PTPL 209 · How to Design a Screen-Free 1-P Weekly Planner

And reclaim focus for your distractible brain

After years perfecting a simple plain text productivity system for tracking my tasks and time, I should have been happy. Surely the search was over at last? But something still felt wrong; incomplete.

The information was all there, but I still had trouble focusing on the next important thing. The system worked beautifully on any device, but my highly distractible brain needed a screen-free way to see the week ahead.

And that is where paper came to the rescue. The premise is simple: identify what needs doing in the next seven days, and write it down. By hand.

If you are vision or motor impaired, paper won’t cut it here. Replace ‘paper’ in what follows with ‘simple list’. Pick an app (one you don’t use for anything else) to write out your most important tasks. Click here to read more about how to access the focus benefits of working on paper, when analog isn’t an option.

Now we’ve got the what , it’s time to pick the where.

Dated planner? Bullet Journal? Fountain pen friendly notebook? Back of an envelope? At the beginning of last year I’d have chosen a notebook, with the Dash-Plus notation system rather than Bujo symbols. Today, much to past-me’s horror, my preference would be the envelope.

Back then I would (and did) call people crazy for writing important information on random scrap pieces of paper — like envelopes — because it is never a good idea to use an impermanent, highly-loseable canvas if that is your only copy of that info. I still stand by the wisdom of using a regular notebook for recording analog notes you want to refer to after today.

But where my thinking has changed is in the role transient pieces of paper can play in keeping one focused.

What if I turned things around and actually embraced the qualities of loose sheets of paper that I used to view as drawbacks?

What if my plain text lists continued keeping track of the whats, whens, and wheres, and paper became an optional, screen-free layer in the system?

That thinking is how the 1-P (One Page Notebook) was born. When I first wrote about it I was solely using 1-Ps for freeform notes. The potential for more targeted weekly planning gradually revealed itself with every 1-P I filled. After experimenting with different layouts, a new system was born.

A 1-P can be a planner, notebook, and a thinking space. It can also help you keep your priorities visible without needing to open an app or carry a bulky notebook.

To make things more convenient, I created a series of templates that I now use every day to keep me focused on the next important thing. The best thing about them is that I can now carry the overall shape of my week and the outline of each day in my pocket, screen-free!

I now have something that is light enough to always carry, flexible enough for both planning and freeform notes, and simple enough that I am consistently using it, week after week.

Follow the guidelines below to draw up your own weekly planning template to suit your way of working, or purchase my ready-made versions (link below).

See it in action:

How to design your own 1-P weekly planner

There are two vital ingredients in creating an effective weekly plan on a single sheet of paper.

1 - A space to see all weekly tasks in one view

The weekly overview goes on one side of the page. On it you will list all the tasks you believe you can reasonably complete in the next seven days. You may want to divide tasks into work and personal, or other categories that make sense to you. I use four quadrants, inspired by the planning page I regularly used in the 1980s. Carl Pullein’s weekly planning routine helped me to refine my existing system.

2 - A space to list each day’s most important tasks

Daily plans go on the other side of the page. An opened out 1-P has eight individual spaces, more than enough to assign one to each day of the week. The extra can be for general notes, or the first day of the next week.

On each day’s ‘page’ you’ll need a space to write down the most important tasks you’ll be focusing on completing that day. Three is a good number to aim for. These tasks will be drawn from the weekly overview you completed earlier.

I recommend identifying the one task which, if that was all you got done, your day could be considered a success.

This space is not for routine tasks like brushing your teeth or taking out the trash. It’s for the tasks that will bring you one step closer to completing your in-progress projects, and marking off the list of weekly tasks and intentions you’ve set on the other side of the page.

How you draw up your page will be determined by what feels right to you over time. Start with the date at the top of each day’s space, followed by 3 lines for your most important tasks. The remaining space can be for more tasks, notes, sketches. I usually use that space for time blocking.

Getting started, staying on task

Your digital task manager tells you what you need to do, but it is surrounded by distractions. If your focus is suffering, a screen-free way to see the next step can help.

A lined or gridded page provides a good framework for a weekly plan, as will a list in a simple text file. Time blocking options include writing the time next to each task, Alastair Method columns, and the time boxes I’m currently using.

Every time I veer away from my tasks toward something more interesting (just for a minute — yeah, right!), my 1-P plan brings me back to the tasks that matter. Sure, I still drift sometimes, but that happens much less often now that I have a concrete roadmap of my week always with me.

My templates live here. Get 25% off with the code d5ubhvg.

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