When it comes to the idea of “weekly planning” – do these thoughts come to mind?
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.
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.
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:
Basically, you sit down once a week to sketch out your plans for the coming week.
You might focus on your:
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?
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:
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.
You might use any of these tools:
I like to do a combo of paper + digital for my planning. For me, this includes:
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!
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!
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 amaker, 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. |
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:
Asking these questions may help you clarify what works best for you and what can be discarded!
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:
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.
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.
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!
P.S. Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats email subscribers get a discounted price!
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:
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.
Cortney is a Christian life coach and recovering over-achiever who is passionate about helping Christian women embrace who God created them to be so they can confidently step into any season of life with passion, purpose, and peace. She’s also an ENFJ, MBTI® coach, M. Ed in College Student Development, Pilates and Yoga teacher, wife, mama, and entrepreneur. In her pre-kid life, she coordinated programs for, coached, funded, and provided leadership training for more than 60+ student organizations and 100s of university students for 7+ years. (Helping people highlight their inner awesomeness and reach their goals is her jam!)
More importantly, she’s God’s beloved.
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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!