How I prioritise

Determining what really matters each week

Does anyone else have a note on their phone of things to do, that just keeps getting longer and longer?  Seriously, when I finally get to do something on the list and remove it, I have to add another two items. It’s never ending!

Now that I’m getting back into working again, I will be using my trusty weekly planner. It’s so simple that it will make you laugh.

Everyone else likes to use the latest AI app, or note taking software, and here I am with my black notebook, different coloured pens and a bunch of circles.

My weekly planner system has saved me so many times in my life, but when I first started using it, I hated it.  I was working as part of a project team in Stevenage, UK and as a team we had to use the weekly planner to list absolutely everything that needed to happen in our project and then map out which day we were going to do the items on.  Sounds simple enough right? But when there’s 6 of you trying to agree what should go on it, and doing this live on a flipchart it was really hard work.

Thankfully, I’ve gotten very good at doing this now, and instead of taking me 3 hours, it only takes 5 minutes.

Let me break it down for you.

1. On the left in a column, I list out all the things I need to do this week, and I mean EVERYTHING.

2. Then the rest of the page, I create 6 other columns with these headings: What, Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.

3. In the ‘what’ column, I simply abbreviate which project the task is related to (optional).

4. Then I draw a circle under the day that I’m going to do that work.

5. At the end of the day, I go through my circles and I colour them green (for done or worked on) or red (for not having had a chance to work on it), and repriortise the reds for another day.

Here’s an example:

What I normally end up with is a reasonably well-balanced week that has quite a lot of activities on it for each day.  So, then it’s all about sense checking it to see if it’s realistic.

As each task is going to vary in the amount of work required for it, I usually aim to do 1 big thing, 2 medium things and 3 small things per day (I call this the 1:2:3 method).  So, I will scan each day and put a star next to the circle of the task that I absolutely have to do that day. Even if I do nothing else, that thing must get done.

Now that I’m going to be juggling 2 kids and a job, I think my weekly planner is going to have to include Saturdays and Sundays, and will most likely be filled with batch cooking (fun).  At the moment I can’t see any other way around making the evening shift (5pm-8pm) go smoothly without food already prepared.  And as I haven’t won the lottery yet, I still have to prepare my own food, so hopefully this will work!

Today’s image courtesy of DALL-E: ‘Prioritisation is the key to staying sane’, featuring a serene (if not slightly moody looking) individual amidst chaos, symbolizing the peace brought by effective prioritisation.

What methods do you use to prioritise in your week?

P.S. If you’d like an electronic weekly planner template, just let me know!

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