Weekly Planning using Email

This was the most surprising out of all that I've tried. I honestly enjoyed creating my weekly plans using email. Basically, I would write down the plan for Monday to Sunday, then email it to myself. I cannot explain it, but I get a kick out of doing that, sending myself my weekly plan. One other thing I liked about weekly planning using email, is that if I need to make a change, I need to send myself a new email by replying to my original email. It sorts of acts like a basic versioning system wherein you can actually see what the previous tasks were, versus what the new ones are going to be.

What I don't like about it is that I have to make sure I type in the right email address before hitting send. In other words, there is a chance that I will accidentally send someone else my weekly plan. And depending on the contents of my weekly plan, that could be a big privacy/security issue. There's also the fact that my weekly plan lives on an email server in the cloud, which means my email service provider can probably read what I have planned for the weekend. And if for some reason I lose all internet connectivity, then I probably won't be able to check my weekly plan. So, not ideal, but it was a fun way to do weekly plans.

Weekly Planning using Apple's Notes App

Weekly planning using the Notes app on my iPhone was okay. It was only okay because I hate typing up my weekly plan on my phone. I want to be able to do it with a full-sized keyboard. However, there are some major advantages to this approach.

• First, since I typed up my weekly plan on my phone, I don't even need internet connection to get to it.
• Second, since the weekly plan is stored locally on my phone, I don't need to be online to get to it. That means a decreased chance for third party online services to read the contents of my weekly plan.
• Third, because the weekly plan is stored locally on my phone, it loads up really fast. I don't need to sign-in into anything to get to it. I just open the Notes app and it is there.

The major drawback to this approach is something I already mentioned above, I hate typing up my weekly plan on my phone. So, for a second attempt at this, I borrowed my wife's, Coney's old MacBook and used the Notes app that comes with it. Now this, weekly planning using the Notes app with a full-sized keyboard to type up stuff, now this is ideal. It is just as easy as writing myself an email, but it doesn't have the security issue of accidentally sending the weekly plan to someone else. It will also automatically sync to my phone's Note app. So, while there is that cloud syncing thing going on, there's still no requirement for me to sign-in to anything to get to it. I can simply use my phone to check the weekly plan. The only drawback to this approach and this is me nitpicking, is that I don't get the unintentional versioning of the plans that I get with email. If I need to make a change to my weekly plan, I simply edit the weekly plan. Unless I try to leave the old task and mark it as invalid, I will have no idea that my plans changed midweek. Not a big deal, but just noting it down.

Weekly Planning using Microsoft's OneNote App

I also tried weekly planning using Microsoft's OneNote. This one is a pretty good experience as well. The OneNote app is available as an iOS app or a web app. So, I don't need to type up my weekly plans using my phone. Unlike with the Apple Notes app, I don't need to borrow Coney's old MacBook to create my weekly plans. Any computer with a browser would work. So, I can use their web app on a PC to create the weekly plan and then I can use my phone to check it. In this case, I used an old Windows PC at home to write up my weekly plans.

Another benefit of this tool is that I can create different notebooks in the OneNote app. I ended up creating a Bullet Journal notebook, which now serves as a digital backup for my own physical Bullet Journal notebook. This digital OneNote notebook has a Daily Log and Weekly Log sections, just like my Bullet Journal notebook. So, during those days where I can't write on my real journal, I pull up my phone or use my PC to type in some entries on my digital Bullet Journal notebook. It makes for a much more organized way of weekly planning and occasionally, logging daily entries in a pinch.

As to be expected with a web app, there are some drawbacks to this approach. Since it is a web app, I have to sign-in to a cloud service to write up my weekly plans. Same as with the email approach, this means my weekly plan lives on the cloud where third party services can read it if they so please. Another drawback is that it takes longer to get to my weekly plan using the OneNote app, especially the OneNote app on my phone. With the Apple Notes app, all I need to do is unlock my phone and open the Notes app and it will be there. With the OneNote app, I have to unlock my phone, open the OneNote app, pick the Bullet Journal notebook, pick the Weekly Log section and pick the current Weekly Plan page. That's extra steps that I could do away with, though I guess other people wouldn't consider it a big deal.

Weekly Planning using Digital Calendars

I tried, I really tried, but I couldn't stick with it. I wasn't even halfway to coming up with my weekly plan for this week before I gave up. Weekly planning using a digital calendar is too rigid, too restrictive for how I want to plan my activities. For example, I usually plan a “Play Video Game” activity every day of the week. The problem is, with a digital calendar, it will force me to select a time for that activity. That leads me to my other problem, I don't have a set time at night for when I can play video games. It depends on whether Baby Caleb is sleeping, or if my wife is not too tired to watch him while I do something, etc... In other words, my schedule at night is just so unpredictable that selecting a fixed time to set an activity on is so unrealistic for me. On Monday I could be playing a video game at 6pm, but there's no guarantee that it will be the same for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, etc... So, no, weekly planning with digital calendars will just not work for me.

