How to make the perfect work week a reality

The thing we love most about being our own boss is the ability to design our lives right? We can set our own income goals and schedule, and decide both what’s important in work and life … and what’s not.

So we plan our weeks with all of this in mind and put it on a sheet of paper.

And then by 10 am every Monday we’re already off schedule and our actual week looks nothing like our planned week.

That’s just life, right?

No, that’s not getting what we want

In the past I thought I was doing ok as my own boss, but in reality no single week, day, or even hour ever went according to plan.

I was failing to work the hours I said I would (erring, at times, both on the side of too many for my sanity and too few to reach my goals) and I was failing to complete the tasks that were important to me.

Not cool.

In short, I’d lost the benefits of being my own boss.

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After a bit of reading, I came to the conclusion that the boss I was serving was the part of my brain that wanted to feel good now rather than at the end of the day. Seth Godin calls it the lizard brain, and Steven Pressfield calls it ‘The Resistance’. It’ll cause you skip your most important task (THAT phonecall) out of fear, but also make you skip lunch out of panic.

It’s safe to say that we do not want this boss deciding our every move – it will abandon our plans at every chance to accommodate whatever pops up in our inbox, phone or Facebook feed.

So what does a perfect work week look like?

Wouldn’t it be a successful week if you spent every hour the way you wanted to? If you managed to work on the things that were important to you, for the number of hours you wanted, with the people you wanted?

If so, success as simple as following through with your plan.

How to measure follow through

There are 30 non-negotiable hours in my week and each hour I either pass (do what I said I would) or fail (do something else). So what I do is give myself a report card each week with a score out of 30.

It keeps me focused on the real battle of entrepreneurship – showing up every hour and doing what you said you would.

If this sounds strict, remember I chose every single activity myself! You can include lunch hours, exercise, and even handstands in the park at 3pm if that’s part of your perfect week. But you do need to follow through, and be honest with yourself when you don’t.

It’s helping me follow through, and to be a better boss to myself. This boss is tough when I need to make that phone-call, but he also sends me to lunch and doesn’t let me work on weekends (much).

What’s a perfect work week for you? How do you make sure it happens?