshop to your calendar three months ago and if you are not doing a planning session you could easily have forgotten about that. Suddenly on Monday you see the workshop and realise you have lost two full working days. That is the worst time to be reminded you will be away from work for two days.

Now, if you are using the Time Sector System, once you have looked at the list of your active projects, all you need do next is move the tasks you have in your next week folder to your this week folder and do a quick check of your This month folder to see if you can bring any of those tasks forward.

For me, I check the tasks in my next week folder before moving them forward just to see if they are still relevant. Often I have a task in there that either I have completed already, or I decide does not need doing next week. The less I have in my this week folder the better as far as I’m concerned.

You see the thing about doing a weekly planning session is it sets you up for the week ahead and it makes the daily planning so much easier.

All you are doing with the daily planning session is checking to see if things are still relevant and adding anything new you may have collected through the day. It gives you time to process your inboxes and check you are on plan to complete your objectives for the week.

So what do I mean about your objectives for the week?

One of the best ways to make each week count is to set yourself a number of objectives. Now, these do not need to be work-related, they can be personal goals. In my case, I am currently doing a 60-day exercise and steps challenge. My objective is to exercise every day and hit a 10,000 steps goal each day for 60-days. So, I need to make sure each day I am doing my exercise and hitting the steps goal. Likewise, this week it’s all about getting my Apple Productivity course updated and published. Those are my objectives for the week.

Having these objectives means I stay focused on what is important.

Just a quick tip on setting objectives. Don’t set too many. The more you set the more diluted they become. The sweet spot for me is two and at a push three. So this week it’s hitting my exercise objective and finishing the Apple Productivity course. Just having two means I wake up knowing exactly what I need to do and I do not need to be constantly checking my to-do list looking for something to do. I am very clear.

Now, these objectives could be things like sort out a problem customer and turn them into your biggest fan. It could be to get a project you have been procrastinating on started or it could be to make a decision on a new job. You choose. These do not have to be big objectives. The only thing is you will do whatever it takes to get them accomplished that week.

Last week, one of my objectives was to keep Friday night clear so I could have a Sean Connery night. I accomplished that and it was wonderful! What a fantastic actor Sean Connery was.

So how long does all this take?

Well, the weekly planning session takes around thirty minutes. It does depend on how many items you have in your inbox and how fast you are at making decisions. The thing is, the more you do this the faster you become at making decisions. I can plan out the whole week in thirty minutes, often less.

The daily planning session takes around ten to fifteen minutes. Although I have to be honest here, it does depend on how tired I am. The only thing you need to do in the daily planning session is to review your calendar for tomorrow to see what’s coming up and your task manager to make sure you have a realistic number of tasks. If you do the 2+8 Prioritisation method, this is where you do that. Decide what your two must-do tasks are and what your eight should-do tasks are.

For most people, the hardest session is doing the daily planning session. My advice is to set a time each day when you will do this. Remember, it is only ten to fifteen minutes so if your regular work time finishes at 6 PM, then set an alarm for 5:40pm to remind you to begin your daily planning session. Even if you have work to finish, just stop doing what you are doing and do the planning session. You can always go back to whatever you were doing before you stopped.

Likewise for the weekly planning session, having a set time each week helps you. My time is 12pm Saturday. I make a cup of tea, put on some music and start. If it helps you can create a checklist in your notes app to guide you, although once you become consistent at this you won’t need to checklist as everything will be automatic.

If you have never done a weekly planning session try it this week. Look at your active projects to see what needs to happen next and look at your calendar and see where your busiest days are and make sure you do not have too many tasks allocated for that day.

One final part of why you should be doing a weekly planning session is to make sure you are not over-committing yourself. No matter how much work you think you have—and that can be a lot—the two barriers you will always come up again are time and energy. Both of these are limited. Each day you only get 24 hours and depending on your physical and mental state, you only have a limited amount of energy.

Knowing this (and it doesn’t matter who you are, if you are human you are limited by these two factors) you need to limit the number of tasks you are trying to do each day. You are not going to be able to do everything no matter how urgent things are. You need to prioritise.

For me, I limit my weekly tasks to thirty and that includes my recurring areas of focus. That might not seem very much, but each day new inputs will come—trust me they do—and whenever I have allowed more than thirty tasks into my this week folder, at the end of the week, I have to reschedule a lot of tasks because I just did not have time to do them. Get serious about what you can and cannot accomplish each week and each day and stop trying to fool yourself. You cannot do everything so you need to pick what you can do and do that to the highest possible standard.

Find your limit and then use that as your guide to what you can accomplish in one week. All you need do is track how many tasks you are doing each day and each week—that is actually doing and completing—and then use that as your guide. It will take a little time to find your sweet-spot, but when you do, your weekly planning will take a much more meaningful roll in your productivity life.

I hope that has helped, Jack. Thank you for your question.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

PodcastCarl Pullein16 November 2020How to be productive, productivity, How to do a weekly review, Weekly review, GTD

Why, and How, You Should Be Doing A Weekly Planning Session.

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