Understanding My Weekly Planner

July 16th 2007

GTD

In a recent post I looked at my current productivity system, and it raised a few questions from people about how it functions. So today, I will address those questions and explain in detail how exactly I use it. Please refer to the PDF of the planner as you read through to understand it better.

The main section of the planner is for writing down your next actions and is broken down into each day of the week. This way I can either plan out my entire week during the weekly review or plan out individual days first thing in the morning. As one of the main elements of the planner is that you can see the entire span of your life on one sheet, it’s very useful to be able to see how and where you stand throughout the week.

Note, at the bottom of this section are some rows with numbers next to them (10>02). This is for time specific next actions. I personally condensed it down as I only needed to use it a few times a week. However, if you were designing your own planner/editing mine then you obviously can tailor it to your lifestyle.

The column along the left basically represents the 20,000ft level in the GTD vertical map but taking the approach I have discussed in the past. Essentially, projects/next-actions can all be broken down into their respective roles and responsibilities. For instance, I maintain two blogs so I have a responsibility as a blogger. On-going projects are those that you always have to be doing to be meeting the responsibilities, such as updating my blogs regularly, replying to comments and promoting them whenever I can. One-off projects are simply those that once completed are off your radar. A prime example could be to design a new theme for the site.

The undefined box is for those projects that are not significant enough to take up an entire box in the roles section. It can also be used as a @someday/maybe or @waiting for section as appropriate.

The goals box is simply the equivalent of the 30/40,000ft level in the GTD vertical map. I personally find the distinction between these two levels blurred so for the purposes of this planner I combined them into one box. It should also be mentioned there is no scope on the chart for the 50,000ft/mission statement. This is a personal choice which I have discussed previously. However in the near future I do intend to implement another box for writing down my mission statement.

The weekly themes box is for writing down any weekly project you may have (such as go to the gym everyday or do a detox). This is generally unrelated to the GTD/productivity elements of the planner and more to do with personal development. However in practice, the elements do overlap often. For instance the weekly theme of going to the gym relates to my long term goal of getting healthy.

I hope that explains how I use my system. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I will try and respond. If you decide to use my sheet or design a similar system for yourself please let me know about it.