3 Steps to Plan Your Perfect Week (Monday Hour One)
While balancing the mum, work, friends, fitness, and personal life plates, it’s easy to watch your to do list just grow and grow and seriously wonder when you’ll ever get to it all.
This was me a few years back – I had notes upon notes in my phone, on my desk, and in my brain, and at the end of each week I had never achieved everything I wanted to.
I needed a new system and I was curious and hopeful when I found the Monday Hour One process (later I’d go on to work for The Life Coach School and get to use it as part of my job! Yay!).
I’ve been using the method for a number of years now and, with some tweaks, I’ve managed to bed down how I plan my calendar.
I’ve honestly never felt so productive or assured about how I spend my time and what I’ll get done.
The method is called Monday Hour One as they suggest you do it during the first hour of your work week, before you get into any other work whatsoever.
I prefer to do it Sunday night but find what works best for you.
Here are the three steps I’ve chosen to follow:
1. Write down everything you have to get done.
Note: the first few times you do this, the list may be huge, as you’ve not been as productive as you could be until now.
It’s time to get everything out of your brain – bills you need to pay, work projects you need to finish, workouts you want to do, things you need to fix around the house...all of it. Write a huge list of everything that’s on your mind or scattered on post it notes around the house.
2. Now, write down next to each item how long it will take you to do it.
Take your best guess here – a visit to the supermarket might be around 1 hour, paying those bills might only be 15 minutes. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just an estimate.
Make sure you write down an estimate of time for each item on the list you’ve made.
3. The most important step… put the tasks on your calendar.
Don’t groan. This is the secret sauce!
I find Google Calendar the easiest to work with as I can move the bookings around easily but play around with what works for you.
What’s important is that your ‘to do’ now has a spot on your calendar and not just on a list or in your brain.
This has been game changing for me as I now know I’ve got everything on the calendar and, most importantly, the time and space to complete the task.
Special note: you may not get your whole to do list onto the calendar the first time you do this. Just put on the things that are time sensitive and need to be done this week. You’ll start to chip away at longer term tasks in the week ahead!
A few extra tips:
You don’t have to put everything on your calendar for the next week. Some things aren’t urgent and can have a slot in a following week, which you’ll review when you get to Monday Hour One of that week.
Plan in free time and rest! This method isn’t just about productivity – it’s about creating the calendar of your dreams, so make sure you add in Netflix slots, reading time or whatever rejuvenates you best.
Create a running list of things that may pop into your brain during the week. BUT, unless they’re totally urgent, don’t try and squeeze them into your already planned week. This has been one of the major benefits for me – I may have done Monday Hour One for the week and then realise I need to buy my daughter some new socks. However, I don’t have to fit it in there and then. Old me probably would have jumped online or headed out to the store and overwhelmed myself. Now, I add it to the list I keep in the Reminders app on my phone and know it will be addressed and given a spot on the calendar that Sunday night when I do my planning.
If you’d like me to guide you through this process step-by-step, and would like to see the review questions I complete at my “Friday Hour Done” each week, you can download the Plan Your Week Workshop here.
