#popforms

Almost every Friday since the beginning of this year, I've kept a standing appointment to set my to do list for next week. Ambitiously, I block off an hour from 4-5pm. I almost never start on time and I’m definitely never done that early. 

Planning my week is not simple. Planning my week is not quick. It takes me, on average, 1-2 hours to complete. It’s not rocket science, but as you can see below, I use several different tracking systems to make sure I know what I need to do and when I need to prioritize it. I usually start around 5pm, when my inbox finally quiets down and no deadlines are looming overhead. 

During this block of time, I do four things: 

Go through my entire inbox

Set my to do list for next week 

Time block the next week 

Catch up on employee time tracking

Doing these four things at the end of each week has helped me feel confident about what I’ve accomplished in the week that’s behind me, and like I’ve got a handle on what’s coming up ahead. Here’s why and how I do each one. 

Go through my entire inbox 

First, I file anything that doesn’t require action from me into folders to clear out inbox clutter that stresses me out. 

Then I review and respond to anything that will take two minutes or less. As I respond, I also file those emails, since they are no longer require my action. 

When I’m done, I review what’s left in my inbox (I try to keep it around 15-30 emails total; more than that and I start feeling overwhelmed), and I add those items to my to-do list for next week. A lot of tasks can be bundled, like sales follow-ups or items related to a specific project. If I have 25 emails in my inbox, it translates to about 5-7 to dos. (I’m totally guessing here, but the point is that you should bundle tasks and not make each email it’s own to do if you don’t have to.) 

Set my to do list for next week 

I already wrote about this here. 

Time block the next week 

I wrote about this as well.

Catch up on employee time tracking

My company requires employees to keep track of their time through an online tracking system. This takes me about 5 or 10 minutes to do at the end of every day, but at the end of really long days, I usually skip it. 

I make myself update any days I skip during this weekly planning process. This is a simple task that could easily become a massive to do if I didn’t get it out of the way each week. 

Chances are you have similar administrative tasks that don’t take much brain power but are easy to procrastinate until they grow into a burden. Make a habit of finishing them each week, and they’re much less likely to get out of control. 

Why it’s awesome 

Leaving the office a little later on Friday in exchange for feeling like my schedule is not spinning out of control is a worthy trade off. 

We all know that most success takes time, effort and careful planning. But we rarely give our own schedules the attention they deserve to set ourselves up for a successful week. By planning my upcoming week, I feel like I’m entering Monday on the offensive, instead of feeling the anxiety of playing defense against deadlines and deliverables I’m unclear on. 

You can’t hit a target you can’t see.  Sometimes we work without really thinking about the end goal of what we are doing. We get drawn into what is urgent, or tactically on the forefront of our mind (or inbox!), without taking a step back and asking “is this the most important thing I can be doing right now?” Having a list of priorities makes sure you stay focused on what is important.  For example our priorities at Popforms are:

Supporting our paying customers

Work for our current promotion (right now it is our workshop)

Our newsletter

Our blog

Pop Star Content

Supporting our free customers

Everything else

Having a personal system of priorities means it is always easy to answer the question of what I am supposed to do, and in what order. Putting it into practice: What is your list of priorities?  Write them out and share them with your manager to be sure that you are aligned.  Bonus points if you want to do this for your personal life too.

A weekly collection of the best things to come across my eyes and ears

 WATCH 

The Walking Dead. This show has pretty gigantic woman and people of color problems that are impossible to ignore. That being said, I'm hopelessly addicted to this story of Georgians banding together to fight the zombie apocalypse. I find the characters incredibly real and relatable inside a world built around fiction. I feel their connections to one another, their jealousies, their constant grief. I wonder what it would be live their lives, and continually face the impossible decisions they have to make. It's made Aaron and I have important conversations like, "If I thought you were killed by a zombie and slept with your best friend and then found out you were alive, could you forgive me?" (The answer is yes for both of us, we hope.) Watch it on Netflix. 

LISTEN 

Invisibilia. It's like Radiolab with ladies. Crossing my fingers that they continue to bring diverse people to the table to tackle elegant conversations about the intricacies of the mind (and don't pull a Radiolab and do the opposite of that in a big way). My favorite episode so far has been Fearless. Listen on Stitcher. 

READ 

A while back, I wrote about the main way that I get shit done: really detailed, colorful to do lists. These lists keep me in line, let me know if I'm on track for the week, and help my prioritize what's most important for me at the moment. 

Sometimes, my lists get sad. There are weeks when projects take me a lot longer to finish than I'd originally anticipated, and instead of seeing a beautiful list full of satisfying yellow, there's a lot that needs to be moved onto my next week list. 

Something that has helped me anticipate the time it will take me to finish projects more accurately is time blocking. It's the process of breaking your day into chunks and deciding when you're going to work on each task. 

 Here's an example of what my time blocking calendar looks like: 

I started using time blocking after trying a time blocking template providing by the Kates at popforms in their Spark Notebook. If you're looking for more productivity tips, popforms is a gold mine. 

I read once that most people can only finish 2 or 3 big tasks in an 8-hour work day. I've found this to be pretty true for myself. Even on days when I work 10 hours or more, 3 tasks is about it. My remaining time is consumed by email follow up and meetings. 

When I time block, I look at my beautiful to do list and my not so beautiful calendar full of meetings and think: when will I actually have time to work on things? (This is a critical question that I don't ask myself often enough.) Then, I block out my week, including meetings, tasks (usually bundled) and personal stuff (because that's important enough to be scheduled too). 

Time blocking helps me think about not only what I have to do but what I actually have time to do, so It's easier to flag things that need to be eliminated, delegated, pushed back or restructured. 

A weekly collection of the best things to come across my eyes and ears.

WATCH

I am going through a music phase that’s taking me back into the depths of my iTunes library. In doing so, I am repeatedly reminded why I usually stick with Spotify or Songza. One of the punch lines to this Hannibal Buress jokes provides me with laughs and solidarity in knowing that I’m not the only person who just wants an iTunes that plays music. 

LISTEN

Need to take care of a chore this weekend that you’re totally dreading? Hook this album up to the best speakers you’ve got and embrace the raucous energy that is Andrew W.K.'s I Get Wet, which has enough oomph to get you through even the grossest tasks. I listened to this album while cleaning hair out of my bathtub last week and I was still ready to RAGE. For a deeper experience of this 2001 classic, listen to this excerpt from the Bullseye podcast featuring Phillip Crandall, who wrote a whole book on the album. Executive summary: Andrew W.K. sees partying as a unifying experience that embraces diversity and allows people to be their true selves. Deep.

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