How a Weekly Planning Routine Can Improve Your Life
When it comes to the idea of “weekly planning” – do these thoughts come to mind?
- “I’m too busy!”
- “I have too many ‘surprises’ during the week for this to be realistic.”
- “I don’t really have control over my schedule!”
But you know what? When I transitioned to a being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), I realized that I was rapidly becoming a hot mess mom. Yeck!
I desperately needed to become more intentional and pursue peace. Personally, I needed some healthy flexible structure to do it, too.
So, I decided to create a weekly planning routine. Now I’m a total fan girl of weekly planning!
Here’s the lowdown on what weekly planning is, how to get started, and some encouragement to give it a go. Maybe you’ll also become a fan!
Because you know what? You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.
- Living as God's beloved: How planning comes in
- What is weekly planning?
- How a weekly planning routine can improve your life
- Getting started with weekly planning
- Bonus: Consider family weekly planning
- It's okay to pivot!
- Two resources to help you start incorporating these tips in your life
- Articles related to creating a weekly planning routine
- Recapping why and how to get started with a weekly planning routine
Living as God’s beloved: How planning comes in
Let’s be clear – we can’t actually plan every moment in our lives.
Nor should we.
Did you know that the word “plan” appears 205 times in the Bible? (I didn’t either!). Find 40 Powerful Bible Scriptures on Planning.
After all, Scripture talks over and over again about how much of, well, EVERYTHING, is in God’s hands. Here are just a few verses highlighting that truth.
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Matthew 6:34
One of my favorite statements about the value of planning is from Jesus talking about the cost of being a disciple. In Luke 12:25-33, he discusses the importance of estimating the cost when building a tower and considering his manpower when going to war.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Luke 12:28-32
In order to succeed with your plan, you need to cast a vision for the supplies and support you’ll need.
Are you guaranteed you’ll succeed by planning these things out? Nope.
But you’ll be more prepared to troubleshoot problems and move forward because you developed your game plan before launching into tower-building or war.
Obviously, Jesus wasn’t saying, “Dude, you got to plan your weeks! Create a schedule!”
However, I do believe we can apply this idea to how we approach our days by proactively considering our priorities, responsibilities, and possible obstacles.
What is weekly planning?
I’d heard from countless personal development folks about how weekly planning had rocked their worlds. A few of the many advocates for weekly planning included:
- Anchored Women: How to create a weekly planning habit
- A Purpose Driven Mom: Weekly Planning System for Busy Moms
- The Purpose Show Podcast: Ep 130: Sunday Night Prep: The Key to Purposeful Weeks
Basically, you sit down once a week to sketch out your plans for the coming week.
You might focus on your:
- Top priorities for each day
- Scheduled events/activities
- Day-to-day rhythms (such as working out, cleaning, errands, etc.)
- Planning meals
As cool as it sounded, I’d never really seen or heard someone I knew personally do this.
Do real people use a weekly planning routine? Or just bloggers and podcasters?
How a weekly planning routine can improve your life
- You determine what your priorities are first and then plan your days around them. It’s YOUR life. You have more autonomy than perhaps you realize.
- You can troubleshoot potential conflicts earlier on. For instance, if you have a small group meeting on Wednesday evening, then you plan an easier meal that evening (like a frozen dish, ordering in, etc.)
- You can try to plan things around your energy level and capacity. If you’re fresher in the morning, you might plan to do bigger tasks and projects in the morning and lighten it up as the day goes on. Period coming? Perhaps you lighten up your calendar for those days.
- It can help reduce stress. Rather than letting your many to-do’s and ideas ramble in your head, YOU can decide when they’ll be a priority.
- It can reduce decision fatigue. You’re deciding when to focus on what – less to think about the day of! (Learn about decision fatigue.)
- Boost excitement for the days to come! It’s fun to look forward to a week that’s focused on your top priorities and cup fillers. Win-win!
Getting started with weekly planning
I’ve used a modge podge of advice and tips from the resources above to create a system that works for me.
As always, take what’s helpful here for you and disregard the rest. What works for me may not work for you.
(Isn’t that liberating?!)
Here are a few tips to get you going:
Decide when you’ll plan for the week
Pick a day and time to plan your week.
If you realize that day and time don’t work, that’s okay.
Pivot and keep trying until you find a rhythm that works for you in your current season.
Personally, I tend to alternate between Friday evenings and Saturday mornings – depending on my time and energy.
Determine what weekly planning tools you need
You might use any of these tools:
- Paper planner
- Notebook
- Pens, pencils, highlighters, stickers, markers
- Sticky notes
- Digital app – like Cozi, Trello, Evernote, Asana, etc.
- Digital calendar like gmail, outlook, yahoo, etc.
