The 15-Minute Execution: How to Plan Your Week
Find a quiet spot on Sunday evening or Monday morning. Set a timer for 15 minutes. No more, no less. The constraint forces you to focus on what matters and avoid getting lost in the details. Here’s the process.
Minutes 1-3: The Brain Dump & Big 3
Grab a piece of paper or a blank note. Write down everything you think you need to do this week. Everything. Work projects, personal errands, calls to make. Don’t filter it. Just get it out of your head.
Now, look at that list. Circle the 3 (and no more than 5) most important things on that list. These are your “Big 3” for the week. What tasks, if completed, will make you feel the most accomplished by Friday? What moves the needle most on your goals? This is the 80/20 principle in action.
Minutes 4-10: Sketching the Week with Time Blocks
Open your calendar, which already has your non-negotiables blocked out. Now, let’s place your Big 3. These are your deep work blocks. When are you most focused? For many, it’s the first few hours of the morning. For others, it’s late in the afternoon. Drag and drop a 90-minute to 2-hour “Deep Work” block onto your calendar for each of your Big 3 tasks. For example:
Tuesday, 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Deep Work – Draft Quarterly Report
Thursday, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Deep Work – Outline Marketing Presentation
Next, use a technique called task batching. Look at your brain dump list for smaller, similar tasks. Group them together. All your emails and Slack messages? Put them into two or three 30-minute “Admin & Comms” blocks each day. A bunch of errands? Create one 2-hour “Errands” block on Wednesday afternoon. This prevents the constant, draining effect of context switching.
Minutes 11-15: The Daily Finalize & Flexibility
Your week is now sketched out. You have your fixed appointments, your deep work is protected, and your shallow work is batched. The final step is a quick scan. Does it feel realistic? Is there any white space? If not, you’re over-scheduled. Move or delete a lower-priority task.
The key here is that this is a sketch. Each morning, take just two minutes to look at the day ahead. You might need to adjust. A colleague might need help, so you shift your “Admin” block. That’s not a failure; it’s the system working. The goal of this quick weekly planning is not to create a rigid cage, but a flexible roadmap to guide your decisions throughout the day.
Imagine your Monday. You wake up and glance at your calendar. 8:00 AM: Commute. 9:00 AM: Team Meeting. 10:00 AM: Buffer. 10:15 AM: Admin & Comms block. 11:00 AM: Deep Work – Project Alpha. You know exactly what to focus on. When an email comes in at 11:15, you don’t have to decide whether to answer it. Your calendar has already made that decision for you: it can wait until your next comms block. You stay focused and get more done.
