Chinh (lelouvincx) / Weekly Planning Rules

Created Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Modified Mon, 25 May 2026 06:02:25 +0000
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Weekly Planning Rules

Living rules for pages/Weekly Planning - YYYY-WNN.md. Pairs w/ [[Priority Rules]] (P0–P3 tiers). Re-read every Fri wrap-up. When a rule causes friction, capture friction below + iterate.

  • 1. Principles (apply every week)

  • Decisions in writing beat decisions in conversation — meeting w/o written outcome = no outcome. Same-day Linear/Notion/Project-page update.

  • Sales-led customer touches → my action only when trial/onboarding booked — if sales (Nam, Chukwudi, etc.) already followed up, don’t manufacture parallel work. Move to Monitor.

  • Chained dependencies stay chained — if A blocks B, don’t schedule both. Let A ship; B waits explicitly.

  • 3+ week carry-over forcing function ([[Priority Rules]]) — either elevate + schedule on a specific day OR formally move to backlog/waiting w/ reason. No silent re-baselining.

  • Pre-validate playbooks w/ real POC before customer-facing artifact — diagrams alone don’t close evaluation matrices (BuyCo PBI parity-to-the-cent lesson, W21).

  • Friday “ship-the-small-thing” batch — Fri = retro + 1–3 small Docs/Logseq/tooling PRs. Buys goodwill + clears residual queue (W21 evidence: 3 PRs).

  • Mon-AM strategic block defense — biggest deep-work item gets Mon AM. Carry-overs go PM or Fri.

  • Prioritization > scheduling — when an item slips 5+ weeks straight, it’s not a scheduling problem; it’s that other work is genuinely more important. Make prioritization explicit upward; don’t quietly re-baseline.

  • Defend weekend deep-work slots as meetings — recurring slip items (H1 reflection, CV, side projects) get a Sat/Sun calendar block. Immovable.

  • Let demand pull the template — reusable patterns (playbooks, skills) formalize after the 2nd demand signal, not the 1st. Premature formalization = wasted ROI.

  • Conceptual diagram > long video — for explaining a feature/migration, diagrams first, narration second (BuyCo PBI lesson).

  • The Mom Test on customer calls — ask about specifics (“which workflow takes longest today?”), avoid leading questions on pain points.

  • Customer asks become product-side data debts — capture them (Linear/dbt task) at the same time as the answer. The pipeline from “support reply” to “engineering backlog” is the data-team flywheel.

  • Lane intentionality — if drift toward solutions/presales/IC/lead happens, decide explicitly each cycle whether to lean in or pull back. Drifting unintentionally = worst outcome.

  • 2. Carry-over watch table — schema

    Every weekly plan ends w/ this table. Track items open ≥ 2 weeks.

    | Item | Since | Weeks | Action |
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| <name + linear/PR ref> | W<NN> (<date>) | <count> | <specific next step OR explicit waiting state> |

    Rules:

  • Since = week the item was first captured (W## format + ISO date).

  • Weeks = count incl. current week. Bold when ≥ 3.

  • Action must be one of:

    • specific scheduled day this week (e.g., “Mon AM Linear memo”),
    • explicit waiting state w/ trigger (“Monitor #channel. No active push”),
    • demotion/backlog/drop (“Demoted P3 — anh X owns”),
    • chained-dependency annotation ("PENDING ").

  • Never “continue working on it” or “carry over” — those = silent re-baseline.

  • Items hitting 5+ weeks w/o customer-side block → escalate in next 1-on-1 as prioritization question, not scheduling.

  • Items hitting 3+ weeks WAITING on external → formal backlog w/ reason.

  • Removed when DONE — keep one DONE row that week for closure visibility, then drop.

  • 3. Focus days suggestion — schema

    Assign each day a primary focus + secondary slots. Group deep-work; place timeboxed items in specific slots; reserve Fri for wrap-up.

    - **Mon (May NN)**: AM — last week's report review. PM — <strategic deep-work / forcing-function decision / reading>.
- **Tue (May NN)**: **Data (higher priority)** — prep for Wed data-team sync. Presales only if critical.
- **Wed (May NN)**: AM — data-team sync, 4-week-cadence 1-on-1 w/ manager, weekly-planning adjustment. PM — P3 + departmental clean-up.
- **Thu (May NN)**: **Presales (higher priority)** — calls, follow-ups, demo prep, customer artifacts.
- **Fri (May NN)**: weekly report + Friday-ship batch + backlog grooming. **No new deep-work in PM.**
- **Sat (May NN)**: **Personal + Logseq + Finance (higher priority)**. AM — <named P1 weekend deliverable>. PM — <named P2 weekend deliverable>.
- **Sun (May NN)**: <finalize weekend deliverables — named>.

    Day-of-week role (default cadence):

    DayPrimary roleNotes
    MonAM = last week’s report review; PM = strategic deep-work / forcing-function decision / readingNOT carry-overs.
    TueData (higher priority)Prep for Wed data-team sync. Presales only if critical.
    WedAM = data-team sync + (4-week cadence) 1-on-1 w/ manager + weekly-planning adjustment; PM = P3 + departmental clean-upDecisions-in-writing land here.
    ThuPresales (higher priority)Calls, follow-ups, demo prep, customer artifacts.
    FriALWAYS: weekly report + Friday-ship batch + backlog groomingNo new deep-work in PM.
    SatPersonal + Logseq + Finance (higher priority)Include only when a weekend item is locked. Name the deliverable.
    SunFinalize weekend deliverablesSame rule as Sat — name the deliverable or omit.

    Rules:

  • Each day max 3 named items. More = unrealistic, hides true priority.

  • Timeboxed items get explicit duration (e.g., “30-min sync”, “2h block”, “1-day timebox”).

  • Don’t fight the cadence: if a critical customer call lands Tue, OK — but it’s an exception, not the new default.

  • 4. Anti-patterns (catch in Fri wrap-up)

  • Silent re-baseline: same item appears in Carry-over watch w/ vague “Action: continue” 3 weeks running → must escalate, demote, or drop.

  • Schedule-instead-of-prioritize: “Mon AM blocked for X” 5 weeks in a row + 0% progress → it’s not the slot, it’s the priority. Surface upward.

  • Action-list manufacturing: P1 list inherits last week’s P1s w/o pruning. Always check if sales has handed off, if customer is in their court, if dep has shipped.

  • Unbounded weekend: “Weekend: catch up + personal.” → either name a deliverable or omit the day.

  • Recap > plan: more text on what happened than what will happen. Recap belongs in the weekly report; plan should be forward-only.

  • 5. Friction log

    Capture friction here; iterate rules above.

  • (none yet — first version 2026-W21)