Feel More Organised by Monday with This Weekly Planning Routine

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This weekly planning routine took me from disorganised and overwhelmed to productive and organised—in just 30 minutes.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the exact steps I use to create a planning session that actually works, plus I’ll share prompts to help you design a version tailored to your needs and lifestyle.

I’m all about simplicity, so the only tools I use are Google Calendar and my bullet journal, however, you can just use a simple to-do list if that’s more your style.

As a Mindset and Productivity Coach for perfectionists, I want to emphasise that this routine isn’t about creating pretty colour-coded calendars or artistic bullet journal spreads. It’s about building a straightforward, effective planning routine that brings you more clarity and encourages you to take imperfect action.

A woman sitting at a desk, planning her week with a notebook, colored markers, and a laptop, while speaking on the phone. This relaxed setting showcases a productive weekly planning routine designed to improve organization and efficiency.

Table of Contents

What is a weekly planning routine?

A weekly planning routine is time put aside each week to help you review the previous week and plan the upcoming week so that you can get more meaningful work done without stress.

It’s as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. For example, you can use Notion, Evernote, or just pen and paper—whatever works for you and helps you be consistent.

I like to break down my weekly planning into 3 distinct and equally important parts:

Reflecting on the previous week
Planning the upcoming week
Scheduling my time effectively

Whenever I’ve skipped a step or rushed through one, I’ve always ended up with a more chaotic and stressful week, which is why I recommend you treat each step with the respect it deserves.

And besides, completing it all doesn’t even take a lot of time.

A woman in a cozy sweater sitting at a wooden desk, thoughtfully planning her week in a notebook with a laptop open beside her. This serene scene highlights the benefits of a focused weekly planning routine.

Why should you have one?

It breaks down your goals

I don’t know about you but I feel overwhelmed when I think about my Big Hairy Audacious Goals despite desperately wanting to build the life that I’ve always dreamed of.

This is why it’s important to first, have clear values-driven goals, and second, sit down each week and plan how you’re going to chip away at them.

It reduces rumination

When you have a lot on your plate, it is so much easier to ruminate and overthink everything without taking any steps forward.

Studies show that weekly planning reduces rumination and allows you to mentally disengage from your work during your free time. Not only is this great, for stress management but it also increases your overall wellbeing.

You get more done

You might think that spending 30-60 minutes planning is just another thing you have to add to your never-ending to-do list but I dare you to think of it differently.

Research by Gollwitzer, found that “Specifying when, where, and how to act on intentions turns goals into concrete, actionable steps, bridging the gap between thought and action.” which increased the likelihood of the tasks being completed.

This is also backed up by a 2022 study by Uhlig et al, who found that weekly planning ‘related to fewer unfinished tasks at the end of the week’

Improves your problem-solving skills

The Uhlig et al study suggests that planning increases your cognitive flexibility which helps you adapt and find solutions to the problems that come up during the week.

So, instead of feeling overwhelmed and hitting the ‘typical, just my luck’ and ‘woe is me’ buttons, you’ll be able to move things around in your schedule with ease and get things done without wallowing.

Helps you prioritise self-care

Instead of trying to find time during the week to shoehorn self-care practices, you make time.

You start your week knowing when, where and how you are going to practice self-care which enables you to protect this time by setting boundaries.

I’m an introvert but I’m also a new business owner which means I need to attend quite a few networking events during the week. If I don’t plan out my week so that I have social battery recharging blocks, things go downhill pretty quickly.

So scheduling my self-care periods is essential for the successful running of my business and to make sure I don’t have a mental breakdown.

A professional woman in a blazer jotting down notes in a quiet office setting, illustrating a structured weekly planning routine for work productivity.

How long should you spend planning?

I recommend you keep your planning sessions relatively short because if you struggle with perfectionism, the desire to overplan is strong and I don’t want that for you.

I used to spend hours on a Sunday planning out my week but then it became such a daunting, overwhelming task because it meant I had less time to truly relax.

Now, I try to wrap things up in 30 minutes or less. It really doesn’t need to be a Big Thing, planning is just a tool to help you structure your week but it is not the be-all and end-all.

Try to aim for 60% good enough and then move on because life happens and you can’t control what unexpected events crop up during the week.

The law of diminishing returns applies to this task, the longer you spend planning out your week, the more repetitive you become and the less engaged you are with the plan itself because now it’s more complicated and less useful.

So stick to 20-30 minutes, maybe an hour if it’s your first time weekly planning.

