Creating Your Ideal Week for Success

This is a follow up post The Backbone of Performance – Rowing Race Plan or Ideal Week

Implementing the ‘Ideal Week’ Business Plan Inspired by Rowing Race Plan and strategic processes is about having a plan or routine and then refining it until the recipe is just right for ongoing sustainable success.

Since being involved in a couple of sports now, and then moving into a high performing sales business I am seeing many principles that cross over from sport to sport, and industry to industry. Below is

Welcome to your guide on how to structure and execute an ideal week in business, drawing parallels from rowing race strategies. This manual will provide you with step-by-step instructions for planning, executing, and reflecting upon your weekly activities.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
The Concept of the Ideal Week
Structuring Your Ideal Week
Daily Execution of Tasks
Adapting to Changes
Stress and Workload Management
Reflective Practice for Continuous Improvement
Understanding Horizons in Planning
Integrating Learning Cycles into Your Routine
Project Management Techniques for Efficiency

1 – Introduction:

Understand the philosophy behind using a structured plan as a performance backbone both in sports (like rowing) and business.

2 – The Concept of the Ideal Week:

Objective: Grasp why a weekly cycles and repeatable activities are essential.
Key Activities: Learn how to visualise and structure your week as a series of recurring cycles akin to training sessions or races for an athlete.

3 – Structuring Your Ideal Week:

Step-by-Step Guide:

Identify Key Areas: List out all important areas requiring attention during your week.
Allocate Time Blocks: Assign specific time blocks for each activity based on priority.
Set Clear Objectives: Define what success looks like at the end of each day/week.

4 – Daily Execution of Tasks:

Instructions:

Follow through with daily plans while allowing room for flexibility.
Use tools like calendars or apps designed specifically for task management.

5 – Adapting to Changes:

Tactics & Strategies:

How to swiftly reallocate resources when facing unforeseen challenges.
We all have days we things hit us head on and we need to adapt and move to meet the days demands and this is when a structure can often take a back seat. Importantly learning from these moments and days along with ensuring you get back into your routine is critical.

6 – Stress and Workload Management:

Methods & Tools:

Effective delegation techniques.
Prioritisation matrixes such as Eisenhower Box, for urgent and important tasks or actions
Consider reflective practices that are easy to avoid but often by creating space to reflect is when different ways of thinking and new or different approaches to a task can be considered
Further to this are practices which aid recovery and adding elements like meditation, breathing, visualisation and calming methods into each day and week can set up for success

7 – Reflective Practice for Continuous Improvement :

Reflection Cycle Steps:

1) Review what was accomplished vs what was planned. Also what worked and didn’t work.

2) Analyse discrepancies between objectives set and outcomes achieved, particularly any targets, or benchmarks for process and performance.

3) Adjust upcoming plans accordingly based on insights gained.

8 – Understanding Horizons in Planning:

Learn about different levels at which you should be planning — from long-term goals down to daily tasks — ensuring that all actions align with overarching objectives.

Horizon and levels of perspective inline with David Allens GTD method.

Horizon Scales – Consider and develop

Vision and goals for your work as far out as 15 years from now
Work back to 3 or 4 year cycles
Then 12 months for objectives
6 months or quarterly cycles as objectives and key results
Then monthly and weekly
Finally daily cycles for the immediate next actions and focuses
Ensure you can see how this all scales back up to your aspirational vision

9 – Integrating Learning Cycles into Your Routine:

Discover methods like Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle which can enhance understanding through concrete experiences, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation.

I love a good experiment, and testing elements of your process to find ways to improve. Great ways to do this involve having consistency with many other parts of your process then try some things different and taking a risk to see if you can create a gain or advantage in what you do or what you team does. Sometimes the feeling of taking a step back to take many steps forward is ok and actually the best way. This is step change in your process.
Drew Ginn

Productivity Techniques for Efficiency:

Explore systems such as David Allen’s GTD methodology that can help manage work-life commitments effectively without stress overload.

Key Questions To Consider

Integration with Personal Life: How can individuals balance their ‘Ideal Week’ business plan with personal life commitments, particularly for those in high-demand roles?
Measuring Success: What specific metrics or indicators can be used to measure the success of an implemented ‘Ideal Week’?
Customisation for Different Roles: How can the ‘Ideal Week’ concept be adapted for different roles within an organisation, from entry-level to executive?
Team Dynamics: How does the ‘Ideal Week’ plan accommodate team dynamics and collaborative projects?
Sustainability: What strategies can be employed to ensure the sustainability of these practices over the long term without burnout?