How to Make the Most of Your Work Week

Yahoo lists thoughts on how to make the most of your workweek as follows:

• Make a plan on Monday. Take some time to develop a to-do list and prioritize your projects for the days ahead.

• Time to get movin' on Tuesday. This day provides you with an opportunity to focus your efforts and establish momentum for the rest of your week.

• Reassess your week on Wednesday. Think about what you can reasonably accomplish the rest of the week.

• Think about a break on Thursday. Use Thursday as a day to reward yourself for your hard work throughout the week and to prepare for the final pre-weekend push.

• Be flexible on Friday. As much as possible, try to pad your week's schedule so you have the flexibility on Friday to wrap up tasks you weren't able to accomplish during the week.

Here's how my week usually goes:

• I prepare each night for the next day. (Yes, this means the "work week" begins Sunday night.) It takes me maybe 10 minutes working on my Blackberry to review tasks for the next day and set priorities. I usually do it at "down" times anyway -- like during the commercial break of a TV show -- so it's no big deal.

• I try to get as much done as early in the week as possible. Monday through Wednesday are my peak days (or at least I strive for this.)

• Thursday is mostly clean-up. This day I take care of things I wanted to get done this week but didn't get to.

• Friday is the most casual day. I tend to do small but necessary tasks on Friday. I knock a lot of things off my list (including my weekly update) and have a good sense of accomplishment heading into the weekend.

How about you? Do you have any work-related specific plans set around certain days of the week?

Comments

[Kevin M]

I usually try to make a to-do list on Friday PM for the following week. But my schedule is so erratic during my slower times that it's hard to plan out too far ahead since I don't usually have a backlog of work.

[Mark]

Because I might get a few early morning invites that I didn't expect I usually wait before I plan my day until I get in. I check email first thing, and then write down in a notebook my meetings for the day, and important tasks with little checkboxes to the left of them. It's cheesy but I get gratification in checking off items as they are completed. At night before I leave I make sure my tasks in Outlook are up to date, and repeat the process the next morning.

[Mia]

I wanted to point out that this works well for stay-at-home-parents, too. A lot more gets done, and in a much more timely and less crazy fashion, if goals and to-do's for the week are listed and prioritized. And like Mark, I'm cheesy and love to check off completed items on my list :)

[Studenomist]

Interesting but what if you work weekends and have random days during the week off? What is your plan for your blog during the weekend? I find that many bloggers do not update during the weekend. Also I was wondering how you feel about giving money away on a blog, something that I am currently trying.

[MFK (Open-Source Career)]

I do something called, "No Meeting Fridays," and tell my team members they're empowered to do it too. It means, simply, that I don't make or accept meetings on Fridays. This is really hard at my company because the culture says it's acceptable to be in back-to-back meetings from 7:30 to 5:00 every day. But when do you get your work done then, and when is your thinking time? So I set my calendar to make it look like I'm out of office on Fridays; I've told my boss, team and all my clients/partners all about it; and so as not to make enemies or have a bad review I will take an emergency meeting on a Friday. But it has to be a true emergency. After a few months of doing this and evangelizing the idea, it totally stabilized. I've been doing it for over a year now and I'm super relaxed & productive on Fridays as a result.

[Andy @ Retire at 40]

I usually know what I have to do each day but the main problem I have is interruptions. Usually I try and get those out of the way in the morning so I can concentrate on real work in the afternoon.

On Fridays I usually tell the project to do whatever they want to make the project better. That way, because people want to do those things, something actually gets done on Friday afternoons :-)