I like to do a combo of paper + digital for my planning. For me, this includes:
- Notebook for brain dumping
- Trello: timeblocking, recording floating tasks, divvying activities/tasks to certain days of the week, assigning flexible deadlines, reviewing goals set…. basically everything
- Gmail calendar: for scheduled activities
When I used a paper planner, it was helpful to highlight what didn’t get done that day. During my weekly planning, I check what didn’t get done.
Often, it’s a cue that I might have overestimated my capacity, just didn’t want to do it, or it wasn’t necessary. It’s a handy little check to reconsider when I plan to do the item or just toss it out entirely.
If an element of your weekly planning routine becomes something that is just shame-inducing or makes you feel like you’ll never measure up – let that piece go. As God’s beloved, you are not called to live in shame!
2021 Update – going (mostly) digital
During the past several months, I’ve shifted to mostly digital for my daily/weekly/monthly reviews and goal digging. I use Trello for timeblocking and checklists to break down projects/goals/tasks. I use Evernote for journaling and reviewing my priorities for each day.
I’ve gotta give credit to Cara Harvey from A Purpose Driven Mom for introducing me to the many ways to maximize Trello. She has so many great workshops that equip you with different ways to plan your week and set goals using Trello and/or a paper planner as well.
My highlighting system still works here – it’s just a bit modified.
Believe it or not – I don’t actually pick up my phone all the time to review my to-do’s because of this system!
More about that in the daily review post – coming soon!
Curious to know more about using digital tools to plan your week (and not constantly pick up your phone)? Leave a comment and we can chat about it!
Decide what you need to consider in your weekly planning
Focus on what works best for you. Each of us will have different things to consider depending on your season of life and priorities.
In no particular order, here’s some areas of life to consider:
| Area of life | Description/Context |
| Setting your top priorities/focus for specific days or the whole week | YOU have the unique privilege of living your life as God’s beloved. No one else is living YOUR life. So be intentional about how you choose to live it. |
| Spiritual growth focus/plan/study | Let’s be clear – you can’t force a relationship or growth to happen. However, you can create opportunities to invest in a relationship and your own growth. During a weekly review you can determine when you’ll spend quality time in Scripture and prayer, what Scriptures you’ll dwell in, etc. For instance, I’m currently using the Abide method to study Philippians. This requires more focus to do this, so I’ve been setting days and times to dig into this. |
| Upcoming scheduled activities and deadlines | See what’s coming up, what needs to be scheduled and give yourself whitespace to meet necessary deadlines. |
| Tasks | What recurring tasks do you have on your plate? Beyond the norm? Can you designate which days you’ll pursue certain tasks? Get it out of your head and a home on your calendar. |
| Funtivities or cup-fillers | Maybe you rock out at deliberately choosing fun over work. That’s awesome! I can struggle with this at times, so I deliberately plan for fun to look forward to. Sometimes that means checking out a new park with Little Man. At other times, that might mean reading a book. Seeking joy matters – make it a priority! |
| Passion projects or hobbies | This might fall into the cup-filling territory for you, but I’ll say it anyway. If you’ve got a hobby or something you really enjoy doing that takes some time, build it into your week! |
| Health and self-care | When will you have some healthy happy movement? Do you have a “hair washing day”? If not, build it in! Personally, I sketch out when I’ll do MommaStrong, yoga, etc. I’m more consistent when I decide when to use my microderm roller, buff my feet, wash my hair, etc. The same goes for working out. It’s simple, but helps! |
| Daily outfits and/or special activity outfits | Gotta hot date? Decide it in advance to enjoy getting ready the day-of! Personally, I’m more efficient in the mornings when my outfit is ready for me. So, I’ve been creating a bunch of outfits in advance and hanging them in my closet. If I decide I don’t want to wear a prepared outfit, no worries. I’ve got other options waiting for me! I also used a label maker, cardstock and zip ties to create day tags… #nerdalert |
| Meal planning | Figure out what works best for you to get nourished and satisfied with meals. How to Make Meal Planning and a Food Inventory that Actually Works. |
| Kid play you want to prioritize | Are there some activities you want to prioritize with your kids? This could include: reading, sensory play (coloring, painting, play dough, water, etc.), going outside, motor development (climbing), fine motor development (pouring objects, etc.). This is totally NOT about deciding every moment of the day. Personally, this has been helpful for me to remember to prioritize sensory play with my son, because that doesn’t come naturally to me. |
Celebrate the results of your weekly planning!
Note how you feel after planning your week. Do you feel energized, relaxed, or overwhelmed?
Then, as you go through your week, notice what part of the planning worked for you and what didn’t.
Be gentle with yourself. This may be a new habit or model you’re developing! It’s okay if it feels a little weird.
When you come back to another planning day, it might be worth asking these questions:
- How do you feel about your weekly planning? Emotions aren’t good or bad. Identifying them, though, can be so helpful for becoming more aware how you’re doing.
