In-Depth Guide to Weekly Planning

Amar Virk

Apr 17, 2023 • 8 min read

"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
- Confucius

Competitive Advantage
Redefining Success

INTRO

Your Competitive Advantage - Time To Go Pro

If most people don't set goals or make plans, I hope you can spot the opportunity in front of you to create a competitive advantage by going pro, meaning treating planning like a professional athlete would treat a workout session and getting in their reps or shots. You don't feel like showing up sometimes, but you feel accomplished and mentally relaxed and sleep like a baby. It's going to be hard either way, I rather choose yu-stress or dis-stress.

Amateurs: Modus Operandi (MO) is going off on feelings and emotions, explaining what didn't work and why, (Lympic system: The animal brain; seeing a pleasure without pain, wanting immediate gratification) [Solution]
Professionals: MO is showing getting work done and finding being Solution-oriented (SOL: Path to the sun, +/- wavelength). Working through the inevitable ups and downs you'll face. (Prefrontal cortex: The executive centre of the brain; working through pleasure and pain today, and being on the mission because you can see the long-term vision).

"To write is human, to edit is divine." - Stephen King

If you are working from I have to, I should, I must, I need to... Those are injections from the outside authorities (teachers, preachers, parents etc) and you'll procrastinate and find yourself hesitating to get things done. Address the brain noise first through coaching or workshops, then the systems & processes may come more naturally. Everything is a strategy of the mind.

Defining Success

Here's my definition of success

Persistent and focused effort over a long duration, toward a meaningful and worthwhile ideal.

Having a vision and being on a mission, Utilizing your time, space and energy to turn thoughts into things. Spirit into matter; into a product, service or idea. Energy wants to find the most effective and efficient pathway, so the more aligned and authentic you are to what matters most, energy flows with attention goes.

Say you had 1 billion dollars you wanted to invest and grow and set an intention to get a 6-10% return on it. Who would you invest that money a homeless man or a billionaire who places a high value on service, finances and wealth building? You would choose the one who has the greatest, order, structure, discipline, thought, strategy, track record, experience and clarity to grow it. So answer, why would the universe invest in you if you're not dedicated to pleasure and pain to create the most effective pathway in your niche? (Why I teach building a purpose-built life, it's the only thing you'll be loyal and dedicated to through the ups and downs)

MINDSET (PART I)

You can have a million strategies if you're not working on what really matters you'll beat yourself up for spinning your wheels. It could cost you weeks, months, years and decades.

Values

You are not loyal to people, places or things.
You are loyal to your values.

Strategy is as much what to do, as it is what not to do. If you're not working on what matters most to you on an intrinsic level. You'll procrastinate. Just as people don't show up for a job for the job, they show up to fulfill their own set of values and priorities to develop their life. So get clear on what those are, because you'll be more likely to go accomplish objectives related to your intrinsic pursuits.

What are Values:

What your life actually demonstrates is the greatest indicator of what you place value and worth on. Keywords, are what your life actually demonstrates, not what you wish, desire or think they you place value on. If you overlook this, you risk burnout, boredom, procrastination and stress.

These were the "so-called" values of Enron, a company that committed one of the largest corporate frauds in history: Integrity, Communication, Respect & Excellence.

Injectect Values

I've already mentioned if you catch yourself utilizing these words I have to, I should, I must, I need to, it's wisdom to find out where they originate in your mind as you may be planning your life, work and activities around injected values. Understanding and clearing these injections gives you an opportunity to see the perfection of where you are actually at and what you're working on. To step into authentic work and provide real value to others. Even if it is difficult and hard. [Solution]

Mission

Self-employed: When your personal values are aligned with your business's values, you are on track. Your business becomes an extension of your personal mission. When you can see your business is a part of your personal purpose and when both are aligned they serve and provide ever greater value to your customers.

Employee: Does your personal mission align with the action-based statement that declares the purpose of the organization and how they serve its customers? (Few employees can recite this, because just a few people on the management team can recite this. And this is why companies move slower and take longer to adapt, and the primary growth comes from mergers & acquisitions and not internal innovation).

