Capstone: Design Your Ideal Week

Everything Comes Together

🔄 Quick Recall: Over seven lessons, you’ve built a complete time management toolkit. From the time audit (Lesson 2) to prioritization (Lesson 3), from time blocking (Lesson 4) to deep work (Lesson 5), from the 3D framework (Lesson 6) to weekly planning (Lesson 7). Now you assemble it all into your personalized system.

The Capstone Project

Your assignment: Design your ideal week template and commit to running it for one full week.

Step 1: Gather Your Data (5 minutes)

Collect everything you’ve learned across the course:

Help me design my ideal week. Here's my data:

TIME AUDIT FINDINGS:
- My peak energy hours: [when]
- My biggest time drains: [list]
- Current deep work hours per day: [number]

PRIORITIES:
- My top 3 quarterly goals: [list]
- My weekly MITs pattern: [types of high-value work]
- My Eisenhower Q2 tasks: [important but not urgent]

3D RESULTS:
- Tasks I've eliminated: [list]
- Tasks I've delegated: [list]
- Tasks I've automated: [list]

CONSTRAINTS:
- Fixed meetings I can't move: [list with times]
- External deadlines: [list]
- Personal commitments: [list]

✅ Quick Check: Before designing your template, can you name the three non-negotiable habits from this course? (Daily MITs, protected deep work blocks, and the weekly planning review.)

Step 2: Design Your Ideal Week Template (15 minutes)

Using my data above, create my ideal week template:

MONDAY through FRIDAY, hour by hour:
- Schedule deep work blocks during peak energy
  (minimum 2 hours daily)
- Batch meetings into specific windows
- Set email/communication windows (2-3x daily)
- Add buffer blocks for unexpected tasks
- Include daily startup (5 min) and shutdown (5 min)
- Add one weekly review slot

Rules to follow:
1. No meetings during deep work blocks
2. No email checking during deep work
3. Hardest tasks in peak energy windows
4. Buffer time = 30% of the day
5. At least one Q2 block per day

Step 3: Build Your Habit Stack (5 minutes)

Three non-negotiable habits from this course:

Habit 1: Daily MITs. Every morning, select 3 Most Important Tasks. Write them down. Complete at least two before anything else.

Habit 2: Protected deep work. Block at least 90 minutes of uninterrupted focus time daily. Treat it as an unmovable meeting.

Habit 3: Weekly review. Same time every week. 20-30 minutes. Collect, process, review goals, plan, prepare.

Step 4: Test and Adjust (One Week)

Run your ideal week for one full week. At the end of each day, note:

• Did I complete my MITs?
• Did I protect my deep work blocks?
• What interrupted the plan?
• What would I adjust?

After the week, run a comprehensive review:

Here's how my ideal week actually went:
[describe what happened each day]

Analyze:
1. What percentage of deep work blocks survived?
2. Were my MITs completed each day?
3. What were the top 3 disruptions?
4. What adjustments should I make to the template?
5. What's working well that I should keep?

Course Summary

Here’s every technique from this course organized as a permanent reference:

The Minimum Viable System

If the full system feels overwhelming, start with just these three things:

1. Three MITs every morning. Takes 2 minutes.
2. One 90-minute deep work block daily. Protect it fiercely.
3. One 20-minute weekly review. Same time each week.

These three habits alone will transform your productivity. Add the other elements over time.

Key Takeaways

• The ideal week template combines time audit data, prioritization, time blocking, deep work, and weekly review into one system
• Start with the minimum viable system (3 MITs, 1 deep work block, 1 weekly review) and expand from there
• No template survives reality perfectly; the weekly review is where you adapt and improve
• Consistency matters more than perfection—a basic system followed every week beats a perfect system abandoned

Congratulations

You now have a complete, personalized time management system. Not a collection of tips. Not a productivity hack. A system.

The people who seem to accomplish extraordinary things don’t have more time than you. They have systems that protect their attention, focus their energy, and align their daily actions with their biggest goals.

Your system will evolve. Some weeks it’ll work perfectly. Other weeks, reality will smash it. That’s normal. The weekly review exists to repair, adjust, and recommit. Every week is a fresh start.

The goal was never to be busy. The goal was always to spend your limited time on what matters most. Now you have the tools to do exactly that.