---
id: KB-TD-015
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/day-to-day/planning-the-week-in-fifteen-minutes
idioma: en
categoria: trabajo-diario
subcategoria: tareas
audiencia: usuario
nivel: basico
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-TD-001, KB-CR-013]
citadoPor: [KB-TD-016]
---

# Planning the week in fifteen minutes

_Four checks on Monday that prevent Thursday's emergencies._

**Responde a:** organising the documentation week · what to review every monday · avoiding last-minute emergencies · weekly follow-up routine

Day-to-day work runs off the inbox, and that is enough to react. What prevents emergencies is something else: a fixed slot each week looking at what is **not yet** urgent. It is four checks and they fit in fifteen minutes.

## The four

1. **What expires in the coming weeks** — Not this week's, which you already know: three or four weeks out. It is the only thing that gives margin.
2. **What has been stuck longest** — The oldest file with no movement. Not the most urgent: the oldest.
3. **Who has not replied to the second reminder** — At that point it stops being chasing and becomes a decision you have to take.
4. **And what you promised last week** — The check that saves the most credibility and that nobody does.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> The second is counterintuitive and pays off most. Urgent things already have someone pushing them; what has sat for six weeks has nobody, and that is exactly where next month's crises come from. Look at the old, not the loud.

## What does NOT fit in those fifteen minutes

| Not this | Why |
| --- | --- |
| Reviewing file by file | If that is needed, the problem is delegation, not routine |
| Rebuilding templates or processes | That is another day's work, with time |
| Answering everything that comes up | Note it and move on: answering turns it into a morning |

> [!WARNING]
> The mistake that makes this get abandoned within two weeks is replying while reviewing. The review is to **decide what needs doing**, not to do it. Note and close; if something cannot wait two hours, it was already urgent and was in the inbox.

## When to do it

**En corto**

- The same day at the same time, ideally Monday morning.
- Before opening email, not after.
- And with the list in front of you, not from memory.

Monday-before-email is not a quirk: the moment the inbox opens, other people's urgencies set your week. Fifteen minutes earlier is the only window where you decide.

> [!NOTE]
> If you are two or three, do it together: half the blockages get resolved on the spot, because what one person has stuck usually depends on something another can unblock in a minute.

**What if there is no time that week?**

Do only the first and the fourth: they prevent the most grief.

**Should anything be written down?**

What you decide, yes. What you looked at, no.

**Does it work for a large team?**

Yes, but each with their own patch; a twenty-person review is not a review, it is a meeting.

## Ejemplos

**A manager spends the week firefighting and cannot see where the fires come from.**

- Blocks fifteen minutes on Monday for what expires in three weeks and the oldest stuck file

→ Within a month emergencies drop, because they are being seen while they still are not emergencies.

**Monday goes on reconstructing what is outstanding and what expires.**

- Opens the saved view of what is waiting for action
- Checks what expires in the next fortnight
- Allocates whatever needs allocating before starting

→ The week starts with a plan in fifteen minutes rather than a morning of review.

**Planning happens without knowing what depends on third parties.**

- Separates what waits inside from what waits outside

→ What depends on somebody else is launched first.

**On Monday you plan what expired the previous Friday.**

- Also checks what has already expired

→ What is overdue does not fall behind another week.

**Each person plans their part and nobody sees the whole.**

- Shares the team view

→ The split is decided with the full picture.

**The plan is made and not revisited until the following Monday.**

- Checks mid-week what has drifted

→ The correction arrives in time.