Week Hacking: How to plan your week for maximum impact

Week Hacking: How to plan your week for maximum impact(startupremarkable.com)

39 points by howardvk 11 years ago | 25 comments

alphadevx 11 years ago |

I came to conclusion many years ago that in order for a planning routine to have staying power for me it had to be:

1. Real simple 2. Require minimal effort

If it fails both of those criteria, chances are you won't stick with it for too long. The planning itself becomes something you have to plan into your schedule, for example from the post:

"The bulk of my weekly planning takes place on Sunday evening."

Sorry but that's not going to work for me.

howardvk 11 years ago | |

Good point - I should have mentioned in the article that this whole Sunday process takes me 30 mins - 45 mins. For me that's a great investment of time and I sleep really well looking forward to a week ahead that I'm in control of!

Appreciate what works for me doesn't work for everyone though

jmnicolas 11 years ago | |

From the article :

"I find this works best to do the night before / or each morning (rather than do every day on Sunday evening) as I found that things can change during the week (meetings go in the diary etc) which throws everything out."

andygcook 11 years ago |

I developed a similar system to this last year, but instead of defining my tasks for the week, I'd just choose the three most important tasks I wanted to get done for the day at the beginning of each morning.

If I got my three tasks done, it was a productive day and anything else I did was gravy. If I didn't, I forced myself to look back at what I spent my time on that day. The three-task system helped me get focused to avoid "fake work" like meetings, emails, etc.

I eventually coded it up into a simple tool for myself that I still use every day. I haven't focused on marketing so I'm honestly the only user, but I'd love if the folks here could check it out and tell me what you think - http://three.do

fsiefken 11 years ago | |

That's similar to the ZenToDone system with the 3 daily MIT's (most important things) http://zenhabits.net/purpose-your-day-most-important-task/ There is an iphone app

andygcook 11 years ago | | |

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know about this one and will check it out.

howardvk 11 years ago | |

This is great Andy - thanks for sharing that. Three.do is essentially a digital version of the '3 things for an incredible day' that I have as part of my daily ritual.

I image it will do really well :)

rhodin 11 years ago | |

Nice site. On the front page it would be nice to see what it looks like after a couple of weeks using: will the user see a "heat map" of activities done/not done?

andygcook 11 years ago | | |

Thanks! I'm working on designing a heat map feature similar to GitHub commits that'll show you a historical record of how you're doing over time.

My eventual plan is to build a team version, so instead of asking your teammates, "what are you working on today?" you could just check out their three most important tasks. There would also be a weekly wrap up email sharing who did what for the week.

alphadevx 11 years ago | |

I love these light-weight approaches and tools. I do something very similar using a todo.txt file, except I try to do 5 things.

andygcook 11 years ago | | |

Agreed and thanks for the positive vibes. My MVP for this system was actually a small moleskin notebook and a to-do list stamp with three tasks from Etsy.

I found that without a daily reminder email, I forgot to write out my tasks for the day, so I built out a light-weight web app to scratch my own itch and build the habit.

I've also tried variations around the number of tasks with one thing, five things, ten things, etc. Three primary things a day seems to be best amount for me to compete each day, but I'm sure the number of tasks probably depends on personal preference.

grandalf 11 years ago |

- I spend a few minutes before bed reading/thinking about the thing I'm going to do the next morning.

- The sooner I start hacking after waking up in the morning the better.

- I wake up an hour earlier than necessary and hack from a coffee shop (with a press pot) before my commute starts.

- I budget the time during my commute (train) in 5-10 minute goal-oriented intervals.

- I listen to Bach piano contrapunctus if the ambient noise gets distracting. I find it hard to get enter the zone quickly with a hiphop mix or any kind of hipster music.

erikb 11 years ago |

Kudos to everybody who can follow such a detailed plan. I would probably not even finish to write one down.

npsimons 11 years ago |

Nice picture - where's the content? Comes up blank.

learnstats2 11 years ago | |

Javascript is required to fade the text content in from white to black... Javascript fails = you see white on white.

elvis635 11 years ago | | |

I also browse with JS disabled and it sucks when people don't properly have a fallback in place, even if it's just one click for me. Even more when those things can be done by css and thus not breaking when JS is not enabled

But the question is: why? Why fade the text content from white to black when the content is below the fold and by the time I see the content it's already black? It seems quite a useless effect to me

hacktheplanetx 11 years ago |

I wake up to my hacker alarm clock, quickly hack myself up and go to shower, I hack through it quickly and hack myself dry with a towel. Then I proceed to hack my socks, pants and other hacker essentials before hacking my commute to work.

I'm already late, so I need to hack myself and sprint to the trainstation.

Hacking away at some wordpress themes and finally a master hack to change the colorscheme of my xterm.

staz 11 years ago | |

I have done a translation for the non hackers:

    I wake up to my smurf alarm clock, quickly smurf myself 
    up and go to shower, I smurf through it quickly and smurf
    myself dry with a towel. Then I proceed to smurf my 
    socks, pants and other smurf essentials before smurfing
    my commute to work.

    I'm already late, so I need to smurf myself and sprint
    to the trainstation.

    Smurfing away at some wordpress themes and finally a
    master smurf to change the colorscheme of my xterm.

tristanho 11 years ago | |

I want you to know that I laughed at your comment (plus your name) probably harder than anything else this week.

marban 11 years ago | |

And yet no time for Growth Hacking?

tachyonbeam 11 years ago | |

And my personal motto is "Hack the Planet!"

ultramancool 11 years ago | | |

But The Planet is part of Softlayer now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planet_Internet_Services

Zelphyr 11 years ago | | |

Feh. I'm happy just hacking the Gibson.

timboslice 11 years ago | |

I heard you like life hacks, so I hacked this post together for you

iN7h33nD 11 years ago | |

Nice satire

I wake up to my smurf alarm clock, quickly smurf myself up and go to shower, I smurf through it quickly and smurf myself dry with a towel. Then I proceed to smurf my socks, pants and other smurf essentials before smurfing my commute to work. I'm already late, so I need to smurf myself and sprint to the trainstation. Smurfing away at some wordpress themes and finally a master smurf to change the colorscheme of my xterm.