The Ultimate Weekly Reset Routine!

Because failing to plan is planning to fail right?

I’ve emphasized in this blog before about how it’s beneficial to plan your day beforehand… at the start of the week. It really does help you in becoming more organised and enhance your productivity.

Here are some reasons why you should do a weekly reset, if you’re not yet convinced:

1. You save valuable time each day – this is because whenever you start planning your day, on that same day, you waste valuable time that you could’ve used to just get started into what you need to do.
2. Reassurance that everything you need to get done will get completed on time.
3. Make less decisions throughout the week – because really, making decisions do take up time. Because we want to save time, it’s better to get it over and done with, so that throughout the week, we don’t waste time on trying to make small decisions.

What I’ll outline in this blog post is how to not only plan for your week ahead, but also prepare and reset for the week ahead. I like to call this my weekly reset.

This is my weekly reset, but you can tweak it to suit you based on your needs. I developed this weekly reset based on the YouTube videos that I’ve watched and the books that I’ve read. It had changed overtime, and is guaranteed to change even more times eventually.

Now here are the steps to resetting and preparing for your week:

Step 1 – Reflect on Your Week

Your weekly reflection prepares you for the week ahead.

Reflect on pretty much anything that you do. Whether that’d be work, study, or other side projects, it’s always so beneficial to reflect on what you’ve have done well, and what you could do better.

It doesn’t take too long to have a quick reflection on your goals and priorities. Here’s a rule of thumb you can use that will be quick and easy to do:

1. What did I do right?
2. What would I do better?

Just briefly answering those two questions would give you a good idea on what you need to do for the week ahead.

Personally, for me, I reflect on my performance for work, study, church, and this blog. Let me tell you, there are always things that I need to improve on, and I probably would not have been aware of it if I didn’t take the time to reflect on how I really did.

I encourage you to do the same. It’s easy to get caught up on needing to complete everything that we don’t have the time to just reflect on how we’re actually going.

If you don’t have time during any of the days in the week to do a reflection, the start of the week is the perfect time to do so.

Once you figure out what had worked and not worked, you can decide at the start of the week, that for the week ahead, you are going to make those changes to ensure that you’ll improve more.

If you want to level up on your reflection for the week with your long term goals, here’s another quick step-by-step process that you can use:

1. List your 3–5-year vision – this really gives you a great idea on the goals that you really want long-term. You may have heard the saying “we overestimate what we can get done in a year, but underestimate what we can get done in five years”. Vision how you want to live your life within the next five years, and form goals based on that.
2. Every week (during that weekly reset), list the tasks that contribute most to accomplishing that vision, and tasks that will improve your routines/systems and bring you closer to your vision.

The start of the week is a great time to think about what you’re going to need to do so you can accomplish your long-term goals.

You want to make sure that your calendar/planner aligns with what you want long-term, whether that’d be for your financial goals, health goals, study or work goals. If it’s really important to you, you would do whatever you can to improve, and prioritize it in your week.

Here are also some other reflection questions that you can also ask yourself too:

• What brought me the most joy this week? What didn’t?
• What will I do to bring me more joy? What will I not do?
• What is one goal I want to accomplish this week?
• Highs & Lows (3 each)
• Wins & Learnings (3 each)
• Highlights (overview on what happened this week)

Step 2 – Brain Dump

This is a perfect time to get all those thoughts out on what you need to do, have to do, or want to do.

Just simply type up or write down in paper all that you are thinking about that you need to get done. It doesn’t need to be neat, as long as it’s written somewhere.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t rely on just my brain to remember all of this. I need to have it written somewhere or it would disappear forever.

Once you have everything written, you can look at all that you have wrote, and categorize it. You can categorize it in these following categories:

1. What you can do now – pretty much all the tasks that you can do right then and there, get it over and done with.
2. What you can do in the week – the tasks that you can just plan to do during the week ahead. It’s not urgent today, but it does need to be done at a certain time.
3. What you can just put on hold – the tasks that are not really important nor is it urgent. These are tasks that you can do when you have the time, and there’s no rush to do them.

Doing this is not just limited to the start of the week, you can also do this throughout the week. I am a huge advocate for writing something down immediately the moment I think of something, because I can’t just rely on my brain for it.

Personally, what I do is depending on where I am at, I’ll write my thoughts on my phone if I’m out, and on sticky notes if I am at home. Then, at the start/end of the week, I’ll look at what I wrote down, and I’ll categorize them like how I have mentioned above.

This was absolutely life changing. You may find yourself feel a lot less stressed not having a lot of noise running through your head on everything that you need to do. It can give you the reassurance that you need that you will get it done, or you’ll figure out when you’ll do it.

Step 3 – Achievement List

This is actually a “To-Do” List. It’s only called an achievement list because it helps you focus more on the things that you’ve done, rather than the things that you haven’t done.

Instead of looking at it as things that you didn’t do, you look at what you have ticked off, and see it as things that I have accomplished. A simple mindset trick to help you not feel discouraged.

Pretty much with this one, it’s your typical to do list. You list all your priorities, goals, projects, and just write down what needs to get completed in that week.

I won’t go into too much detail on how you can do this, since to-do lists are something that everyone may have already been doing. Just in case, the simple way is to just:

1. List out your goals & priorities
2. List out the tasks that you need to get done in that week.

Step 4 – Plan Out Your Calendar & Schedule

You can use a paperback or an electronic calendar (such as Notion or Google Calendar). It may be more beneficial and useful to go electronically so that you can easily adjust anything just in case unexpected events happen.

