Why do a Weekly Plan?

Weekly planning is the practise of planning your upcoming week in advance and one that reflects your roles, priorities and appointments. Weekly planning is important – it requires that we act on it. Daily Planning has a sense of urgency about it – it acts on us. If you do a weekly plan, you wouldn’t need to do a daily plan. Yes, there shall be some updates and changes, but at least your weekly plan can be used as a reference to what your plans and prioritise was when done. This can be used as an excellent reference for priorities and decision making.

This exercise of weekly planning is pointless if you have no direction, goals or objectives – whether in your personal or professional life. One has to start by thinking about their purpose/ cause/ reason and also their vision. One has to also explore the roles in their roles in their different areas of life. These represent what is important for us to fulfil or engage in. They need to get attention during the course of the week.

It is only the habit and practice of doing weekly planning that allows you to plan all areas of your life. It is the closest practice to achieving a sense of balance in your life. Balance may not be possible or realistic when other priorities demand attention; but at least you have the option to remain in control.

In the absence of weekly planning, we become crisis managers – never planning or preventing. Weekly planning helps you as a manager, and your staff, to take personal responsibility for your work. It is the key to self management and self motivation. It is not the job of a manager to motivate his or her staff, but to lead, guide, coach and counsel. Staff should be self motivated – that is a real sign of right people in right jobs.