Thriving Spirit,

Are you nosy?

I hope you are, because this one’s personal.

I’ve decided to take the plunge and share my Weekly Design System with you.

Weekly Design System

I mentioned before that one of the privileges I get to experience this year is meeting so many high achievers.

There’s a common theme that I’ve noticed: they’re all intentional with their time.

My mentor, Kevin, leaves his clothes out in the bathroom the night before because he doesn’t want that to impact his brain capacity the next day.

It’s these kind of nuggets that we get by asking questions from the achievers themselves.

Speaking with people like Kevin, reminded me of a habit I used to have about 5/6 years ago.

At the time, my partner Erin was living in Camberwell, London at the time, and I’d usually get the train in to visit her for the weekend, and of course need to get it back to get home.

This was pretty much our weekend routine.

When I got home on Sunday evening, I’d sit down and fill in my Weekly Design System for the week ahead.

This was a system, Robin Sharma, a huge influence on my life, provided me.

This is what it looks like.

I loved this process. It was a time of huge personal exploration and growth for myself.

However, I fell out of the habit of filling it in until recently.

With more responsibility than ever, I realised it was time to get everything out of my head and onto paper.

So, I dusted off my A3 copies. I smile as I write this, because I remember Erin printing them off for me, which I was very grateful for.

And I also bought myself a frame with the intention of sticking this up in my room every week.

And here’s the finished article for this week.

I’ve kept the weekend free, because I’ll be away.

In the next section, I’ll break down what I consider the 4 most important sections and expand on their value using my own weekly design system.

The Breakdown

Personal Truly Exceptional

The aim of the Personal Truly Exceptional section here is to remind us what is important to us and how we want to show up in the world.

It’s about connecting to our long-term vision and embodying behaviours that are going to help that happen.

The daily reminder is important. Over the course of a week we forget about what truly matters to us.

These can be values, they can be behaviours that we want to embody.

This week I chose Focus because I’ve fallen into the habit of checking my phone a lot recently.

Oddly enough, not really for messages.

A lot of it has been for sport updates now that the football season is back.

But, that’s not going to help me being the best version of myself.

Nor is it going to help me with focus or getting things done.

So, actually sitting down and focussing on whatever task

With it taking us approximately 21 minutes to get into a flow state, the maths doesn’t read well.

I chose Getting Things Done because I have this habit of not finishing off tasks or actions and I want to change that.

And finally, Healthy Food. I haven’t been too bad recently, but I just wanted to push myself to keep going with this.

I always feel better when I’m eating healthily.

Business Truly Exceptional

The aim of the Business Truly Exceptional section is to get you to focus on your business, career or vocation.

However you see it, having some sense of purpose that generates income for us is important.

This week I wanted to focus on income generating activities for my business.

I write this newsletter and run my Threads account, but they don’t generate income even though I love doing this!

I came up with some proposals for packaging up my services, sought feedback from people I respect and admire and have now even posted them out in the world.

I’ve been presenting online for ages now and got pretty good at it. In fact, my Company sends me in specifically to present quite often.

I don’t think it’s rocket science, but a lot of people struggle.

So, I’ve build an introductory ‘Presentation Power Up’ session to offer the world.

If people like it, it could turn into a longer term thing.

I’ve been doing the same thing with an author for a while, and he’s improved massively.

To Do’s / Deliverables

The aim of the Dos / Deliverables is to build on your Personal and Business Truly Exceptionals by putting them into actionable tasks.

There are 12 rows which you populate with your 12 highest value activities. .

I’m also really cheeky here and have added Yoga evenings x 4 and Play with Cats x 2. I don’t actually suggest doing that.

At the time of writing, the only one I won’t complete this week is the Social Media Plan for Linkedin.

That’s ok, it’s the least important. I dropped it because that’s tied to my work and it’s been a really heavy week.

And, it’s actually the first time in a while that I haven’t completed something on this list.

I felt ok doing that though because it was the lowest value activity to me this week.

Yes, that does mean playing with my cats is more important!

Fill In Your Days

The aim of this section is to allocate time for the To Dos/Deliverables in your week.

Now that you have the To Dos/Deliverables, it’s time to setup your days so that they happen.

I also check my calendar at this point to make sure I don’t miss anything.

I only put really important things in my calendar.

Confessions/Reflections

Since resuming the habit of the Weekly Design System, I’ve had moments where I’ve felt in complete alignment with the longer term vision I have for myself.

And, it’s also increased my awareness about when I’m not.

For example, this week, my employer was trying to force a meeting when I was travelling to Chester.

Part of my contract is that I can work from anywhere I want to, which is really important to me.

I pointed this out to them and they backtracked.

It felt good. I felt even better.

The Code: Design Your Week

This week, take a little time to plan your week.

Here’s a link to Robin’s template, courtesy of Ryan Coisson.

If you don’t want to do that, try asking yourself these 4 questions:

1. What are your 3 personal exceptional goals this week?

2. What are your 3 business exceptional goals this week?

3. What are the 12 (max) actions that you can do this week to support those?

4. When are you slotting them into your week?

If that doesn’t work, maybe try tagging it into your other activities?

Let me know how you get on!

Your Favourite Weekly Designer,

Dan x