Today I want to talk about something that has helped me a lot during my planning journey:
the Sunday Reset. This habit has become more or less a ritual for me, and I look forward to making myself a cup of coffee and sit with my planner for the week ahead.
DECLUTTER AND REFRESH
The Sunday reset is a miracle work if you’re like me and want things organized. Every Sunday I schedule a good 1-2 hours to recap, declutter and organize my calendar, digital devices and bullet journal.
WHAT IS THE SUNDAY RESET?
For me it takes approximately one hour to do the full reset. For you, it might depend on how you’ve set up your own workflow, but I imagine that many of us have similar things anyway. My list goes like this:
MY SUNDAY RESET TO-DO LIST
Here’s the step-by-step list that I use to help me get going for the week ahead. I use Google Keep and I have the list pinned so that I can easily access it. In Keep, you can also tick the checkboxes, and reuse them for next week, which I find very useful.
Some of the bullet points might not be applicable for you, but as always take with you what you find valuable and leave the rest! Nevertheless, here are the steps I use in my own Sunday Reset session.
- Clear email inbox
- Clear camera roll
- Clear downloads
- Clear Google Keep and other notes
- Clear Google Drive (if necessary)
- Delete / migrate to-do:s from last week.
- Update Trello for the week ahead
- Update calendar for next week
- Fill out weekly template
- Schedule social media
- Weekly Review
Ok, let’s dive somewhat deeper into some of the points above.
Clear email inbox.
I organize & clear out my inbox every Sunday. The inbox is like your physical mailbox: it's not supposed to be crammed with mail. Once you empty it, you sort out the mail and organize it in suitable folders.
Clear camera roll.
I save everything and then some to my camera roll, and if I don’t look after it it gets cluttered really fast. Some of it I leave there for easy access, but if it’s photos from the last vacation it has to go on an external drive to save that valuable space. (I also use the illustration app Procreate and it can be worth mentioning that this library also has to be decluttered once in a while. But I don’t do this every Sunday. Probably more like once a month.)
Clear downloads:
If I have downloaded images of pdf:s during the week, I organize them into files.
Clear notes:
This is the equivalent of ripping out notes you don’t need from a notepad.
Clear Google Drive:
I usually jot down ideas and start presentations on Google drive, and it can be a good idea to declutter those once in a while to have the space available.
Delete / migrate to-do:s from last week:
this can be somewhat daunting sometimes. I almost always try to accomplish more tasks than I have the time for. Even if I have spent a decent amount of time researching time management and how much you actually can get done during a week! I still struggle with this, and I try to tell myself that next week I won’t try to cram so much into my schedule.
Migration is a good way to go about it. I borrowed the technique from the Bullet Journal method, and I find it quite soothing actually to take the time and go through the bullet points and see if something should be deleted, migrated to next week or maybe even deferred for a later date and therefore migrated to the 90 day-plan.
Update Trello for the week ahead:
I use Trello to organize my blog and social media content, and it’s a fantastic tool for organizing workflow related lists. Usually I’m up to date with the tasks and checklists, but I find it useful anyway to take a look at what’s going on and see if I have to add something or clear something out.
Update calendar for next week
As a creative person I have to make sure that my creative work gets done. I hate to admit it, but I’m a notorious procrastinator and I have to have a system in place to avoid procrastination as much as I can. (I use my “5 color workweek” system for this, and I find that it works really well for my creative workflow. I will share this system with you in a later blog post.)
Fill out weekly template
I use my Witches' Almanac digital planner which is kind of a pagan bullet journal / planner. I like it so much and in it I have created a weekly template that I fill out during the Sunday Reset.
Schedule social media
I schedule my social media posts according to a publishing calendar. It goes: “inspirational content”, “how to content” and occasionally an “offer content”. I try to shuffle those around so people who follow med can enjoy a variety of content. Planning ahead I can make sure I don’t have the same type of content two times in a row.
Weekly review
I usually try to make time to go through the week. What went good, what went bad? What sparked joy and what drained me of energy? And most importantly: what did I learn this week? It is a powerful tool to get to see if there are any recurring themes and what to do about them.
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