Chapter I: the weekly log – only a sight in the future?

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The aim of using your journal to plan your week in advance, let’s say on Sunday evening, is to give you overview and awareness on how your week is going to be. So far so good.

Besides, having your appointments in front of you has some further advantages, since you can in a glance:

• identify what you might need to prepare beforehand;
• recognize if your week is going to be tough because loaded;
• where you have free time slots.

From here on out, you might develop what I call strategies:

• being prepared for your week could be in form of preparing meals, checking your dresses are clean and ironed, reviewing your notes for the next meeting;
• awareness on a busy week coming ahead means you know you won’t have space to tackle your to-do list or that you will need to manage your energy level accordingly, for example by eating healthier or going early to bed;
• free time slots can be used to work forward at one of your projects, or even better to have a proper rest; or sometimes, you can simply do nothing. Yes you have read it right. Do nothing.

I would like to share with you the insights that I have gained so far by regularly planning my incoming week. By being prepared I saved a huge amount of stress and decision fatigue. And it is not about productivity. It is about steering my life with awareness and not being driven by the events that occur to me or by the expectations from others. It is about acknowledging ownership and responsibility over the decisions taken. It is about choosing to do the things I love and remove those others that no longer serve me. Or, as my friend Sabrina has explained in one previous post in this blog, it is about doing less but better.