Visualize your week in a dynamic and engaging way
Use this framework to plan a week. This can be especially useful to have a place to plan your time at work without having to create events in your official work calendar.
About the weekly planner template
What is a weekly planner
A weekly planner is a visual schedule of your upcoming tasks segmented by the days of the week. It can serve as a mix of a to-do list and a journal. Generally, you write your task on the day you intend to fulfill it, accompanied by a brief description of that activity. A weekly schedule is helpful in giving you a visible list of your plans day-by-day and can also be helpful to others who might want to schedule time with you.
Why use a weekly planner?
Almost anyone can benefit from using a weekly planner. Most often, however, people with heavy meeting schedules or busy lifestyles need the organizational stability that a weekly planner provides. If you find you have a large amount of work that never seems to get finished, weekly planning can help you prioritize tasks throughout the entire week all on one page. You can also use a weekly planner to track habits and weekly goals.
How to use a weekly planner
Creating a weekly planner should be structured and calculated. Simply downloading everything you do during the week onto a calendar may demonstrate how busy you are, but it won't help you attain any progress in your week.
A good rule of thumb is to divide your week into the days when you are most productive and days when you need a little more freedom in the schedule. For instance, some people like to jump into Mondays head first because their energy and enthusiasm are high. Others do not like to load their Fridays with heavy tasks because the likelihood that you can’t complete or follow up on a Friday task is high.
Only add tasks to your weekly planner that can be completed within the week. Putting a task down that has an evergreen deadline only ensures that you’ll ignore it when other unscheduled problems arise. You can save evergreen tasks for a monthly or even a yearly planner. The goal is to only include tasks that you know can be accomplished in a week.
Finally, make your weekly planner (minus any personal obligations or eyes-only confidential tasks) available to your team so that anyone looking for time on your schedule can tell at a glance what you're working on. This will help others respect the time you have and how you use it without guessing, “is now a good time to meet?”
Features included in this weekly planner template
The editable weekly planner template has dynamic features to make your weekly schedule more customizable and deliberate. Adding icons, graphics, and sticky notes are motivational ways to get you to pay attention to your weekly planner, instead of letting weekly commitments automatically fill up your schedule. MURAL’s Weekly Planner Template can do that and more:
Use sticky notes for 30-minute events
Use a sticky note to show a 30-minute time block for meetings and use different shapes to denote longer periods of time. This will help you quickly visualize how much of your day will be spent in meetings.
Quickly duplicate events
MURAL has a simple shortcut to duplicate events using one key. This will allow you to duplicate the note when a meeting will go longer or you need more time for a task. Check out all the MURAL keyboard shortcuts here.
Customize your planner by adding images and gifs from the sidebar
MURAL’s sidebar is filled with additional features, like images and icons, that can enhance your weekly planner. You can use preloaded images from the MURAL library or download your own. Put a picture of a cake for a staff birthday as a quick visual reminder of what’s on your schedule.
Export as an image or PDF
Get a hard copy of your schedule to keep with you when you don't have access to your computer. This is also useful when you have limited access to the internet and can't log in to your account. You can also select a specific area of your mural to export using the crop tool in the export menu.
Share the document with other collaborators
MURAL's share feature enables you to share your weekly planner. You set the role you want collaborators to have, like admin and core team members who have full collaboration access, including the ability to change and modify docs. You can also grant restricted access to external guests or visitors. A shared weekly planner will alleviate a lot of the guesswork about your schedule. Sharing your weekly planner can reduce miscommunications among your teams as well.Use this framework to plan a week. This can be especially useful to have a place to plan your time at work without having to create events in your official work calendar. your week at a glance and ensure you’re staying on top of your to-do list.
