The best way to plan my week using Google Calendar and Meeting Dolphin.

I am a proponent of deep work. I love my focus time and schedule heavily around it. The following is how I have been organizing my day for the last 2 months and it’s been my most productive schedule so far!

Step 0: The setup

On Google Calendar I have set up a blank recurring schedule filled with Focus times. For each day, I have a 2 x 2-hour focus slot and a 1 x 1-hour shallow slot. (I have tried also a 2 x 3-hour slot but I find the length to be too taxing.)

Blank week schedule

Step 1: Set weekly allocation

Every Sunday, I plan for the week ahead. I start off by detailing the percentage allocation on different swimlanes. Swimlanes are areas of work and for me, this would either Product, Marketing or Business. The basis of the allocation depends on the goals I have set for the quarter and the tasks required to achieve them. I use Coda to keep note of the allocation and pick out the tasks based on priority limited by the time allocated.

This week I have a 100% allocation for marketing and its subtasks.

Filled week schedule

Step 2: Allocate tasks to time using Meeting Dolphin

Here I drag my tags to my schedule.

Renamed week schedule

Then I rename the events to my task. I do move my fixed timeslots to account for one-off events like networking events. Using the analytics from Meeting Dolphin, I can easily make my allocation close to what I set out for.

Filled week Schedule

Overall this process takes around 30 minutes.

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Execute with flexibility

As with all things, not everything goes to plan. Some tasks take longer than expected or a high-value high priority task could arise. This means I am somewhat flexible with the schedule. On the other hand, I also try to be sure not letting perfect be the enemy of good. Accept that a task is done even if it’s rough and move on to the next one.

Final Thoughts

This has been my most efficient way to work. I like that this also makes it easy for me to review what I have already done and celebrate the wins. I will continue to refine the process and hopefully maximise my week as much as possible.