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Designing Your Perfect Week

Designing Your Perfect Week

Karyn Greenstreet

I’ve been spending a lot of time this week working on my Perfect Week. Have you ever done this exercise?

You map out what you want to be doing during the week, by category, making sure the high-priority items get on your schedule first. It helps you set priorities and creates more productivity in your days.

Then, in the future, when you need to schedule something, you see how it fits into your “perfect” week instead of letting your schedule get away from you.

Some people balk at the idea of structuring their days so completely. That’s okay — just as long as you’re clear on what you want to accomplish each week and you have a plan in place for getting it all done. And it’s important that you also have a plan for saying “no” to tasks and people who take you off track of your goals.

For me, the structure is necessary; if I leave it up to “I’ll do whichever task I feel like doing in the moment,” I don’t get all my tasks done. 🙂

I created mine in an Excel spreadsheet, but you could use any word processor, or just a paper calendar to map out yours.

Here’s a blank copy of my Excel spreadsheet so you can try this exercise for yourself! (If you don’t have Excel, you can still download the spreadsheet, then open it in a Google Drive Sheets spreadsheet.)

Here’s a blank copy in PDF format if you prefer.

I hope you find it helpful…or at least eye-opening.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Dominique

    Thanks so much for sharing Karyn! I always love to see how successful people make space for the important things!Also found the color coding very helpful!

    • Karyn Greenstreet

      You’re welcome, Dominique. 🙂

      At first I did it without the color coding, but I found when I “grouped” things visually, I could easily see if I was spending my time on the most important things. Some blocks of time will change…you know how life goes! But I’m enjoying having discrete slots for everything. I live by my calendar!

  3. Gary Greenfield

    For the same reasons as mind mapping, your time map idea is very powerful. You can’t get anywhere without knowing where you want to go; when you want to get there; and exactly how you are going to get there on a timely basis. Thanks for reinforcing this idea.

    • Karyn Greenstreet

      It’s the truth, Gary…we have to know exactly how we’re going to get to our goals within a period of time. Otherwise we “wander.”

  4. Carol Moncrief

    Thanks so much, Karyn! I need all the help I can get to get myself organized. This looks very doable, especially since this will help organize the tasks leading up to the end result.

    • Karyn Greenstreet

      What I like about this concept, Carol, is that it puts similar tasks into chunks of time. I’m always more productive when I can work on one project at a time.

  6. Thelisha

    I love this idea. I have tried with my phone calendar, notepads, and alarms. This go round, I may use my phone calendar but used vibration because the notification sounds drive me to a point where i sometimes don’t read the task and regret it later. Thank you!

  7. Rebecca Watson

    Karyn,

    This fits perfectly with the productivity plan I share with my clients. I will include this in our productivity sessions. After filling in my “perfect” week, I spend a few minutes before bed each night entering events with alarms in my calendar so that my phone buzzes at me and keeps me on track throughout the day. Thank you for a great template!

    Rebecca

    • Karyn Greenstreet

      The colors help me to see if my week is “balanced” with all the different things I want to do and focus on. I find it’s a quick snapshot to see if life is by design. 🙂