I spent about an hour every Sunday preparing for the upcoming week.
Does that sound like a lot? When I write it down, it does. I worry, a little, that you guys are going to think I’m crazy. But that hour is the key to me getting (literally) anything done at all during the week. And it’s fun.
Working in my planners is one of my favorite hobbies.
I use three, for the most part.
A B6 Stalogy notebook for my daily to-do list.
A Large Monthly Calendar from J-Story for my work and editorial calendars.
A weekly planner for my personal calendar.
My flow looks like this.
I have my entire year’s editorial planner already set up. Every project is divided into tasks and each task is written in my calendar for 2022 (including writing—so there are weeks and weeks where I just wrote the name of the project in each square.)
On the last Sunday of every month, I fill out my work calendar with my class and workshop schedule, and anything else I have going on for work. So on most Sunday’s that’s already done.
On the last Sunday of the month, I transfer everything from my work and editorial calendars to my weekly calendar. And then, through the month, when something comes up in my personal life that I need to schedule, it goes in there, too.
So—when any Sunday but the last Sunday of the month rolls around, I just need my weekly calendar, which already holds my whole schedule.
I set up my daily pages in my Stalogy for the week.
I only plan a week at a time in my notebook. I use one page per day and just date the top. I like pretty things, so I use washi tape and stickers and colored markers. But that’s more art project than planning and not necessarily.
I write whatever is in my weekly planner as the start of my to do list for each day of the week.
I also create a weekly meal plan, on the page after my to-do lists, a running todo list for the week (where I keep a list of things I need or want to get done this week, but I don’t know when yet), and a page headed ‘next week’ where I can start my running todo list for the upcoming week.
That’s it. All week, I use my Stalogy to take notes, then when Sunday comes around again, I create my weekly pages again. I like to use washi tape along the outside edge of the weekly todo, meal plan, and running todo pages so that I can see them easily.
And, because it’s pretty.
One of the biggest benefits I get from planning so . . . um . . . intensely is that I never have to worry about more than what’s on my schedule for today. As long as I do those things, I know I’m making progress toward my goals, meeting all of my obligations, and doing little things like remembering to make dinner.
Creating an editorial calendar for the entire year has been a revelation. It’s only been six or seven weeks, but so far it’s bee shockingly effective.
Since December I’ve:
completely written and published one short nonfiction book
written another one
planned a novel and written 4000 words of it
applied the edits that came from an editor on another
kept up with my goal of writing eight blog posts a month
written a short email course
written a weekly newsletter
wrote and delivered a week long Fresh Start class.
worked with my daughter to create a low-content book that we’ll be able to release on time next Friday
That’s—astonishing. And most of it (the vast majority) was done during about 90 minutes a day of focused writing, plus one all day write. Knowing exactly what I need to work on and having a good idea of how much I need to get done is a game changer.
Love,
Shaunta
Your ability to plan is impressive as heck - the fact that you can do that in 90 minutes a day is pretty impressive too. I've been slowly increasing my dedicated writing time each morning so I could work on a series but maybe I can up it and split my focus between my project and some posting on Medium - I've let it really fall by the wayside.
As always I am blown away with how you plan things. I am going to try and take bits of this an apply it for myself and see if I get great results.