Related Post: How Long Does A Bullet Journal Last?

A woman in a white blouse writing in a journal at a bright desk, with a water bottle and soft natural lighting. This moment captures the essence of a thoughtful sunday planning routine

Step 1: Reflect on the previous week

Weekly reflection is an underrated productivity superpower so as tempting as it may feel, don’t skip this step.

You need to be able to reflect on the things that went well and the things that didn’t over the week so that you can learn from your mistakes and make necessary changes.

As Einstein famously said ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’.

Evaluate your week

I answer these exact questions every single week because it forces me to be succinct in evaluating my week.

What went well?
What didn’t go so well?
Did you achieve your goals?
Did you behave in alignment with your values?

Identify any lessons learnt

Based on your evaluation, what lessons did you learn about yourself, your work or your relationships?

Your lessons can be as big or small as you want, but I won’t accept ‘no lessons learnt’. If you have survived a full seven days in the wild 21st-century world, you’ve definitely learnt at least one lesson.

One.

I refuse to believe otherwise.

Maybe you learnt a new word from a friend or that you work better in the morning. Whatever, it is write it down.

“We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey

Lessons learnt Journal prompts:

What was the key takeaway from last week?
What will you do differently this week?
Did you try something new or step outside your comfort zone?

Celebrate your wins

To help you get into the right mindset for planning your next week, you need to celebrate your wins.

Not only does genuinely celebrating your wins feel good and increase your confidence but it also promotes habit formation and reduces any perfectionism you may feel when planning your week ahead.

According to Stanford University researcher, BJ Fogg ‘By causing yourself to feel successful you are self-reinforcing. And you can do this deliberately. You don’t have to leave that reinforcement to chance or to other people.’

Celebrating your wins makes you more likely to continue repeating behaviour that helped you achieve your goals.

Celebrate your wins Journal prompts:

List 3 things you’re proud of from last week.
Was there a moment this week when you felt genuinely happy or fulfilled?
What led to that?

A smiling woman working on her weekly planning routine alongside her cat, with a laptop and pen in hand. This image emphasizes the flexibility of planning in a comfortable home environment.

Step 2: Plan the upcoming week

Brain dump everything

Any worries, any stresses, any thoughts, feelings, funny memories, things to do, things not to do, anything. Brain dump it all.

The key to an effective planning session is being open and honest with yourself. You need to let go of the past week and any lingering thoughts so that you can effectively plan out the upcoming week with a clear mind.

I like to use my bullet journal but you can use scraps of paper, word documents or even your notes app.

In my list I put random blog ideas, future appointments, shopping list items etc… anything I was storing in my mind but forgot to put on paper.

Then once all out in the open, I categorise them into ‘work’ and ‘personal’.

Brain dump journal prompts:

What tasks, thoughts or ideas are on your mind right now?
Are there any upcoming projects or commitments you need to remember?
What thoughts are holding you back from having a clear mind?

Identify your top 3 priorities

Next, you want to review your monthly goals and identify your top 3 priorities for the upcoming week.

PLEASE, make sure it is achievable. Think about what you typically can achieve in a week and then choose a goal with a similar workload.

For example, I know that I can comfortably write 5 blog posts a week so it would be foolish of me to aim to write 10 blog posts a week.

Wouldn’t it?

Yes, it would and yet I still convince myself it’s possible sometimes. This is why doing your weekly review is so important at the start because it helps you keep a level head about the things you can realistically achieve.

Top 3 priorities journal prompts:

If you could only accomplish 3 things this week, what would they be?
Which goals feel most aligned with your values right now?
What’s one thing you keep putting off but know would make a difference if you focused on it?

Review your calendar

Check your calendar to see if there are any appointments or events that you booked in advance.

If you’re not the most organised person, I recommend you quickly scan through your emails, messages and relevant apps to see if there are any events you forgot to put in your calendar.

Calendar review journal prompts:

What appointments or events are already scheduled this week?
Do you need to prepare for them?
Is there anything that is not essential and can be removed or postponed?

Transfer your to-do list

By now, you should have a rough idea of all the things you want to do and need to do this week.

Before you transfer your to-do list from last week to this week, I need you to clear it out and reorganise it.

If you have some day items on your to-do list, you need to add them to your productivity backlog, schedule them or completely remove them if it’s just a pipe dream.

There is no point cluttering your brain with things you aren’t going to do this week.

You can copy over your streamlined to-do list to the upcoming week now.

