Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have responsibilities to fulfill.

From small things like walking your dog up to major milestones like starting a company, there are times when things get a little rough and you struggle to do the tasks at hand.

You’re not alone. The good news is you can master one skill that can change everything.

What’s it you ask? It’s the habit of weekly planning.

What is Weekly Planning?

Weekly plans are the act of organizing your activities and tasks for the week.

Ideally, you would do this on a Monday or a Sunday, with the help of tools such as a pen and paper, or a weekly planner app that lives on your phone.

It can be as simple as writing a to-do list or as detailed as prioritizing tasks according to importance and urgency.

Either way, planning your week will make you a more productive and effective person.

  • Weekly planning is simply organizing events in your calendar ahead of time.
  • It gives you an overview of the tasks at hand and provides you with control over it.
  • Weekly planning lets you know your priorities and keeps you on track.
  • It’s the art of dividing your time wisely so you would be able to do everything you need to do.
  • It lets you juggle tasks, even trivial ones, along with long-term projects.
  • Weekly planning organizes your goals like a ladder, doing tasks one step at a time that would then eventually lead to a greater goal.

In a nutshell, weekly planning organizes your life. Who doesn’t want that, right? That’s why weekly planning is important.

Why It’s Important to Plan Your Week

Consistently planning your activities for the week can be a challenge, but with practice, you’ll make it a habit. Here are a few reasons why planning your week is important:

  • Weekly planning lets you know what’s going on. It’s your mom’s birthday on Friday? Then you can slip a trip to the mall for a gift on Wednesday. Knowing what’s going on devoid you from conflicts in schedule.
  • And because you know what’s going on, you’d know if you need to do work on certain days. This then teaches you to learn to say no to sudden plans, especially those with less importance than what is in your calendar. Weekly planning gives you an understanding of certain aspects of your life like knowing priorities and sticking to them. And saying no is a big part of it.
  • Weekly planning also helps you maintain balance in your schedule and in your life. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Life isn’t just about work. It’s a balance of both work and play.
  • Weekly planning makes you more productive. Being productive doesn’t mean you’re always working though. It means you’re doing the right things. It’s being able to accomplish tasks correctly, not just finishing them, and being able to save time for other things.
  • Weekly planning prevents you from experiencing a crisis. A critical point at which everything seems urgent and important. By planning your week, you’re actually saving yourself from a lot of headaches.

How to Plan Your Week

There are different ways to plan your week. But here are a few strategies, taken from experts, that will help you get started.

  1. Get ahead. Plan your week before it starts. This is really effective, it lets you see what your week would be like and it helps you prepare your mind for it. It also gives you ample time to actually prepare for certain events, like that dinner date on Friday. Getting ahead lets you know what should be done at certain periods of time and lets you focus more on the task at the moment.
  2. Schedule everything on your calendar. This is a quick way to organize your life. One look at your calendar lets you know what’s scheduled for each day in your week.
  3. Know your top priorities. It may be that business proposal you’re thinking of, or that book you want to finish. Knowing your priorities lets you focus on important tasks, making you not just productive, but effective.
  4. Have a checklist for everything, and that means everything. Every single thing you need to do that week. It can be detailed, or not. It all depends on you and how you organize your weekly plan. This gives you a view of the tasks at hand, allowing you to arrange them accordingly.
  5. Plan mellow times. Take into consideration the time needed in between. Don’t try to stress yourself up. Add 15 minutes to that travel time, you’d never know how traffic will get. Add another 10 minutes or more for that meeting; you might want to catch up on people you know after. Just make enough time for everything. Avoid rushing yourself.
  6. Give time for unplanned events. You never know what’s coming up tomorrow. You might run out of peanut butter and would need to go to the store. This can sometimes be stressful especially if you’re busy. So it would be very helpful to be able to reserve time for these things.

The best part of weekly planning is that it reduces stress. Knowing what needs to be done at certain times eliminates worry, like did you forget anything that you should be doing? It’s all the little things.

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