How Weekly Planners
Can Help You Plan Ahead

Weekly planners can help you arrange your schedules for each whole week. Planning ahead can make you get organized with the things that you do so you can be prepared early and simplify on doing your activities.

Being prepared and aware of the things to come is part of effective leadership characteristics.

With week planners you can set up tasks early in expectation of things that are going to happen on each day of the week.

With this you can adjust tasks and commitments to its most appropriate time and day which will make things easier as days pass by.

Being able to do this you’ll be able to relieve some stress and prevent procrastinating caused by uncertain events and circumstances that cannot be avoided.

Advanced Preparation Made Simple

Here’s one of the weekly planners you can use for getting things done for 7 days:

One of the simple weekly planners for 7 days scheduling.

Printing this weekly planner will need a 8 ½" x 13" piece of paper or "Legal size"

Click this link to open the PDF file of this Planner to Print or Save

A simple format or structure of a planner does the job!

Date-range and columns for 7 days of the week

Rows for clock-times, you should limit the time of working during the day so you can have enough rest and recovery with sleep

Lines that divide clock-time sections and days of the week

Alternating light and semi-dark shades for rows for easier writing and readability

Notes section at the bottom

How to Use It Effectively

Unlike a daily planner which have clock-times for 1 whole day, weekly planners have clock-times for seven consecutive days that is from Sunday to Saturday.

You can plan and fill in your daily schedules in advance if you want and it will be a great timesaver for you if you’ll simplify your thoughts by just following the sequence of tasks you’ve listed.

However you must think properly on each day what to write down because you definitely don’t want to mess schedules on your planners if you make mistakes with writing tasks that you didn’t give much thought about.

And you cannot be a perfectionist with your plans because things like emergencies and unexpected circumstances may happen so you need to give some allowance as you try to get organized with your time.

It’s a good idea to write important things ahead of time which you don’t want to forget or what you might forget because of busyness in life.

Here are some things you can write in advance:

Appointment with a doctor or a friend for example

Day of work submission such as an assignment at school or a document at the office

Deadlines for the week before weekends, what do you need to finish this week?

Watching a TV show you don’t want to miss out, especially if it’s the last episode

The bills you have to pay this week before the next week arrives

You could consider time for recreation and relaxation. You may be planning to have an outing during the weekends already.

Saving Lots of Time and Fulfilling Things

If you can arrange and lay down your schedules well on weekly planners for all seven days and follow most of it you’ll see how much you can accomplish.

You’ll see that you’re going to save great amounts of time while being able to complete everything you have to do including your personal tasks like your hobbies.

If you set your tasks and activities well during the day you can avoid sleep deprivation at night.

Sufficient sleep is important for getting things done because you have to be in the right condition to perform well and have good productivity.

It would be easier to have work-life balance if you get organized with how you use your time. Priorities combined with sufficient focus and perseverance you can make it possible to follow weekly planners.

Balancing and Adjusting

Arrange and assign your tasks well at the best time of a day in your planner.

Unlike with daily planners which you would focus on the whole time period on each single day, in weekly planners you would be thinking for multiple days each week.

This can be your opportunity to prepare and fix everything so it would be more convenient for you. While planning to accomplish your activities for the week you should also be aware of your working capacity and health.

You can then balance your time, efforts, responsibilities and commitments to other people.

There may be times when you have to avoid or refuse a request being asked of you and postpone to another date if it seems you’re going to have too much things to do during the week.

Work-life balance is also important.

You can add other tasks for other people if you have spare time or maybe next week when you’re more free. Why not?

Getting things done and completion of your tasks during the week is what’s most important and this can help you avoid problems with anxiety caused by not being able to fulfill things that are important and should’ve been done.

Making Schedules Easier For You

Here are some tips to make your weekly planners easier for you to use:

Prefer simple living over a complicated one. You don’t actually need all those things desired by most people it will only give you more pressure and stress and even you acquire so much stuff in life it doesn’t guarantee happiness.

Organize your things and surroundings. It can relieve you much when things are in order and it will make it easier for you to manage your things and place using good organizing ideas.

Think how you can make things easier for you like how you begin your daily routine. Another example is learning to prepare easy recipes that are also healthy for you which can save you lots of time.

Do things in advance when you have the motivation, energy and means to do it so you won’t have to think and worry about it another day. Doing things early if you can, is one of the timesavers you can use to help you have work life balance.

Writing Important Reminders

The notes section of week planners can be used for writing important things about your schedules and tasks that you have to be reminded of. Things like:

Emergencies and alerts on your schedule

Corrections with anything you have to do

Sudden reminders such as phone calls or meeting with a boss or someone

About other things that suddenly happen during the day in addition to your scheduled task

Anything you can think of that you need to write down such as details, changes, memos, etc.

Bundled Together Weekly Planners

If you want an "organizer type" of weekly planners which has pages for many weeks that are compiled together you can buy something like this:

Photo Credit: cireremarc via Flickr

You may prefer this kind if you want to keep records of past weeks’ schedules and tasks. You can buy an organizer like this from bookstores and office equipment shops.

Another one:

While week planners cover each 7 days week time another useful tool you can use for a work-life balance is a monthly planner which acts like a recording calendar.

There is a printable planner you can download for any type you need to use.

Using week planners can help you get organized and simplify your thoughts about your tasks every week.

It can make life easier and help avoid the guilt of not having performed any responsibility at work, at school, with family, friends and other people.