Update On My Weekly Planner 16th Oct 2007

October 16th 2007

Last week a reader asked if he could see a filled in example of my weekly planner so he could understand it better. I am more than happy to do that. You can view an example of a completed planner here, complete with a carefully chosen handwritten font for that authentic, filled in look :) I’ve only filled in Monday to emphasize my new habit of only planning out one day at a time. If you have any other questions about the example sheet or the planner in general, leave a comment and I will gladly answer it.

If you have seen the old weekly planner design you will notice this new version looks slightly different. Since my original post, I’ve regularly tweaked the design and experimented with lots of features. Most of them didn’t work out, largely because of my new ideas on habit building (for reference sake, the main features included a weekly theme and a small habit list). This new design is very much something that “just works” and I am currently very happy with it. The only problem with it is the size. There is little room to write proper GTD standard next actions or projects, but I’ve found it’s still all easily understandable. You can view a PDF version for your own use here.

The one experimental feature that has stuck is giving myself a weekly score out of 5 for each of my roles and responsibilities and tracking them over a monthly period. While I am generally loath to audit and monitor myself with scores and grades, I found that this particular approach provided a good balance of motivation and focus. For example, if I gave myself a 3 the previous week, I could regularly look at my sheet and decide what I needed to do to push myself to a 4. Bear in mind that the score you give yourself for each role is based on how much you can realistically do that week. If you are stuck at work most of the time, and can only keep the home marginally tidy, thats a 5. If you have lots of spare time and you don’t keep your home looking spotless and de-cluttered thats a 1.