Templates
Weekly planner template
This weekly planner template is a free printable page for one week, Sunday first. Each day has a line for the plan and a line for what really happened. At the bottom, the week’s hours by category sit beside your targets.
Last updated
Reviewed by Mohammed Raqeeb
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The weekly planner template.
The weekly planner template is one US Letter page, free to print as often as you like. Print one on Sunday, fill in the plan, and keep it where you can see it all week. The page has three parts:
- Three priorities for the week, at the top.
- One row per day, Sunday to Saturday, with the plan beside what really happened.
- Hours this week: a target and the real figure for each category, unaccounted included.
How to use it
How to use a weekly planner.
A weekly planner works in two sittings, one at each end of the week. On Sunday, write the three priorities, a plan for each day, and a target for each category, such as eight hours of sleep a night. On Saturday night, fill in what really happened and the real hours, and compare them with what you planned.
The real hours are the hard part, because by Saturday nobody remembers Tuesday. They need a few notes from each day, but a line or two each evening is enough, like “work 9 to 6, gym skipped, two hours of TV”. For a single day planned hour by hour, use the hourly planner template. To plan the week by giving each task its own stretch of the calendar, read about time blocking.
Filled in
A weekly planner, filled in from a real week.
Here is the planner filled in for one week. The plans were written for this page. The second column comes from seven real entries, one a day, read by the parser in Think in Numbers, the part of the app that reads plain words and adds up the hours.
Each bar is one day from midnight to midnight, in the order the hours happened, and the dotted stretches are time the entry never mentioned. Two plans slipped: Tuesday’s gym never happened, and on launch day the work ran until half past seven.
Sunday
Plan
Long run, groceries and meal prep, call my parents, read
What really happened
- Household2h 30m
- Using Phone2h
- Food & Meals1h 30m
- Fitness1h
- Family & Friends1h
- Self-Growth40m
Monday
Plan
Gym before work, launch plan all day, phone away after dinner
What really happened
- Work8h
- Using Phone2h 30m
- Food & Meals1h 30m
- Fitness45m
Tuesday
Plan
Gym before work, meetings in the afternoon, read before bed
What really happened
- Work9h 15m
- Using Phone1h 30m
- Food & Meals30m
- Self-Growth30m
Wednesday
Plan
Gym before work, dinner with a friend
What really happened
- Work8h 30m
- Food & Meals2h
- Fitness45m
- Self-Growth20m
Thursday
Plan
Launch day, home by seven
What really happened
- Work10h 30m
- Using Phone3h
- Food & Meals1h
Friday
Plan
Gym, a short workday, drinks with the team
What really happened
- Work7h 30m
- Family & Friends2h
- Using Phone1h
- Fitness45m
Saturday
Plan
Hike with friends, a quiet evening
What really happened
- Fitness3h 30m
- Entertainment2h
- Self-Growth1h
- Food & Meals30m
Hours this week
At the foot of the page, the week’s real hours sit beside the targets set on Sunday. Each line below fills to the real figure, and the tick marks the target.
- Work43h 45m of 40h, 3h 45m over
- Sleep59h of 56h, 3h over
- Fitness6h 45m of 3h, 3h 45m over
- Self-Growth (reading)2h 30m of 3h, 30m under
- Using Phone10h of 7h, 3h over
- Unaccounted31h 30m of the week’s 168 hours, no target
The targets are the ones this example plan set: a 40-hour work week, eight hours of sleep a night, three hours each of exercise and reading, and about an hour a day on the phone at most. The categories are the app’s starter set, and sleep counts the hours inside each day, naps included.
Unaccounted is the time no entry mentioned. On the workdays, most of it sits in the same places: before work, between work and dinner, and the hour before bed.
The seven entries behind this week
Sunday
“Slept until 8:30. Pancakes and coffee until 9:30. Long run from 10 to 11. Groceries and meal prep from 12 to 2:30. Called my parents from 4 to 5. Read for 40 minutes before dinner. Dinner at 7. On my phone on the couch from 8 to 10. Bed at 11.”
Monday
“Up at 6:45. Gym from 7 to 7:45. Work from 9 to 5:30, mostly the launch plan. Lunch at my desk. Cooked dinner at 7. On my phone on the couch from 8 to 10:30. In bed at 11.”
Tuesday
“Up at 7:15 and skipped the gym. Work from 8:45 to 6, meetings all afternoon. Takeout at 7. Read for 30 minutes. On my phone from 8:30 to 10. Asleep at 11.”
Wednesday
“Up at 6:45. Gym from 7 to 7:45. Work from 9 to 5:30. Dinner with a friend from 7 to 9. Read for 20 minutes in bed. Lights out at 10:45.”
Thursday
“Up at 7. Work from 9 to 7:30, the launch slipped and we stayed late. Ate lunch and dinner at my desk. On my phone from 8:30 to 11:30. Asleep at midnight.”
Friday
“Up at 7:30. Gym from 8 to 8:45. Work from 9:30 to 5. Drinks with the team from 5:30 to 7:30. About an hour on my phone after that. Bed at 11:30.”
Saturday
“Slept until 9. Hike with friends from 10:30 to 2, lunch after. Nap from 3:30 to 4:30. Read for an hour. Movie night from 8 to 10. Bed at 11:30.”
Real output from the part of Think in Numbers that reads your words and adds up the hours (version v21), run on with the app’s starter categories. Stored exactly as it came out, not edited.
Without paper
The weekly planner whose real hours add themselves up.
The planner pairs well with the habit tracker template, which follows the same week one habit at a time. On paper, both leave the same job for the weekend.
The Real column is the slow part of this planner. On Saturday night, seven days of notes have to be found, sorted into categories and added up by hand, before you can see a single gap.
A no-paper version of this planner should do that adding for you. You write a line or two about each day as it ends, and by Saturday the real hours are already there, so next week’s targets start from what happened. Most journaling apps keep how each day felt, which is worth keeping, but a week of feelings cannot fill in a column of hours.
One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in.
You write or say your day in your own words, as it happens or all at once. The app reads what you wrote and counts the hours that went to each part of it: work, sleep, exercise, reading, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. Its weekly plan and targets sit against those real hours, like the Target and Real columns on this page.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.
Keep reading.
- TemplatesPrintable PDFs: a daily journal, an hourly planner and a time log.
- Hourly planner templateEvery hour from 6 AM to midnight: the plan beside what happened.
- Habit tracker templateA row per habit, a box per day, and the minutes each habit really got.
- Time blockingPlan the day in blocks, then check the blocks against what happened.
- Where did my week go? calculatorEnter a typical day and see your week accounted and unaccounted.
- Time journalingThe method: write or say your day in your own words, then see it as hours.
Questions
Questions people ask.
What should a weekly planner include?
A weekly planner should include a few priorities for the week, a plan for each day, and space to write what really happened. This one also has a box for the week's hours by category, with the target beside the real figure.
Why does this weekly planner start on Sunday?
The weekly planner starts on Sunday so the week can be planned on its first day. If your week starts on Monday, fill in the Sunday row last and use it for the weekend.
Is this weekly planner template free?
Yes. The weekly planner is a free one-page PDF. Print a copy for each week.
How do I fill in the hours box?
Write a target for each category on Sunday. On Saturday night, add up the real hours from your notes and write them beside the targets. The gap between the two is what to change next week.
Is there an app that fills in the real hours for me?
Yes. On paper, the real hours are yours to add up on Saturday night. Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in, for iPhone and Android, reads what you write or say about each day and adds up the hours by category. Its weekly plan and targets sit beside those real hours.
Try it on my day.
Write today down in your own words, and see where the hours went.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.