- Did you try to plan too much? Perhaps it’d be better to start small with your planning and gradually add what works for you.
- Do you need more margin in your days? Maybe you over-estimated your capacity for each day and could dial it back a bit.
- Were there things you wished you planned for? Perhaps it’d be helpful to plan out meals and snacks so you’re not ravenous every afternoon. (That’s me…)
- Should you STOP planning (or plan less frequently) for certain things? Perhaps you’ve transitioned to a great capsule wardrobe and don’t need to set out outfits for every day. Or you’ve gotten into a pretty solid routine of reading your Bible in the evenings where you don’t need to set a date every time. That’s great!
Asking these questions may help you clarify what works best for you and what can be discarded!
Bonus: Consider family weekly planning
After I had gotten into a rhythm of weekly planning for myself, we tried doing it for our family.
Typically this check-in is 15-30 minutes tops.
Our agenda is similar, but geared toward our family as a whole.
In our family weekly planning, we tend to focus on:
- Making sure we have at least one Sabbath day each week (i.e. no outside commitments, low tasks, and more cup-fillers!)
- Upcoming family-related scheduled activities and deadlines
- Funtivities beyond the norm
- Tasks beyond the norm
- Verse of the week that we’ll memorize during mealtimes together as a family
- Meal planning for the week and/or ordering groceries
- Budget check (if we haven’t already looked at it)
- Nagging things – anything bugging us that we just need to do something about it?
It’s okay to pivot!
Sometimes life smacks you in the face and all your plans go kaput.
At other times you’re just not able to do ALL THE THINGS you set out to do.
That’s okay. You’re human.
Please, please, friend, be gentle with yourself.
You can always begin again – even in this moment.
Heck, maybe you shouldn’t do all the things.
Maybe, instead, you need to plan for rest and resetting.
You’re worth it.
Two resources to help you start incorporating these tips in your life
1. Download the FREE Embrace Your Potential Playbook
It’ll help you zoom in on your God-given personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved.
2. Buy the Intentional Life Planning Toolkit
The Intentional Life Planning Toolkit is the perfect resource to help you move from being overwhelmed by your distractions and demands to living life on purpose.
You’ll determine what an intentional life would look like for you and learn how to leverage your God-given personality, so you can thrive in your life, including your faith, priorities, schedule, responsibilities, meals, relationships, adventures, and more.
The Intentional Life Planning Toolkit may be just what you’re looking for!
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Articles related to creating a weekly planning routine
- How to Make Meal Planning and a Food Inventory that Actually Works
- Use Monthly Planning to Prioritize What Matters Most
- 4 Tips to Take a Spiritual Pause with God
- How to DIY Your Own Sexy, Fun Marriage Retreat at Home
- Give Yourself Grace to Pivot
Recapping why and how to get started with a weekly planning routine
As a former I’m-never-gonna-weekly-plan girl, I’m now a convert.
Honestly, this has become one of my favorite parts of the week! (What?!)
Hopefully, this post has inspired you to try weekly planning, too!
As we’ve discussed, here’s how to get started with weekly planning:
- Decide when you’ll plan for the week
- Determine what weekly planning tools you need
- Decide what you need to consider in your weekly planning
- Celebrate the results of your weekly planning!
- It’s okay to pivot!
You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.
What do YOU think about creating a weekly planning routine? Let’s talk in the comments!
P.S. Want some crazy simple steps to start living intentionally? Grab the Embrace Your Potential Playbook. It’ll help you zoom in on your God-gifted personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved so you can become the best version of yourself.
I’m Cortney, a recovering over-achiever and God’s beloved who loves helping fellow Christian women like you embrace your God-given gifts so you have the confidence to live authentically.
I’m also a full-time mama to two sweet little boys, wife to my best friend, motivational speaker, and part-time Christian life coach. Chai lattes, strong coffee, podcasts, yoga, dance, and fairy tales nourish my soul and add sweetness to life.
Discovering the joy of embracing my God-given gifts and who He created me to be was a game-changer—a journey that brought freedom, unexpected delights, and relief from guilt. Finally, I felt free to be myself and ditch the pressure of being someone I wasn’t.
Incorporating those gifts into my day—from weekly planning to deciding on commitments, nurturing my marriage, and parenting—transformed everything. Now, I can’t imagine life without the perspective of fully embracing who God created me to be. I was missing so much without it!
Thank you Cortney. This is something I needed to see a model of and now I know how to do it. I’m going to forward it to others with your permission.
Yay! I’m glad to hear it might be helpful for you, Red. Absolutely feel free to share it. We can all learn from each other, huh? 🙂
Weekly planning has been such a great tool for creating whitespace in my life! I’ve actually shifted to using Trello the most for weekly planning. Post coming soon!