Why I switched to weekly planning instead of daily plans

For years I have believed that the best way to prepare for tomorrow is to plan for it either the night before or first thing in the morning. I soon realized that there were several reasons why I needed a more comprehensive approach to effectively planning my days. I finally decided to switch to weekly scheduling and haven’t looked back since.

1 It gives me a clear overview of the week

Weekly planning gives me a clear overview of my tasks and deadlines, helps me prioritize effectively and make the most of my time. Daily planning worked well when I was only in charge of one aspect of my life – high school.

Back then, my tasks were simple and limited: attend classes, do assignments, study for exams, and revise. When I could just focus on high school, I could schedule my assignments whenever I wanted. However, once I added work to my studies, the amount of time I had multiplied compared to the number of tasks I needed to complete before deadlines.

I usually know by Sunday the deadlines I will be facing in the coming week. When I planned daily, I often ended up doing what felt right on days when there wasn’t an immediate deadline, even if it wasn’t the most urgent task. It happened because I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture. With weekly planning, I have all five days laid out in front of me and a list of all the tasks that I have to complete by the end of the week.

Since I know when tasks are due and when I have free time, I can schedule the important tasks first and then get on top of the others. This gives me a clear overview of the week and allows me to plan each day accordingly, whereas the daily planning only shows one size of the puzzle.

2 Reduces decision fatigue

As I mentioned above, when you’re planning daily, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Ultimately, you choose tasks based on what feels right in the moment, often taking the path of least resistance and focusing on tasks that seem easier than those that matter most. This usually happens when you are constantly deciding what to work on each day.

By planning my entire week in advance, I can allocate time to tasks based on their priority, eliminating the need to make these decisions repeatedly throughout the week. That way, instead of constantly thinking about what task to tackle next, I just stick to the plan I set at the beginning of the week.

3 It allows me to accept new tasks based on my availability

As someone who always tried to say no when asked to do something, I developed a bad habit of taking on more than I could handle. Combined with my desire to complete every task perfectly, I usually have no choice but to resort to all-nighters and drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee.

With weekly planning, I basically block off every hour of every day – until I wake up, commute to and from school, attend classes, work, spend time with family, study, etc. So now when I’m asked to take on a task , I just need to look at the calendar and see if I have any vacancies. I use Reclaim, an AI-powered scheduling tool that automatically schedules tasks based on my availability.

Daily planning, on the other hand, has never given me that level of clarity. Without a clear overview of my week, I would often underestimate the amount of tasks I needed to do and agree to things without realizing how busy my schedule already was.

4 It gives me the flexibility to adapt

As I mentioned above, my approach to weekly planning involves outlining what I will be doing each hour of the day. While I schedule fixed recurring tasks for a set time, I also leave certain sections throughout the day, what I call buffer time, empty for breaks or unexpected tasks that may come up during the week.

Weekly planning gives me the flexibility to allocate time to tasks in a more realistic way and adjust time as needed. If a last-minute task comes up and I have an available slot, I have the option to schedule the last-minute task into the free slot. In cases where I don’t have a free slot, I often glance at the urgency of my current tasks and whether there is room to move any of them. If so, I have the option to adjust tasks according to urgency.

For example, if I have a sudden quiz scheduled and need to spend more time studying than I anticipated at the beginning of the week, I can mix up assignments throughout the week without the stress of cramming everything into a single day and missing all my upcoming deadlines because of one unexpected task. As I mentioned above, Reclaim handles this for me most of the time, scheduling the most urgent tasks first and then scheduling the lower priority tasks.

5 Prevents over-planning

This is closely related to both of the above points. Although I’ve developed a bad habit of overworking myself over the past few years, time has shown me that it only leads to burnout. So I’m actively working to find a balance that allows me to be productive without sacrificing my physical and mental well-being.

When I plan for the week, I get the perfect opportunity to determine how much I can realistically take. With each day planned, I can immediately see if I’m putting too many tasks on a particular day. If this is the case, I can easily identify gaps in my schedule, spread out my tasks accordingly, and ensure that no day is too busy.

6 It helps me stay consistent

One of the biggest benefits of weekly planning is that it helps me break tasks down into smaller, manageable chunks and spread them over multiple days. This makes it much easier to stay consistent.

Let’s say I have a task that will take me about 8 hours to complete and is due by the end of the week. One option is to procrastinate most of the week and then start with him on the day of delivery and give him my full, undivided attention for what I estimated was 8 hours. While I may succeed, there’s a good chance it will take longer than I planned. In that case, I would have no choice but to submit an incomplete assignment or request an extension.

Using the same example with weekly planning, I would instead break the 8 hours into 2 hour blocks over 4 days.

That way, not only would I give the task the full 8 hours I had scheduled without cramming, but I would also have the flexibility of a few extra days depending on its deadline if I needed more time to complete it.

While choosing between daily and weekly scheduling ultimately comes down to personal preference, I’d recommend experimenting with both to see which one works best for you. If you’re not sure how to get started with your weekly planning, you can even use ChatGPT to help you map out your week!