3. Weekly and Daily Planning
The weekly schedule tab,
which serves as your weekly and daily plan, is where you
decide when you are going to work on each of your
projects.
Your "project blocks" represent times
that you've committed to a specific project. If you are
familiar with the time management story of the "big
rocks" in the pickle jar, the project blocks are your
"big rocks" for the week ahead.
In general, it is better to schedule
time at the project level instead of the task level to
avoid overscheduling. You'll find that focusing on a
specific project for a block of time is much more
effective than jumping around from one unrelated task to
another. The best project block durations range from 30
minutes to 2 hours depending on personal preferences.
If you do need to work on a specific
task at a particular time, for example, to make a call
to an important client, you can always schedule a
project block and write the task in the appointment as a
reminder
(e.g., "Call Phil regarding ACME marketing figures".)
Using time charts, this daily planner software
lets you allocate time to different activity
zones like health &
fitness, family time, finances, etc. to represent what
your ideal week would look like. If you like, you can
display these color-coded activity zones in the
background of your schedule (see screenshot) or you can
hide them from view if you prefer.
You can easily reschedule your project
blocks as needed by moving the appointments. Since each
appointment is linked to the project, you can easily
jump to the associated task list with a simple
command.
 The
weekly planning wizard tool helps you plan the
week ahead. It helps you decide what projects are the
most important for the upcoming week, and how much time
you want to commit to each project. You can then drop
project blocks into the schedule based on your chosen
time commitments. Weekly planning with project blocks
helps you put first things first.
If you prefer, you can also use drag &
drop to add project blocks into your weekly schedule at
any time. Just drag items from the Projects panel in the
Weekly Schedule tab and drop them into your schedule.
 Achieve
Planner can help you keep track of effort/work for each
of your projects and tasks. You can use several fields
to keep track of effort estimates and record your actual
work.
Convenient shortcuts help you record
your actual work as you complete or stop working on a
task.
Effort - This is the expected
effort needed to complete the project/task.
Effort Left - This is the
amount of work that is still needed to complete the
project or task. This value should change as you work on
the project or task. Most likely, it will go down, but
it could go up if your original effort estimate was too
low.
Actual Effort - This is the
amount of work that you’ve actually spent on the project/task.
If you provide effort estimates for
your tasks, Achieve Planner can automatically compute
the expected start/end dates for your projects and tasks
based on your effort estimates, priorities, and weekly
schedule (project blocks.)
 You
can use the Reschedule command anytime you make a
significant change to your projects, tasks, or weekly
schedule to re-compute the start/end dates.
Achieve Planner will warn you if any of your projects or tasks are
overdue or running behind schedule based on the expected
dates and any deadlines you've set.
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