Mondays suck, I regularly have that awful Garfield moment where I realize it is Monday, and that I just don’t want it to be. It’s not that I hate my work week or anything, or that the weekend is such a killer that I want it to never be over, it’s more of a feeling of having to pick myself up. All the way up.

I really hate Mondays.

The good part about these blasted days is that it is when I do my weekly planning, giving myself weekly goals, and a todo list. I have done this for years, trying various ways to manage this system, and have found a model that works for me. It might not work for you, but if it doesn’t, you can always port it to some other way of managing it, to fit your workflow.

Managing the Week

There are several ways you can manage your work. Some people like to plan on the hour, setting aside 0800-1100 for one thing, 1200-1300 to something else, and so on. I did that in the past, and while it did work somewhat, I always thought it to be pretty stressful when I had one of those not so productive days, while on the other hand I broke from planning when I was ahead of schedule.

These days, I plan my week on a day to day basis. I might have an inkling of an idea as to when I’ll do something, but not more specific than before or after lunch.

Moleskine notebooks, one of the finer things in life

I set up a todo list for each day, planning the whole week. This will give me an overview, and that in turn will tell me right away if I’ve overstepped my bounds as to what I’m capable of that particular week. Sometimes I have, sometimes I haven’t.

I use a Moleskine calendar with a weekly view on each spread, where the actual weekdays are on the left side, and the right is a blank lined page for me to scribble on. I guess I could’ve gone with another calendar layout and write the actual todo’s on each day, instead of doing todo lists on the blank page, but this way I can keep my tasks aside to other notes, such as friend’s birthdays and other private occasions.

Naturally, whenever I complete something on the list, I cross it over. I also have a legend for things that are really really important, marking them with an exclamation mark, rather than the cross bullet I have before each item. It clutters it a bit, but not too much, and it reminds me of things that I need to get done.

The things that don’t make it on the list land on an index card instead. I’m using a paperclip to fix this to the next week, making sure I don’t forget about them when planning it.

Example: My Planning This Week

I just did the planning for this week. In a way, I think it is better to do it last thing Friday afternoon, before logging off for the day, since this will put your mind at ease and tell you that you won’t come in Monday morning to a blank sheet. Still, the last few weeks I’ve been starting my Monday with coffee and planning, and it works for me right now.

Monday

• Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)
• Do a post for tdhedengren.com
• Send questions for BloggerTalks interview
• Finish post for Devlounge started last week, publish
• Clean out the weekend’s e-mail
• Send confirmation for client gig, add rates and such stuff

Tuesday

• Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)
• Work on the new design for The Blog Herald
• Glypting fix (client design work)
• Lacado Photo fix (client design work)

Wednesday

• Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)
• Work on the new design for The Blog Herald (launch day?)
• Planned client work (depending on responses on Monday)
• Write/edit post for Devlounge

Thursday

• Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)

Friday

• Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)
• Write/plan post for Devlounge (got a nice little project lined up)
• Make Live Arcade Review and Living Hyboria decisions (finalize planning, decide on the design)

As you can see, it is a pretty slow week for me, except Monday. I have planned it that way, since it is summer after all. I’ve got things to do outside of work on Thursday, and I tend to keep Fridays as open as possible. Usually I would put a site launch on either Monday or Friday, but this week Friday’s not so good since I won’t be around on Thursday, and I wasn’t done last week, so I’m going to aim for the Blog Herald redesign on Wednesday. Hardly set in stone though, might just as well be a Monday launch next week. Relaunches are tricky, especially when you don’t own the site yourself.

I also have a handful of unknowns on my index card pushed from last week. Most of the things that I did push is crossed over on this card, as I move them to my planning, but not all of them, so they’re still hanging around as I see how the week develops. Right now, it looks like I’ll have some extra time on Friday, and if nothing funky happens today (being Wednesday), I’ll probably be able to insert some more things in my list.

As you can see, I’m not putting “check e-mail” or “read up on feeds” on the list unless it is something really substantial. I haven’t got “moderate comments” either, as these are things I manage throughout the day. A long todo list might give you an overview, but it is also stressful to look at, so I prefer to keep it short and sweet, sticking to the big stuff.

Wrapping It Up

So there you have it, my weekly todo system, as well as my planning for this week. I hope you can take something from this system and improve your own productivity with it. Besides the planning, I set up weekly goals as well, which I’ll cover in a later post.

I do realize that not all people will want to use physical calendars, and prefer to use todo applications instead, but there is really no reason why this shouldn’t work for you as well.

Do you have any tips to share when it comes to managing your workload? The comments are open, chip in, I’m always interested to hear how people solve the ever present issues of time.