Plan the Week

You give the owner a week they can actually live: every fixed commitment known, the few things that matter most protected in the calendar, the small stuff batched, and slack for the unexpected. You prepare the plan and keep it current; you do not accept, decline, move or send anything on the owner's behalf without their go-ahead.

When to use

• "Plan my week."
• "What's on this week?"
• "I'm overwhelmed. What should I focus on?"
• "Find time for [project / gym / reading] this week."
• Sunday evening or Monday morning, as a recurring routine.

What you need

• Calendar: Google Calendar or Outlook as a connected app, or the owner's signed-in browser.
• Task lists: Notion, Trello, Asana, ClickUp or Google Sheets as connected apps, or a list the owner pastes.
• Email for commitments and deadlines buried in messages: Gmail or Outlook connected app. Read only what is needed.
• The owner's preferences, stored in memory: working hours, best focus time, fixed routines (school run, exercise), how much meeting time they tolerate, time zone.
• If none of this is connected, ask the owner for a quick dump of commitments and tasks with clarify.

Method

1. Look back (10 minutes). Review last week's calendar and tasks: what got done, what slipped and why, what is still open. Carry forward only what still matters. Note any promises made in meetings or email that need action.
2. Collect everything. Fixed events, deadlines in the next 2 weeks (bills, forms, birthdays, renewals), open tasks, follow-ups waiting on others, and personal commitments. Put them in one list.
3. Pick the three outcomes. Ask: "If only three things got done this week, which would make it a good week?" Use urgency and importance to sort the rest: important and urgent gets scheduled first; important but not urgent gets protected time (this is where most value is); urgent but not important gets batched, shortened or delegated by the owner; neither gets dropped with the owner's agreement.
4. Estimate and test capacity. Estimate each task's time, then add 25 to 50 percent because estimates run short. Compare total task time with free time in the calendar. Plan to fill no more than about 70 to 80 percent of free time. If it does not fit, show the owner what will not happen this week and ask them to choose.
5. Time-block. Put the three outcomes into specific calendar slots in the owner's best focus hours, in blocks of 60 to 120 minutes. Batch small tasks (email, calls, admin, errands) into one or two blocks a day. Add travel time and transitions before and after events elsewhere. Protect personal time: meals, exercise, family, sleep.
6. Find and flag conflicts. Overlaps, back-to-back meetings with no break, events in different places without travel time, deadlines with no work scheduled before them, early starts after late finishes. Propose fixes; do not act on them.
7. Prepare, do not send. Draft any messages the plan needs (rescheduling requests, declines, reminders to others) and show them to the owner. Calendar changes that affect other people need explicit approval. Adding private focus blocks to the owner's own calendar also needs a one-time go-ahead (record the preference in memory).
8. Daily brief. With the owner's agreement, set a cronjob for a short morning message: today's events with times and places, the one or two priorities, deadlines in the next 48 hours, anything to bring or prepare, and weather if it affects plans.
9. Midweek check. A short check on Wednesday: on track for the three outcomes? Replan the rest of the week if not.
10. Learn. After a few weeks, note patterns in memory: which days overflow, how much the owner underestimates, which meetings could be shorter. Use them in the next plan.

Output

• Weekly plan on a show_card: the three outcomes, day-by-day schedule with blocks, deadlines, conflicts and proposed fixes, what was deliberately left out.
• Drafted messages for any reschedules or declines, waiting for approval.
• Daily brief (if scheduled). Templates in references/week-templates.md.

Checks before you finish

• Every fixed commitment and deadline for the next 7 to 14 days is included.
• The three outcomes have real calendar slots.
• Planned work fits within about 70 to 80 percent of free time; overflow is shown, not hidden.
• Travel time and breaks are in.
• Conflicts are flagged with proposed fixes.
• Nothing was accepted, declined, moved or sent without approval.

Pitfalls

• Planning 100 percent of the time. Something always comes up. Leave slack or the plan breaks by Tuesday.
• Task lists without times. A task with no slot rarely happens. Schedule what matters.
• Everything is a priority. Three outcomes, not twelve.
• Ignoring energy. Deep work at the owner's worst time of day fails. Use what you know about them.
• Forgetting the personal side. Exercise, family and rest are commitments too.
• Acting for the owner. Declining a meeting or messaging someone is the owner's call unless they have said otherwise.