Ideally, the best way is to use Weekdone daily in real time as you go. In the morning, remind yourself of the priorities. In the afternoon, update progress and plan for tomorrow.
Reviewing your long-term objectives and projects
You might not update at your quarterly projects and objectives – the OKRs – daily, but you should do so at least once per week. Just look at them and paint a mental picture that these are the most important things you have to get done this quarter, whatever it takes. Remember that your weekly PPPs should be also based on these goals and projects, so link them under them. Make sure your key result progress and project progress bar is moved each week and is always up to date.
Planning your week and getting it done
When planning to work on something in coming days, you add it under Plans. Plans usually shows what you do this and next week. Ideally you should not have more than 5-7 important items under your Plans at any time. It’s all about focus on what’s important. 5-7 is a good manageable number that makes sure you focus on key big important items. Remember, others read your plans as well. If you start listing tens of small detailed tasks you cause an information overload for others. Weekdone is not a task manager – it’s a team communication tool first. If you wouldn’t tell about something at your weekly team standup meeting, it might not be important enough for Weekdone Plans either. If needed, make smaller tasks in Weekdone private.
When you get something from your Plans done, you move it under Progress. Progress might be also called as Done or Accomplishments. You can click and drag items from Plans to Progress, or click Done in the right hand menu. Remember to add insights and commentary for your co-workers and leaders, what exactly was your achievement and what did you learn doing it.
If You get stuck, you move the item under Problems. Some teams call these Challenges or Stuck Items. Never be afraid of sharing things you’re stuck with. Your co-workers are there for a reason, to cheer you up and help you as a team. If it’s really private, share it with your direct manager in the 1:1 weekly review that only they see.
Whenever needed, add items to additional sections like “Ideas & Lessons Learned” or other custom categories you company might have configured under your account.
Read, give feedback, collaborate and give kudos
Using Weekdone daily to check others’ items under the Buzz activity timeline feed, liking and commenting there, gives best results for improving your team communication. Why not give a pat on the back to your co-workers, or sharing some positive feedback with a visual emoji now? Make sure to click the good job, great teamwork or keep it up feedback upvotes on the leaderboard, personal pages or sidebar hovercards.
The weekly journaling and reflection
Some people decide to use Weekdone less often than daily, although we do not suggest that. However you do it, it’s very important to take time each week to reflect on your ending week’s Progress and next week’s Plans. Make it a ritual to take some quiet time on Friday afternoons for that. Having recorded your plans and progress daily during the week, think now what you got done in 5 days and were these really the most important tasks. Could you plan next week any better? Could you be more focused? As a final step make sure, that you always end with your work week by knowing what you’ll do Monday morning.
Keep readers in mind
When adding items, keep one thing in mind: word everything for others to understand, not just yourself. Don’t use 1-2 word tasks like you would in a task manager. Use longer sentences, commentary, background etc. The writing style for Weekdone is more similar to Facebook and Twitter than to a personal task list. Always think, if your manager or your co-workers will understand and learn something from what you wrote. Writing “Marketing Team Meeting” or “CRM Project” is not too useful for others. Saying “Brainstormed newsletter improvements with @Veli and @Helena, mockups coming soon” or “Together with @Allar and @Jason reviewed our CRM pipeline stages to be more responsive to customers” is the level of detail others usually love. Good wording is a key to successful Weekdone usage.
Now go and first review your projects, quarterly objectives and key results, marking their progress. Then fill in your weekly form with your 5-7 next key plans for this week and 5-7 biggest accomplishments from last week. Don’t forget to click all the 5-point rating questions as well. Your team and leaders will appreciate it. You on the other hand will be much more productive by having clear goals to strive for in front of you.
Enjoy Weekdone!