Exploring the weekly planning session

- Do you need to have a weekly planning session? Some people ask me this question after completing my Time Management Fundamentals course. Why? Because I specifically don't give any recommendation to have weekly planning. In fact, personally, I don't do any weekly planning. First, I'll explain why that is and then, I'll explain some things that you could do if you still see value in holding a weekly planning session. In my Time Management courses I talk about the importance of processing.

Processing takes roughly about five hours a week. It's time you have scheduled in your calendar where you decide what you're going to do with each item, when you're going to do it, and where is its home. During that step of deciding when you're going to do things, you are making prioritization decisions. Things that are high priority you are scheduling time to do them soon. Perhaps, tomorrow or, in the next week or two. Things that are low priority you're scheduling to do further out into the future.

Perhaps, several months from now. In this way, what most people consider to be planning is automatically taking place as part of the processing schedule. It naturally occurs and therefore, you don't need any dedicated time to do it. The concept of weekly planning really came out of the 70s and 80s during a time when people weren't inundated with constant interruptions. But in our age, we have far too many activities coming at us, more than we can possibly put into our calendar.

Which means, that, just going through the course of processing you and I are likely to eat up all of our available time. I find it redundant to processing and therefore, don't do it. Now, if you're still finding you have available time or, if you feel that your life would have more balance by taking time to reflect on your week, there are some things you might do during weekly planning. First, you could double check everything in your schedule.

Look ahead, and see if there's anything that seems out of the ordinary. Did you make a mistake in scheduling something? Perhaps, do you see any double booked appointments? Did something change in the last week that caused, what you originally scheduled into the calendar, to no longer be a priority? Make adjustments to your schedule, as needed. Next, you could answer the question, what is the single most important thing that I will accomplish this week? Being focused on one most valuable result will help you become more productive.

By focusing your actions during the week on just one thing, it will help you discover times that may be wasted on lower value activities. It may be too late to adjust the week right in front of you but, it may provide insight for future weeks so that you start to make wiser decisions about your priorities. Next, you can ask, are there any relationships that I want to pay attention to? For instance, is there a spouse, or a child, or a loved one that you want to make time for? This can also apply in the work place.

Such as making sure that you're taking time for team members. And that you're giving them the attention that they need. Finally, if you have a partner in work, or in life, you may want to spend just a little bit of time coordinating schedules with them to make sure that everything lines up for the coming week. Again, weekly planning is not an absolute necessity. If you do choose to make it a part of your schedule, have it at a consistent day and time each week so that it becomes an integral part of your productivity plan.