As a busy entrepreneur running my own business while raising two young children, effective weekly planning is essential for achieving my goals and maintaining a work-life balance.

Over the years, I have refined my planning process into a detailed system that allows me to be highly productive yet still make time for family.

Each Sunday, I review my calendar, to-do list, and notes from the previous week to ensure my time is scheduled efficiently. I divide my plan into sections for reflection, goal-setting, habits, and priorities.

On Sundays, I also take time to reflect on my accomplishments from the past week and identify lessons learned. With this structured approach, I am able to clearly visualize my schedule, stay accountable to my goals, and continuously move my business forward while still making family a priority.

My planning system has proven invaluable for reducing stress and allowing me to feel in control, even with my many responsibilities. It has become a non-negotiable part of my routine for achieving balance and success.

My plan is divided into four key sections:

1. Hindsight

I reflect on the accomplishments and lessons I’ve learnt from the past seven days. This is huge and gives me an idea on what happened that I can leave behind and what I want to take on as positive for the coming week. Repeating the same mistakes over and over is one way to stay in the same place. Stagnant is not for me so this process is so important.

2. Habits

The habits section focuses on maintaining routines like exercise, reading, and self-care. I look at the books I’m reading both audio and physical and set some goals as to how much I would love to get through for the following week. There is no sense in saying you want to read a book a month if you can’t break it down into smaller goals to achieve the bigger goal of getting the book done. It’s the same as keeping fit, you need to get your clothes out, allocate time to exercise be it at the gym or at home, it does not miraculously just happen on it’s own. You need to make it happen.

3. Current Week

When planning the current week, I consider new ideas, who I want to connect with, and goals I want to achieve. This is huge. These are needle moving things. These are important. The key here is to remember: done is better than perfect.

4. Priorities

Priorities come directly from my to-do list, with client work, business projects, and personal errands. I colour code my calendar by category which helps me schedule efficiently for the current week. This way, at a glance I can see how much personal time I have, how many meetings I have and the different sorts of meetings I have. There needs to be a nice balance of client vs moving the needle meetings to achieve what I set out to achieve for the year inside my business.

I also print my plan each week for easy reference while crossing off completed tasks. This tangible record allows me to track progress and make adjustments if and where needed. The process of reviewing and updating my plan each Sunday is now a non-negotiable part of my routine. I love it and it sets me up to win at the beginning of every week.

Most importantly it keeps me accountable to myself and my goals. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

It’s that 1% every day and every week that will move the needle to help you achieve those big tick goals.

With this system, I’m able to achieve more in my business while still making time for my family.

Effective planning creates structure for focused work periods yet allows flexibility. It keeps me accountable to both long-term goals and daily responsibilities. Most importantly, having a clear plan reduces stress, believe me, it can be super stressful at times with a business and small humans. This helps me feel organised and in control each week.

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