Transfer to-do list journal prompts:

What tasks are unfinished?
Are there any tasks that aren’t important or relevant to your goals and values?
Can you break down these tasks into smaller chunks?

A flat-lay view of a planning setup with a goal-setting notebook, a cup of coffee, a gold watch, and binder clips on a light wooden table. This minimalist scene showcases the tools for an effective planning routine.

Step 3: Manage your time effectively

The final step in your weekly planning routine should be scheduling your week. If you started with this step, you would end up wasting so much of your time on things that aren’t in alignment with your goals and then wonder why you’re not making progress.

Time blocking and task batching

If you want more structure to your day, I recommend you try time blocking and task batching. It’s quite simple, all you need to do is review your streamlined to-do list and group similar tasks together (like admin, planning, writing, social media management etc…).

Then give each batch a score for how energy demanding it is (e.g. 1 – low energy, 5 – high energy).

Schedule high-energy tasks for your peak energy times and low-energy tasks for energy dips.

For example, I’m an early riser so I schedule blog writing for the morning when my brain functions best and I save admin and Canva image creation in the evening.

Time blocking and task batching journal prompts:

What tasks do you need to focus on this week?
Are there similar tasks you can group together to save time and energy?
When are your energy peaks and dips during the week?

Day theming

If time blocking isn’t your thing, you should try day theming. Honestly, I’m more of a day-theming girl because my life can be quite hectic, between juggling clients, researching and creating blog posts.

So it’s much easier for me to give each day an overarching theme which allows for more consistency and flow.

For example, here are my current-day themes:

Mondays: Research topic
Tuesdays: write feature-style article
Wednesday: write listicle
Thursday: write a column article
Friday: write an article for the ‘Reminders for Perfectionists’ series
Saturday: create and schedule Pinterest pins

It allows for much more flexibility in my schedule. If something unexpected crops up in my day, I can just deal with it without worrying about my schedule messing up.

Day theming journal prompts:

What part of your week feels the most hectic right now?
What themes could you use to simplify your week? (e.g. admin, planning, writing, clients etc…)
How would day theming help you feel more productive?

Set and reorganise recurring self-care events

Scheduling self-care is a non-negotiable. Fact. So if you haven’t already scheduled self-care into your calendar, you should add it right now.

You can block out evenings, afternoons or the weekend for specific self-care activities. For example, on Friday evening schedule a bubble bath.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here are some self-care ideas you can schedule:

Bubble bath
Yoga class
Meditation
Mindful walk
Get a massage
Paint your nails
Netflix night

I also recommend you set up a recurring event for your favourite self-care activities to make sure you prioritise them.

Self-care scheduling journal prompts:

Rate your current self-care routine out of 5 (1-non-existent, 5-well maintained)
Why did you give it this rating?
What would help you move up one point on the scale?
What activities make you feel recharged?
Is there a specific time/day that works best for scheduling self-care?

Clear Glass Jar Filled of Coloring Pens Beside of an open bullet journal to show how long a bullet journal lasts

Maintenance: Daily check-in

There’s no point putting in all this effort creating a weekly plan, only to ignore it during the week. This is why I recommend you check in with yourself daily to make sure you’re on track.

Keep it short and simple, you only need 10 minutes.

Morning check-in

Review you plan
Set your intentions
Amend time blocks where necessary

Evening check-in

Reflect on your day
Note any unfinished tasks
Celebrate small wins

So what’s stopping you start your weekly planning routine?

Your weekly planning session doesn’t need to be a long drawn-out process – just aim for ‘good enough’ and you’ll be fine.

Try to keep it between 20-30 minutes so that it doesn’t end up being another boring chore on your to-do list.

Start small, keep it simple and give it a go.

You’ll definitely feel better by Monday if you use this routine!

A infographic titled "Weekly Planning to Be More Organized." The top of the image features bold text with the subtitle "Click to Read Blog Post." The main content is structured into four steps for weekly planning, with detailed descriptions for each step: reflecting on the previous week, planning the upcoming week, managing time effectively, and conducting daily check-ins. The right-hand side includes an image of a woman sitting at a desk, smiling while on the phone, with text that reads "Journal Prompts Plan Your Week," followed by three reflective prompts. The bottom features an invitation to "Join the Community of Healing Perfectionists" alongside a small preview of additional resources. The website URL "TheValuedLife.co.uk" is included at the bottom

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Feel More Organised by Monday with This Weekly Planning Routine

What is a weekly planning routine?