bullet journaling bullet journaling and planning

Organize Your Life Quickly With These 7 Alastair Weeklies

by The Productive Pixie - November 13, 2021

"I'm just so busy. I don't have any time to do that." This is one of the biggest complaints you will hear people use when explaining why they don't use a to-do list. The truth is using a to-do list can really create extra free time for you because you already know what you are going to do. Start organizing your life quickly with these Alastair weekly bullet journal layouts you can make today!

Organize Your Life Quickly With These 7 Alastair Weeklies

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Updated for 2024

If you don't know what you are going to do, it will be harder for you to do it. You might even procrastinate. It's a no-brainer that a to-do list can be a big help!

I've fallen into the trap of not making a to-do list, and not doing weekly planning because it took too much time, and you know what?

I felt overwhelmed, and I wanted to procrastinate because I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do, and I felt like my to-do list (the faulty one in my head) was wayyy too long! It's a horrible feeling!

Now, I do weekly planning every week because it sets me up for success in the week to come. I make pretty minimalist layouts so if you are expecting fancy layouts, then this is not the blog post to read. First and foremost my bullet journal is for planning, and second, it is for creativity.

For my weekly layouts, I always make them minimalist because I'm only going to be using each one for a week anyway. As you may know, I started using the Alastair method to plan my week a few months ago, and I am still loving it! I still find it a very efficient and practical way to plan.

I wrote an article about using the Alastair method in August, and that post has been popular recently, so I wanted to write a follow-up post, and share some inspiration for different types of layouts you can make in your bullet journal with the Alastair method.

Plus, I wanted to give all of you a peek into what my weekly planning looks like! Right now, I am not using monthly or daily layouts, so this is my main method of planning.

Let's get right into it!

Organize Your Life Quickly With These Alastair Weeklies

1. The Original Alastair Weekly Layout

In the picture above, you can see the first Alastair weekly layout I ever made. I made this layout in the middle of the week because I was really excited to try out the Alastair method!

If you don't know how the Alastair method works, you can read the article I wrote about it here, and the article by the creator of the Alastair method.

For those of you who don't have much time though, here is a quick breakdown of the Alastair method in a nutshell:

You have a column on one side of the page with the days of the week at the top.
Your to-do list is written next to the column.
Then each of your tasks in your weekly to-do list is assigned to a day.
If you don't do a task on the day it is assigned, then you can migrate it to the next day.
You can track habits by assigning it to every day of the week.

Basically, you can do a lot of things with this layout! Can you add a gratitude tracker? Yep! Can you plan for the week after that? Yep! Can you plan your week quickly? Sure thing!

For each of the following layouts, I will show you the changes I made to adapt the Alastair method to my needs for the week. You may want to try some of these adaptations on your own weekly Alastair bullet journal layout!

2. To-Do List Alastair Weekly

This layout is very similar to the first layout I made. After the first week of using the Alastair Method, I realized that I needed a two-page layout because I have a lot to do! Usually, I use around a page and a half every week.

The main difference between this layout and the first Alastair weekly I made, is that after I finished a task entirely, I would cross it out. This made it quite a bit easier to see what tasks I had actually completed, but it did make the layout more cluttered.

The dots on this layout symbolized which days I needed to do the task, and then I put an X if I did it on the day I needed to. I crossed out the task entirely if I completed it.

At the top of the layout, I used mini calendar symbols to show the places I had to go for the week. This was during quarantine, so I was doing almost everything from home!

All of the habits I am trying to maintain are mixed up with my tasks for the week. I realized that it would be easier to have all of my habits and all of my tasks separated.

3. Progress Bar Alastair Weekly

I liked being able to see which tasks were entirely completed, but crossing out the entire task made the layout look too cluttered, so I decided to add a progress bar. This is one of my favorite adaptations I have made to the Alastair system.

I can see at a glance which tasks I have completed, but I can also mark off tasks that I have started.

This week, if I worked on a task on the day I had it assigned, I would put a line through it. I find this method to work pretty well because I want to connect the lines each day!

4. All Appointments in One Place Alastair Weekly

That is a long name for a bullet journal layout! As you can tell, I'm not very good at naming them. 😂

This week, the world had started opening up again, so I had quite a few places to go. I thought it might be easier to have all of my appointments in one place so I put them at the bottom of the second page of my Alastair weekly layout.

Also, I wanted to try something different from the progress bar because I had been using it for a few weeks. I find that after using a very similar bullet journal layout for a few weeks, I become bored with it, and then it doesn't work as well for me. (I went back to using the progress bar later in the year.)

Instead of the progress bar, I highlighted the entire row when I had finished the task. This definitely makes it easy to see at a glance what tasks you have completed!

This layout looks very similar to the layouts above, which is why I am just showing you a close-up of the bottom of the layout.

5. Planning in Advance Alastair Weekly

This week, I tried something a little bit different because I didn't use a progress bar or highlight the tasks that were entirely completed.

At the beginning of the week when I wrote out my entire to-do list I put boxes on the days that I wanted to complete certain tasks. If the task could be done any day of the week, then I didn't add any boxes.

I knew that the week afterward was going to be very busy and I had extra room at the bottom of the page, so I made a quick weekly plan with the main tasks I wanted to complete the next week. This way, I didn't forget to add them to my next Alastair weekly.

6. Divided Alastair Weekly

This is where my weekly Alastair layouts started to get a little fancier! It is very easy to see that this week, I decided to divide up my weekly tasks into four sections.

These are the sections I decided to use...

Habits
School
Business
Other

I really enjoyed using this layout, but it took a little more time to set up, than the other layouts in this post. At the bottom, you may notice that I wrote week 42/52 + 9/18. The first set of numbers is the number for the week in the year, and the second set of numbers is the week for the school semester.

I like knowing what number week it is in for the year so I can keep in mind how far along I am on my yearly goals. As a school student, it is also very helpful to know how many weeks I have left in the school semester!

Also, I started using the progress bar again on this layout!

7. Routine + Tasks Alastair Weekly

This is the Alastair weekly bullet journal layout I am currently using. I really wanted to simplify my bullet journal layout this week, so I decided to put all of my routine tasks that I do almost daily on one side, and then I put all of the rest of my tasks on the other side of the page.

If I do the task almost every day, then I put it on the routine side. If the task has multiple parts, but I can do it any day of the week, then I put it on my task list, with a mini progress bar.

This is one of my favorite Alastair weekly layouts I have made so far this year, but I'm not certain if it is because it works well, or if I just like how pretty it is! 😂

Organize Your Life Quickly With These Alastair Weeklies

I hope this gave you some insight into my weekly planning, and maybe some bullet journal inspiration as well! It might be easy to think that bullet journalists find the perfect weekly layout, and then it works for them for a long time, but that is not the case.

I change up my bullet journal weekly layout almost every week because I know if I don't, I will become bored with it, and I won't want to use my bullet journal. If you want to see more of my weekly layouts, just leave a comment below!

On another note, my blog was ranked 50th on the list of top 100 productivity blogs by Feedspot so if you are looking for some new blogs to read, check out the list and follow my blog over there while you are at it!

If you liked this post, you can read these ones too!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and you will try out making an Alastair weekly layout!

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Tags : bullet journaling, bullet journaling and planning

Organize Your Life Quickly With These 7 Alastair Weeklies