Introducing The Weekly Schedule Task Planner

UPDATE: January 5, 2010 - I just edited the wSTP for 2010. You can download the latest pdf file by clicking here. The most up-to-date version will always be available from the Downloads section of studentlinc. Thank you for trying out this worksheet.

Productivity tools are all over the internet. About once every week, a new GTD (Getting Things Done) companion site sprouts up. There are TODO sites aplenty. Calendar software is always in vogue.

While I am in awe of just about every new Web 2.0 tool that comes across my desktop (I have created accounts on about 30 sites), I still find myself drawn back to good old fashioned paper. In fact, most of the time, I'm taking notes and collecting my thoughts on legal pads. There's nothing like a fresh legal pad to start writing to your heart's content.

So where were we...ahh yes, the beauty of paper. I have created a worksheet for people to use in meetings (called the MPOW - meeting planner | organizer | worksheet). It has been HUGELY popular on the internet. I've also created organizing tools for planning and evaluating events.

I'm currently working on a design to organize my week. I've tried working from a daily sheet but find that I'm transferring too much information from one page to another (which may be a commentary on my productivity). I like a weekly view much better. It's the view I use on my Google Calendar. It helps me to get a bigger view and puts my daily activities and schedule into a broader context.

Plus, I'm a big fan of the weekly review. With one sheet of paper dedicated to the week, it is easier to look over what I've done and what's left to be done.

Well, enough background info...let me introduce you to my Weekly Schedule Task Planner.

The WeeklySTP is a free downloadable pdf (28kb). Let me explain its layout a little bit:

» Weekly View section - The weekly calendar sits on the left hand side of the paper. Each day is a box, with Saturday/Sunday sharing a box. The boxes have a place to write in the date. They also have a set of of boxes that a person can use to write in the corresponding numbers from the todo section. This has helped me assign various todo's to certain days of the week.

» ToDo section - This section is on the upper right hand side of the paper. It is set up so the person can organize his/her todo's according to roles or categories (thank you Stephen Covey for that idea!). Each role has enough spaces to list five todo's. The todo's are given numbers that can be referred to in the weekly view or in the open space below.

» Notes | Ideas | Space section - This section is a wide open space on the bottom right hand portion of the page. It is the place where I find myself writing down everything I wrote down on post-it notes or index cards. It is a free-for-all space. I've added the letters A-Z down the left hand side of this space in case there's something you'd like to add and refer back to it in another section.

That's basically the whole page. At the top, there's a small section to circle the appropriate month and write in the dates for the week. My goal in creating this was to have something that I can carry around with me throughout the week. But I've found it to be an excellent tool for archiving what I've done and for review purposes.

I'm discovering that no productivity tool does everything. You may want to partner this tool with something else. You may find it useful or it may inspire other ideas for your own creations. If that happens, I'll feel like I've done my small part to make the world a better place.

One other thing (and I'm not sure how to offer this)...if you find WeeklySTP useful and would like to have it personalized for your own six roles (actually typed into the document), please contact me and I'll be more than happy to let you know how to make that possible. I currently don't have the means to make this an editable document (like Word, or an editable pdf). But try it out for awhile and then let's chat.

Download The Weekly Schedule Task Planner [WeeklySTP] (pdf-28kb)

Comments

[Jane]

I really like this sheet! I lost the pdf for a while and had a good deal of trouble finding it again. Thanks for updating it for 2009. Are you going to have a new sheet out for 2010? I would really like a copy of that!!

[Ashok Menon]

Hi..Love this template..very comprehensive..can i possibly get the editable document?? Or do you provide only pdfs??

[jeremy]

Thanks this is great, I just found it through artofmanliness.com. Is there a way you could provide the sheet from 2007 also?

[rob]

This is a fabulous resource. I do like the new version, but prefer the older version even more. Is there a way you could provide the downloads for the previous versions?

Thanks
rob

[Mel]

Wow, this is just what I've been looking for. I'm a new housewife and have trouble juggling all of my chores and seeing what I need to do through the week. I can also use the 'day' slots as menu planning and the whitespace as a grocery list. Most excellent!

[Jessica]

I love it but I want to type on it. What do I need to do inorder to do that?

[Beatriz Barrera]

Hi,

I have been using the paper document for about 3 months now and I LOVE it but I would like to know what I have to do to be able to type on it from my personal computer. Being able to do that will help me out a great deal, and make my notes a whole lot neater.

Thanks,

Bea

[decimus]

Great! Thats what I was looking for! thx!

[mo f]

I will like to see a sample sheet with things filled in it but this looks nice.

[tim]

Hi EyesOfCalvin!

I simply carry the paper in a leather portfolio with other notes. For most of the week though, it sits on my desk where I can refer to it. Then I use the sheet to review the week that's gone by. I then file the WeeklySTP in a folder.

[EyesOfCalvin]

Your WeeklySTP idea is great, Tim. How do suggest to carry it along? Maybe folding in half and keeping in a notebook. Another paper based organization approach is a Pocketmod. It is an A4 sized template which folds to take a form of 8 page booklet. I created a DOC format editable template for myself and it is available for download too.

[tim]

Kathy, Joanne, & Stephen:

I'm glad you all found this tool useful. Let me know what your students think of it Kathy.

I'm glad you found this through Lifehack.org, Joanne. That is a great site and one I check numerous times a day.

Stephen, I'm very appreciative of the link back. Your article is a great resource to go along with the WeeklySTP.

[Stephen]

Thanks for the great tool! I have added a link to this post at my Productivity blog. Keep up the good work.

[Joanne Lozar Glenn]

These tools are fantastic. Lifehack.org pointed me here--this is great stuff. Thank you.

[Kathy]

Love it! I'm going to show it to my College Study Methods students. I'm sure that some of them will be able to put it to really good use.

Kathy