Perfect Week
What does your ideal week look like — and how far is reality from it?
The weekly cadence is the critical review frequency. David Allen (GTD): the weekly review is the one cadence that makes everything else work. It operates the Belief System — checking whether your actions align with your stated intentions.
Ideal Week Template
An ideal week template is a standard protocol — a reusable pattern for time allocation that can be shared, measured against, and improved.
| Day | Theme | Archetype | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Strategy & Operations | Philosopher | Direction setting, weekly plan, biggest problem first |
| Tuesday | Quality & Building | Engineer | Deep work, shipping, technical execution |
| Wednesday | Connection | Coach | Meetings, outreach, relationship building |
| Thursday | Sales & Product | Dreamer | Customer-facing work, pitching, product decisions |
| Friday | Financial & Review | Realist | Numbers, metrics, weekly mirror, admin close-out |
| Saturday | Question | All | Learning, exploration, reading, skill building |
| Sunday | Reflect | Narrator | Rest, weekly reflection, intention setting for Monday |
The template is a starting position, not a cage. Six hats, seven days — and a day of rest.
Tradable Templates
The 20-year idea: what if ideal week templates were open standards anyone could adopt?
| Property | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Specific | Named time blocks, not vague categories — "90 min deep work 6-7:30am" not "some morning focus" |
| Measurable | Plan vs actual tracked per block — the Weekly Mirror shows the gap |
| Shareable | Exportable format others can import and adapt |
| Evolvable | Version history — templates improve with data |
When someone shares a template that works, others gain a protocol they didn't have to discover from scratch. When many people use the same template and share results, the template evolves through collective feedback. Standards create abundance.
Weekly Plan Protocol
Monday morning (or Sunday evening), 15-30 minutes:
| Step | Action | Artifact |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Review last week's mirror (plan vs actual) | Patterns to carry forward or break |
| 2 | Check calendar for commitments | Fixed blocks go in first |
| 3 | Identify the week's 3 outcomes | Not tasks — outcomes. "Shipped X" not "worked on X" |
| 4 | Block deep work first | Peak energy hours protected before anything else fills them |
| 5 | Theme remaining days | Which archetype leads which day? |
| 6 | Set flex space | At least 20% unblocked for reality |
Weekly Mirror
Friday afternoon or Sunday evening, 15 minutes. The Weekly Mirror answers: who were you trying to be, and who did you show up as?
| Dimension | Ideal Hours | Actual Hours | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep work | ? | ? | ? |
| Connection | ? | ? | ? |
| Admin | ? | ? | ? |
| Learning | ? | ? | ? |
| Rest | ? | ? | ? |
The mirror is for pattern recognition, not judgment. Three questions:
- Where's the biggest gap? — That's where the system is weakest
- What stole time from deep work? — That's the enemy to defend against next week
- What pattern has repeated 3+ weeks? — That's structural, not accidental
GTD Weekly Review checklist (David Allen): Get Clear (process inboxes), Get Current (review projects and actions), Get Creative (what new ideas deserve space?).
The Yield Metric
Dreamineering Yield = Artifacts Shipped ÷ Hours Invested
Not all hours are equal. The yield metric tracks whether your time allocation produces outcomes — not just activity. A week of 60 hours with zero shipped artifacts has a yield of 0. A week of 30 hours with 3 shipped artifacts yields 0.1 art/hr.
The ideal week template optimises for yield, not hours.
The Shadow
The perfect week that never happens. A template so beautiful it creates guilt instead of flow. The point is the gap between ideal and reality — that gap is information, not failure. Adjust the template to match what's actually possible, not what looks good on paper.
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
Context
- Perfect Day — The building block of the week
- Monthly Cycles — Patterns across weeks
- Standards — Why tradable templates matter
- Archetypes — The alter egos that lead each day
- Flow State — What the template is optimising for