Conclusion

After trying out all those options, I think weekly planning using a Notes app like Apple's Notes app or Microsoft's OneNote app is the best option for me. Currently, with me being able to work from home, I am weekly planning using Microsoft's OneNote app. I use my old PC to write up my weekly plan and use the same PC in the morning to check the plan for the day. Since I don't have to use my phone to check the weekly plan, I am not bothered too much by the hassle of opening up the weekly plan on my phone's OneNote app. However, if I am asked to go back to the office for work, I think I will switch to weekly planning using Apple's Notes app, simply because it is so much faster to pull up the weekly plan on my phone's Notes app.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #WeeklyPlanning

Why not continue weekly planning with pen and paper?

One of my issues with using my Bullet Journal for weekly planning was that I felt like I was wasting paper with the Weekly Log pages. The reason I felt like it was a waste of paper was because a weekly plan is just that, a plan. It is not a record of what really happened during that week. For the true record of events that happened during a week, I can look at my Daily Log pages. The Daily Log pages I want to save. The Weekly Log pages? Not so much.

For the same reason as above, I don't think I can use a separate Planner notebook. I'll run into the same issue of feeling like it is a waste of paper. Also, I think it looks weird to have two notebooks (three, if you add my Work Journal) open at my desk while I'm trying to migrate planned tasks to my Daily Log page.

So, I'm going to try a number digital tools for weekly planning.

Weekly Planning using Email

I'll try using email to do my weekly plan. Basically, I'll create the weekly plan and then send it to myself in an email. Cal Newport does something similar except he uses it for his daily planning. I'm curious to see if this is a good way to do weekly plans.

Weekly Planning using Notes app

I'll try using Note apps on my phone for creating my weekly plans. For this I have two options: there is the Notes app that comes on my iPhone and the OneNote app from Microsoft.

Weekly Planning using Digital Calendars

Lastly, I'll try using digital calendars for my weekly planning. I also have two options for this: the Calendar app that comes on my iPhone and an Outlook calendar from my email account.

I've been hesitant to use digital calendars for weekly planning because I feel like they are too rigid. By that I mean, to record a task you have to pick a start and end time. I don't like that, it makes it complicated. I just want to have a list of tasks that need to be done on a certain day. I don't really care about the start and end time because I'm not really trying to stick to a fixed schedule. Anyway, I'll still give it a try and see how it goes.

Timeline

I'll let this experiment run for at least a month. I'll need to try weekly planning with those different tools a few times to really get a feel for them. I'll check back in when I'm ready.

Update: Experiment Log – 006 | Weekly Planning using Digital Tools Results

Tags: #ExperimentLog #WeeklyPlanning

Before that though, just a short description of how I did the weekly planning.

• I added Weekly Log pages to my Bullet Journal. I added the weekly log pages after the Monthly Log page. So, after I created the January 2020 monthly log pages, I used the 4 pages after that to create the weekly log pages. For an idea of what my weekly log/spread looks like, check here.
• I planned for the next week on Sundays, typically in the afternoon. I just plan the next week and wait until the next Sunday to plan the next week after that.
• Typically I included at least two leisure activities, playing video games and reading a book. If I think I will have more time at night on a specific day, I also threw in watching a TV show or documentary or even a movie.
• I included non-leisure related tasks in my weekly logs. Most of these tasks came from my Monthly Log page. So, it wasn't all just leisure activities in there.
• If I didn't finish a leisure activity task before the day ends, I typically just cross it out. I don't carry over leisure activity tasks to the next day. For example, if I didn't get to play a video game today, I won't migrate it to the next day, because I already have a task to play another video game for the next day. The non-leisure related tasks though get carried over depending on their importance.

Now on to the results

As far as planning my leisure activities goes, it has been a huge success! No longer do I have to wonder what game to play, or what book to read, or what TV show to watch. I just look at the current day's daily log entry on my bullet journal to find the next activity to engage in.

Unexpected Benefit #1

One unexpected benefit of planning my leisure activities this way, is the elimination of the guilt I often have for neglecting other video games, books, TV shows, etc...

For example, I bought Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order last year. I bought it at full price because I've been waiting for a single-player Star Wars video game for a very long time now. However, during Christmas last year, my wife surprised me with a gift of Civilization 6 for the Xbox One. Obviously Civ 6, is another game that I really wanted to play, however I can't help but feel guilty when choosing to play one video game over the other. Not to mention, I've never even finished another fave game of mine, Division 2.

Being able to plan which game to play on a certain day of a week eliminates this problem for me. Now I no longer feel guilty for not playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, because I know I will get around to playing it sometime later in the week.

