Weekly Action Plan Template

I know I write a lot about updating my organization system, but I'm just being honest about how much I tinker with my system to make sure it fits me just right. Every time my job situation or responsibilities shift, I generally have to make a change in my org system. If I don't, then I end up feeling all sorts of friction with my old system until I finally set aside time to revamp it.

I was using this system through my maternity leave and into my year as a stay-at-home mom. But now I'm starting to work more and more (both on my part-time job as the Director of Operations and Compliance for a new charter school and on the creation of my own charter school). I need more room to record daily tasks, and I need more space to chunk out my time and schedule work time for specific projects. I'll be working four mornings a week at my part-time job, picking Henry up at 12:30, spending the afternoons with him, and devoting Friday morning to my school. It's time to get back to a Weekly Action Plan.

I sit down on Sunday morning and look at my calendar for the week. I transfer all of my appointments and due dates to my weekly action plan. Yes, transferring these items is double-work (instead, I could use something like Outlook and my monthly items would populate my weekly view), but the act of transferring them from my tangible calendar to my tangible weekly action plan really helps me wrap my brain around what I have coming up.

Once I have all the have-to-do's on my action plan, I look back at my monthly goals and figure out what I want to accomplish this week in order to be on track to complete those monthly goals. Then I block off chunks of time during my week to work on those things (this is a way to be proactive about my time, rather than just reacting to all the demands that come at me throughout the week).

I can separate out my daily to-do items a little more. I'm sure I won't get everything done every day, but at least it won't be too difficult to look back at the previous day to catch up on a few things.

You can download the template here, if you're interested.

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