# How to plan your week around your tasks

> A weekly planning habit for engineers and team leads: gather due dates, estimate honestly, rank what matters and leave room for the unexpected.

A good week starts with ten minutes of looking at what is due, what matters most and how much time you really have. Then the week is a plan, not a reaction.

Web page: https://kansohq.app/guides/how-to-plan-your-week

Updated: 5 October 2026

## Why plan the week

Most of a working week is reaction: messages, reviews, requests. Without a plan, the urgent crowds out the important, and the work that moves the product is done last. A weekly plan is a small act of choosing what the week is for.

## A ten-minute routine

1. **Look at what is due.** Open the calendar and list the dates that cannot move: releases, reviews, meetings with deadlines.
2. **List your open tasks.** Everything assigned to you, in one place.
3. **Rank them.** What is critical this week, what is next and what can wait?
4. **Estimate honestly.** How long will each take, including review and rework? Multiply by about one and a half if you always run late.
5. **Count your time.** Subtract meetings, support duty and focus time you need. What is left is your capacity.
6. **Choose and place.** Pick what fits and put it in the days, hardest work in your best hours.
7. **Leave room.** Plan about two thirds of your time. The rest absorbs the unexpected.

## A way to group your tasks

| Group | What goes in it |
| --- | --- |
| Critical | Due this week, or blocking someone else |
| Up next | Important, and will be next when critical is done |
| Planned | Has a date later in the month |
| Someday | A good idea with no date; reviewed weekly, never forgotten |

## Protect the important work

- Put a block of focus time in the calendar and treat it as a meeting.
- Batch reviews and replies into set times.
- Say no, or not yet, to new requests until you have checked the plan.

## Review at the end

On Friday, spend five minutes on what was done and what was not. Move what was not to next week on purpose, or drop it. Over a few weeks you will learn how much you can really do, which makes the next plan better.

## A sample week

| Day | A plan with room in it |
| --- | --- |
| Monday | Plan the week (ten minutes). Two hours of focus on the critical task. Reviews in the afternoon |
| Tuesday | Focus block in the morning on the second task. Meetings after lunch |
| Wednesday | Focus block, then pair on a teammate’s task. Leave the afternoon open |
| Thursday | Finish and ship what is nearly done. Reviews and replies |
| Friday | Tidy up, write the update, review the week and set up Monday |

## Estimating honestly

- Include the work around the work: review, rework, waiting for answers.
- If you are always late, multiply your instinct by one and a half and see.
- Compare estimate and actual on a few tasks. The pattern will teach you more than any rule.
- When a task is much larger than you thought, say so early, and split it.

## When the week goes wrong

Something urgent will arrive on Tuesday. When it does, do not just add it to the pile. Put it on the plan, take something off to make room and say what you took off, to the person who cares about it. A plan that bends, openly, is a good plan. One that is quietly abandoned teaches you not to plan.

- If the urgent thing is smaller than an hour, do it and note it.
- If it is bigger, decide what moves, and tell the owner of the thing that moves.
- If it keeps happening, count how much time it takes and plan for it next week.

## Planning your week in Kanso

In the [Kanso calendar](https://kansohq.app/product/calendar.md), due dates land on the week by themselves and your open tasks sit beside it, grouped as Critical, Up next, Planned and Someday, each with its estimate. Switch between day, week and month, and change a date on the [board](https://kansohq.app/product/boards.md) and the calendar already knows. Home opens on today’s tasks.

## Questions

### How do you plan your work week?

List what is due, list your open tasks, rank them, estimate honestly, subtract meetings and other time, then pick what fits and place it in the days, leaving about a third of your time free.

### How long should weekly planning take?

About ten minutes at the start of the week, and five minutes at the end to review.

### How much of the week should be planned?

Around two thirds. Unplanned time absorbs reviews, interruptions and tasks that take longer than expected.

### What is the best way to prioritize tasks?

Sort them by what is due, what blocks others and what moves the product, for example as Critical, Up next, Planned and Someday.

## Keep reading

- [How to plan a sprint without overcommitting](https://kansohq.app/guides/how-to-plan-a-sprint.md): Sprint planning in five steps: set a goal, check capacity, choose work, break it down and name the risks. Includes how teams without sprints do it.
- [The MoSCoW method: Must, Should, Could explained](https://kansohq.app/guides/moscow-prioritization.md): The MoSCoW method sorts work into Must, Should, Could and Won’t. Learn what each means, how much to put in Must and how software teams use it.
- [Project management for software teams, explained](https://kansohq.app/guides/project-management-for-software-teams.md): Project management for software teams in plain words: what to manage, a light system that works at any size, the rhythm to keep and the mistakes to avoid.
- [Sprint planning template: goal, work and risks | Kanso](https://kansohq.app/templates/sprint-plan.md): A sprint planning template with the sprint goal, committed work, stretch, risks and what is out of scope. Copy it, or start it in Kanso.
- [Meeting notes template: decisions and actions | Kanso](https://kansohq.app/templates/meeting-notes.md): A meeting notes template that puts decisions first, then actions with owners and dates, then discussion and parked topics. Copy it, or start it in Kanso.

## Parts of Kanso used

- [Kanso Calendar](https://kansohq.app/product/calendar.md): Due dates land on the calendar by themselves. Your open tasks sit beside the week, sorted by how much they matter.
- [Kanso Boards](https://kansohq.app/product/boards.md): A board for each piece of work. Cards carry a priority, an owner, a due date and the criteria that say when they are done.

[Kanso home, with plans and prices](https://kansohq.app/index.md)