I don’t know about anyone else but planning things out in a calendar gets a bit overwhelming. So here’s another quick step-by-step process to planning out your schedule:

1. Put in already committed appointments and events
2. Put in your non-negotiable priorities – this is where you put all the priorities that are absolutely non-negotiable. Obviously, it should include work (otherwise consequences would happen), exercise, self-care, appointments, etc. Just think of those things that would have severe consequences in the long-term if you don’t prioritize and do them in the week.
3. Schedule in other priorities that are important (but weren’t as urgent as the non-negotiable ones) – This may include catch ups with friends, running errands, etc. Just think of those things that are really flexible to move around. For instance, while a non-negotiable priority such as work isn’t so flexible if your shifts are fixed, catching up with friends is easy to move around as you can do them at any time of the day.
4. Schedule in time to work on your other goals – If you find yourself with extra time (and you don’t feel burned out), it’s also good to find the time to work on your other goals. Again, we can’t rely on our brain for everything and to follow through, so it may help you to follow through on working on your goals if it’s scheduled in. While you should make sure that you have the physical and mental capacity in the day to do them, just remember that if a goal is really important to you will find the time to do them.
5. Schedule in the things that you want to do, but they’re not really important nor urgent (honestly, sometimes you don’t even have to include this) – These are all the tasks, all the stuff that you want to do, but it wouldn’t add much value to you. This may include social media time, TV time, internet time, etc. To be honest, you don’t really need to add this into your schedule. You can just leave the extra time spaces blank and that tells you already that it’s your free time.

The step-by-step process outlined above can be tweaked based on your needs and your priorities.

Everyone is different depending on how much time that they have. For example, those who have hectic workdays or shifts may not have time to include those other priorities such as catch ups with friends, so they go on and just work on their goals instead. It all depends on your personal circumstances and your situation.

Also! Don’t forget to add in travel time if you’re going to go somewhere. It’ll save you from so much stress if you have a jam-packed schedule.

Step 5 – Finance Check-Up and Review Budget

This may not be new, but it is important to be aware on how much money is being spent and how much income is coming in.

One of the reasons why it may be beneficial to do this weekly is because your finances is something that you want to always be aware of, to make sure that you are on track, and that you’re not spending more money than you earn.

It’s also a good opportunity to budget what you are going to spend for the week so that you can avoid that as well.

It doesn’t have to take that long to do a short finance session every week. All you can do is the following few steps:

1. Take note of the expenses of the week – check to see that you have spent less than what you earned.
2. Take note of the income you have earned.
3. Review budget for the week – allocate your income towards your savings, non-negotiable expenses, and see how much you have left for “guilt-free spending”.

(Please note that I am not a financial expert. The steps that I gave above is just something that I do to keep track of my finances, and it has worked for me throughout my teen years. It has been inspired by other YouTube videos that I’ve watched and books that I’ve read).

Step 6 – Preparation

You may have heard the tip to “prepare everything the night before” so you save time in the morning.

What if you took it a step further, and prepare everything a week before, so you save time during the week?

You can do this for planning your outfits and preparing your meals.

You may have heard of people saying to prepare your outfit the night before, because it’ll save you so much time in the morning. But why don’t you save yourself the time in the evenings as well and just plan your outfits and lay them out at the start of the week?

How long does it take to decide on an outfit? For some it may be 5 minutes, 2 minutes, or for some it may take even up to twenty minutes to put together a good outfit. Save those small chunks of time during the week, and just plan your outfits at the start of the week. It’ll give you the reassurance that you need that it’s one less thing to worry about each day.

With meal preparation, I’ve seen tips where they have encouraged meal preparation at the start of the week to make sure that your eating habits are on the right track, your budget is on the right track, but also so you can save time during the week as well.

I won’t go into too much detail on how to meal prep, or even convince you why you should meal prep. Just think about how much time you’ll save from meal prepping in the mornings or evenings, and how much money you’ll save from impulsively buying if you didn’t have time to prepare food.

Step 7 – Clear Out

The last sort of step to this weekly reset is cleaning out everything, and just starting the week with everything being cleared out. This is not just clearing out your space, but also your inboxes as well.

The best part of the weekly reset is that you get the feeling of resetting and starting fresh. Obviously, how can you start fresh if there’s still a bit of a mess that hasn’t been cleared out?

I won’t go in detail on how to clean and how to clear your inbox, because it’s pretty much tasks that we probably should already know how to do.

Even if it’s just clearing out one space, or one page of emails, it’s the feeling of cleaning out everything that gives a good fresh feeling at the start of the week.

BONUS: Step 8 – Do Some Self-Care and Relax

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, as long as it allows you to recharge and reset for a new week. For me, my “self-care” and relax time is when I try out a new restaurant and spend some time with myself.

The possibilities are endless, you can practice self-care and relax without having to leave the house and spend any money.

We All Love a Fresh Start Right?

Weekly resets are all about having a fresh start every single week. By reflecting on the previous week, creating our schedules, achievement lists, and preparing everything ahead of time, we save so much valuable time throughout the week.

We are also more self-aware on our progress and know more on how we could progress even better on our priorities and goals.

If you want a mini guide on this weekly reset, there is actually one available in the Free Resource Library! Sign up for it today and you’ll get the Weekly Reset Mini Guide along with many other free resources (such as my free book Small Steps to Progression!). Check them out here!

Hope you have a great fresh start to your week!

Lauren ☺

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The Ultimate MONTHLY Reset

Essential Routines for Personal Growth

Weekly Personal Growth Habits

5 Ways to Enhance Your Productivity

Organisation Tips!!

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