How to plan your week

and what happens when I don't take my own advice

Welcome to Let’s Do This, a weekly newsletter with ideas to improve and organise your life

My 2025 bullet journal

One day this week I finished up a piece of work, pressed send on my email and looked at my calendar to check the next day’s schedule.

And then I realised that it was 3:56 and I had a 4pm personal training appointment and not a 4:30 one like I thought. Eek!

It turns out that you actually have to look at the diary on your desk. I do have mine open but it was still displaying last week’s weekly schedule because I had a Sunday to-do list that I was still crossing items off of.

(I called my PT immediately and she told me to come through to the gym even though I’d be 15 minutes late but yes, I was mortified).

How to plan your week

These are just a few of the categories I like to consider; your mileage may vary.

1. Check non-movable items for both work and your personal life.

These include, for me, Spanish dance, personal training and Zumba, as well as friend dates. I also indicate my work-from-office days by circling the date.

I can then see, at a glance, where my week looks too full or where I can slip in a quick task.

2. Decide on the clothes you will wear as it will reduce decision fatigue

Here’s where I spoke more about my method

(fun fact - K, my personal trainer, told me that when she’s tempted to not set out her clothes for the next day, she tells herself, “if Marcia can choose clothes for the week, I can do it for one day”. I love it!)

Some days I am also tempted to not choose my clothes and after one day of running around in the morning (I am not a morning person), I go back to choosing clothes for the rest of the week.

3. Make a to-do list for Monday and a goals list for the week

I like to weight my weekly goals list for work towards the front end of the week to 1) build momentum and 2) get it all done by the end.

In these hybrid workdays, I may schedule a delivery or a contractor coming to do a quote for a day I’m working from home. I definitely schedule my personal training on a work from home day too.

Because I’m not a morning person, I like to do my work planning on a Friday afternoon. Then I can open my laptop and get going immediately on a Monday morning.

4. Think about food

I envy those of you who don’t get bored by food. I have to make a menu plan every week so I don’t bore myself with food choices.

I like to link this plan to the weather because when it’s cold (it’s autumn in South Africa), I do want comfort food.

Here’s how I do menu planning.

Once I know what to wear, where I need to be, what I’m eating and what I need to do, I’m good and I feel much calmer about the week ahead, 95% of the time.

95% because the planning sometimes makes me freak out and I just need to take one day at a time. For those weeks, I tell myself, “this will all be over on Friday” :)

I only get pictures of sunrise for 3 months of the year because, again, not a morning person. This photo was taken at exactly 7am yesterday.

And now, I’m about to update my diary and then try to get up to date with my line-a-day journal (Yesterday I was 50 days behind; I now have 35 days to go…. wish me luck).

Wishing you a great week with no missed appointments, food that feels fun and nourishing and friends that say “let’s go have tea”.

Lots of love

Marcia

PS next week is my May recap and I can’t quite believe it’s already the end of the month. You?