How to plan your week in pomodoros

A day is too short to see where your time goes and a month is too long to correct it. The week is the right size.

The weekly review: one round, once a week

Choose a fixed time, such as Sunday evening, and give planning exactly one pomodoro. In that round you look back at the week that ended and lay out the one that is beginning. A printable weekly sheet is on the printable sheets page.

Part 1: Look back

1. Count the rounds you completed each day and add them up. The timer on this site shows the last seven days.
2. See where they went. Which subjects or projects got the rounds? Often the answer is a surprise: the subject you fear got three rounds and the one you enjoy got fifteen.
3. Compare estimates with reality. Which tasks ran over? By how much? See estimating tasks.
4. Note what got in the way: a late night, a guest, a phone habit, a vague task. Pick one of these to change next week. One is enough.

Part 2: Look ahead

1. Write the fixed events of the coming week: classes, tests, meetings, travel, a wedding, a festival.
2. Work out your supply. For each day, how many rounds are realistic given those events? Use last week's real numbers as your guide, not your hopes. Add them up.
3. List what matters this week. Three to five outcomes: "finish Unit 4 of Accounts", "submit the assignment", "two past papers".
4. Give each outcome a number of rounds and check the total against your supply.
5. Leave a tenth to a fifth of the supply empty. Something unplanned comes every week. The empty rounds are where it will go.
6. Place the rounds on days. Hard work on your best days and hours; lighter work on days crowded with events.

A worked example

Farhan is in Class 12 and has a chemistry test on Friday. Last week he completed 34 rounds. For the coming week he judges: Monday to Friday 5 a day, Saturday 8, Sunday 6. Supply = 25 + 8 + 6 = 39. He keeps 5 as buffer, leaving 34 to plan. He allots: chemistry test preparation 10, maths exercise sets 8, accounts chapter 7, English writing practice 4, physics revision 5. Total 34. He places chemistry on Monday to Thursday, because the test is on Friday, and the past paper on Saturday's long day. On Wednesday a cousin's visit costs him three rounds; the buffer absorbs them, and the plan survives.

Each morning: two minutes

The weekly plan gives each day a number of rounds per subject. Each morning, turn that into today's list of actual tasks, apply the size test, and decide the hours. The day planner will set out the clock times. This daily step is quick because the thinking was done on Sunday.

What a good week looks like

• The most important outcome was started on the first day, not the last.
• Every subject or project got at least some rounds.
• The number of rounds is close to last week's or slightly higher, not wildly different.
• There was one lighter day.
• You can say in one sentence what the week achieved.

Common mistakes

• Planning from hope. If you did 30 rounds last week, do not plan 60. Plan 32.
• No buffer. A plan with every round filled breaks on Tuesday.
• Too many outcomes. Ten priorities are no priorities. Choose three to five.
• Skipping the look back. Without it you repeat the same over-optimistic plan each week.
• Never looking at the plan again. Keep it where you can see it: on the wall above the desk or the first page of the notebook.

Month and term

Four weekly counts give you a monthly figure, which is what long plans need. If you average 35 rounds a week, a term of twelve weeks holds about 420. The exam study plan shows how to divide a whole syllabus by that number.

Questions people ask

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