The Magic Of Weekly Planning

Submitted by: Suzi Elton

Do you ever wonder how it is that some people seem to get so much done while you seem to just stay bogged down in repetitive and inconsequential activities? Do you ever compare yourself to these dynamos and realize you both have the same amount of time in a week/month? Do you feel disheartened as you watch others accomplish goals you dream about? Do you think they must know some secrets you don t? It s possible that they may do some sort of weekly planning every week. Clients who keep a commitment to weekly planning routinely excel in accomplishing their goals – quicker and easier than clients who do not.

Why would that be true? By taking planning time every week – Sundays work great for this – or right before your week begins, you have clarity on which activities you will focus on. Take the time to review what you had planned to do the previous week. How did you do on your plans? Did you stay focused on your #1 priority? Did you work on a couple of secondary priorities? Did you relegate your third tier goals to their proper position in priority?

Did you accomplish your #1 priority? Did you complete or make progress on your secondary priorities? Did you do some items among the 3rd tier priorities, or did you take your attention off your top priority and allow these activities to be completed first? If you re not happy when you review your results, this is not a time to berate yourself. Instead ask these questions:

– Was my plan realistic at the time I wrote it?

– Did circumstances change unpredictably?

– What were the reasons for my results?

– Did I have items on my plan that I thought I should do but didn t really want to?

– Does my analysis make me realize I should decommit from anything?

After this quick analysis, start planning for your new week. Take the time to list all your accomplishments. If you want to, you could list them in columns with headings relevant to your life. The purpose here is to help you have a visual scorecard about balance in your life.

Some potential headings (depending on what is relevant to your life) could be, “Job”, “Business”, “Career”, “Play”, “Social Life”, “Family Life”, “Personal Business”. Choose three categories that would meaningfully represent the areas where you typically focus your efforts.

You can use this tool to record your accomplishments as you go through the week. This is an especially helpful exercise if you end up each week feeling like you did nothing or accomplished nothing. Tracking your actions as you go will show you where your focus is and help you analyze the use of your time and make changes as needed. It will also show you what you need to do to balance your life better.

Once you ve analyzed the previous week, it will become obvious if you need to approach the upcoming week differently. You may realize that you want an entirely different #1 priority. Look at the upcoming week. Choose your #1 priority. Choose two secondary priorities. List any small action steps beneath each of these. List in order of priority any other activities you could handle this week on an “as time allows” basis. Be sure that the main focus is on your #1 priority, and you keep secondary focus on two secondary priorities.

Do weekly planning on a regular basis and you will soon learn that you get so much more done, that you re taking care of the important things first and without weekly planning you are lost.

About the Author: Suzi Elton is a success coach working with highly creative types to create income that matches their talent.She has coached hundreds of clients to approach their goals strategically through tiny steps to bring about quantum leaps. Get free Life Purpose exercises, at

mylifepurposecoaching.com

.

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