Purpose: Why your company or brand exists
Vision: Where you headed by a specific time in accordance with your purpose
Missions: What actions we're can take to achieve the Vision?
Values: Alignment between our internal values and company values

Mindset

What to know what to work on, clear these things and you'll notice you have clarity of what you want to accomplish in life. After that, it will be a choice of inspiring stress or dis-stress.

Fear
Anxiety
Stress
Depression
Failure
Procrastination
Guilt & Shame
Infatuation & Restatement
Comparison
Fantasies & Nightmares
Past Associations

Life Goals & Ambitions

Vision is the most important part of planning. If you don't know the direction you want to take your life, how are you going to plan it? Most people live by so many injections of other people's ideals they don't have the clarity to face the direction they want to head.

We do a layer of vision and planning during almost every workshop, so keep refining it until it's crystal clear. You are the best investment you can make.

PLANNING (PART II)

Priority Planning

Everything is a strategy to get you authentic. Without your challenges would you be focused on getting more organized?

Set both personal & professional goals. When your start seeing both as intermingled and can't tell them apart. You are on track by leveraging your life, energy, time and space with what it demonstrates already.

“Give me a firm place to stand and a lever and I can move the Earth.”
- Archimedes

How to leverage your time:

Focus on Your Hierarchy of Values: Your highest value is the most effective and efficient pathway to fulfill your lower values.
Focus on Your Priority Tasks: Your highest priority task, will help reduce all the lower priority tasks.
Master Your Skillset: These are your unique abilities and talents.

Highest Priority Task (Main thing)
Tasks
Low-Priority Tasks (Distractions)

Make planning systems and processes your own, and adapt them to your unique life, business and

Execution

Schedule and chunk down your highest values first. We put order and organization to what matters most in our lives.
Keep it simple and focus on the 20% that can give you 80% of the results. If you are stuck with that, come to the workshop or find someone you resonate with to do the work. It's already costing you.
Write 20 goals, and circle the top 5 you want to do in life. Focus on one personal and one professional and chunk it down into 3x3x3. What are the next 3 things for each thing?

Weekly Review

I do a weekly review, and I prefer a location that's inspiring.

By a window,
Unabsurcted view

Reminder

Few things work the first time. Rule of 100 states, to do it 100x or for 100 hours.
You will never be fully ready.
It takes time and is hard. Just like all the other things worth having in life.

SUMMARY

Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.
- Stephen Covey

Highest Priority

So our highest priority of the day is actually the work required to move the needle on our mission in our highest value for tomorrow, based on yesterday's vision. The execution, today's most important task is about becoming present between the past and the future. When you've addressed the distortion of space and time, you're in the zone and time flies by. You don't even notice who's come and gone in your space.

"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That is relativity." - Albert Einstein

This is why it's important to know your internal values and live authentically. The brain noise and procrastination aren't bad, there is a feedback mechanism guiding you. You've just subconsciously interrupted your current challenges as more beneficial.

Top Priorities & To-Do List

Top priorities (plural) are your to-do lists required to get things done today from yesterday's vision. They keep the engine going, highest priority sets your course and direction.

Low Priorities & Distractions

Low Priroites and distractions, low priorities and things that came up are a feedback loop to highlight the following;

A: fears, anxieties, stress, comparisons, fantasies, nightmares, past associations, depression, guilt & shame etc. (Past)
B: Often because of outside injections, you've disregarded things that are actually high values that you have not prioritized, or are emerging branches of your vision (Future).

If you wanted it you'd be doing it already. You don't need to be reminded to do things in alignment with what you are internally driven to do. Did Michael Jordan's mother have to call him every day to get out of bed? Maybe she had to ensure to call him to come home for dinner because he was playing ball...

Planning is a layer of strategy, and that's knowing what not to focus on, so you can focus on the 20% that gives you 80% of the results. Most people play that game backwards. Focus on the mental part to create a greater