The same thing applies to the books I'm reading. Currently, I have a rotation of 3 books: Simple Plan to Wealth, An Echo of Things to Come and A Little Book of Japanese Contentments.

Prior to this experiment, I would read a book depending on what I fancy reading at that time. That almost always came with a pang of guilt for neglecting the other books that I have not finished reading. With weekly planning, I am able to pick which book to read on a certain night. I make sure I don't read the same book twice in a row, just to spread the love.

To my surprise, I've made steady progress on my books with this approach. I'm almost done with the Simple Plan to Wealth, while I'm halfway through A Little Book of Japanese Contentments and I've made good progress on An Echo of Things to Come (which is a 700+ page fantasy novel).

I've even made progress on my TV shows as well. I've finished watching Inside Bill's Brain (only 3 episodes) and I'm almost done with season 1 of The Witcher.

Unexpected Benefit #2

During the first few days of this experiment, I did not migrate the tasks from the weekly log into my daily log. To those not familiar with Bullet Journals, what I mean by this is that I didn't copy over the tasks into my daily log. The reason being is that I thought it would be redundant to do so. I already had the tasks written down in my weekly log, why would I need to copy them over into my daily log? So, during the first few days, I had to look at my daily log and weekly log pages to figure out what task or activity to work on.

I soon got tired of doing that. It is just so much easier to have just one page to look at. So, even if I felt it was a bit redundant, I migrated/copied over the tasks from my weekly log into my daily log. Doing so revealed an unexpected benefit; another chance to re-evaluate how important a task is to me. If I think the task was worth doing, I would copy it over, otherwise it gets left out.

Setbacks

I did run into some setbacks along the way. Namely, the past 2 weekends have been so busy for me, that it was a struggle to religiously follow all the tasks I've listed on my weekly plan.

• One weekend was spent assembling furniture the wife needed for the coming of our second child. On that one Saturday, I didn't get to play or do any reading, unless you consider going though IKEA Assembly Instructions, reading. I didn't even get to write on my journal until the next day.
• This last weekend was a slightly less busy one, however I was also sick and so I didn't follow every task listed on the weekly plan.
• Overall it was still a success though, because the weekly plan allowed me to see what the most important task was for that day. So even if I couldn't complete all of them, I at least knew the most important ones that needed to be done.

So what now?

I've decided to continue doing weekly plans for the foreseeable future. I don't think there's any drawback to doing them, other than losing maybe 1-2 hours on a Sunday coming up with a plan for the next week. However, I think you eventually gain back that time considering how you have a well planned week ahead of you.

One thing I'm going to start doing more, is fleshing out my exercise/workout tasks in my weekly plans. I do include them in my weekly plan, but only as a generic “Exercise” task. I don't specifically list what kind of exercise or workout to do. Obviously this is something that fitness enthusiasts have been doing for awhile now, but one that I've only thought of doing the past few days. Still, better late than never.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #WeeklyPlanning

Do I play video games? If so, what game? Do I read a book? If so, what book? Do I watch a show on Netflix? If so, what show? Do I play board games? If so, what game? Do I play the guitar? Do I do some recreational programming? Do I write a journal entry? Basically, I want to take away those kinds of questions and just have a list that I can look at to determine what I should be doing next.

Prior to this experiment, I never did any weekly planning whatsoever. When I started a bullet journal last year, I followed the basic setup which meant I had some sort of monthly plan (via the Monthly Log) and an idea of what tasks needed to be completed on the current day (via the Daily Log). I did not have any plan for the coming week though. So usually what would happen is, I would get home from work then ask myself, “What should I be doing tonight?” Or when I wake up on Saturday or Sunday morning, I would ask myself, “What should I do today?”

Towards the end of 2019, I started to feel like I wasn't using my free time the best way I could. Also, I felt like I was wasting my weekends only doing things I figured I wanted to do at the spur of the moment.

In one of Cal Newport's books, most likely his Digital Minimalism book, he mentioned taking time to plan out one's leisure activities. I scoffed at this idea last year. I thought, “Wouldn't I be wasting more time planning out my activities, than if I just engage in one right away?” Maybe. But then at the start of this year, I ran into this post from AoM which mentioned planning out your weekends. This lead me to another interesting post about Ernest Hemmingway and weekly planning. Now I'm a little more open minded about it, so I'm giving it a try.

Since I thought of doing this late, most stores no longer sell a weekly planner for 2020. So I'm doing my weekly planning on my bullet journal. I might get a dateless weekly planner later, depending on how I feel about having to do weekly log/spreads on my bullet journal. This experiment started last Sunday (January 5) and will end after a month of weekly planning, on February 3.

For an idea of what my weekly log/spread looks like, check here.

Update: Experiment Log – 005 Results

Tags: #ExperimentLog #WeeklyPlanning