Master Weekly Schedule: Fill & Download for Free

I am obsessive about managing my timePlanning: I spend one hour every week outlining what I am supposed to do for the week, and one hour taking stock of what I executed during the weekScheduling: I setup broad blocks in my calendar for the whole week, where I have classified time for exercising, constructive work, reading, spending time with family and self fulfillment. My calendar looks something like this (this isn’t mine, but mine is structurally very similar)Managing: Once all this is done, I find it incredibly easy to stick to what I have planned. For example, I have 4–5 hours dedicated to Quora on weekends, which is when I write. I am making it a habit to not write any time outside this. I work through questions I have to answer on my A2A list during this time as well.Eliminating: I do not spend time on frivolous activities, such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, chit chatting and the like. I only try to execute activities that are valuable to me/unavoidable to do. Learning to say no to unimportant activities, people, events and most importantly yourself is very necessary to execute this.Time is the only resource we all have, and we must try to master it as much. I constantly try to get better at it.

As a student who went through this system, I would like to share you the very dark side of the Japanese education system.The dark side can be observed by the statistics below:This is the data of the suicide rate of each country for individuals between age 15 and 24. The blue line is for Japan, while the red is S. Korea, along with US (green), UK(Purple), Germany(turquoise), France(orange), and Sweden (Pale Blue).Japan has the highest teenage suicide rate in the entire world and the one and only thing which can be blamed for this is the Japanese Education System.First thing that happens when one enters junior high school is the process of self criticism. Students are guided to lose their self-esteem and ego by forcing upon them strict rules and simple tasks. This way, teens would be prevented from becoming rebellious against their mentor. Strict rules apply to places not only within the school limits but to daily life as well.In case of what I’ve experienced,-No dating allowed-No volunteer activity allowed without the approval of the school principal-No part-time jobs allowed unless the financial situation forces the subject to. In this case, a written permission from both parents, homeroom teacher and school principal are required along with a strict review of the labor contract-One must not meet with the opposite sex other than for academic proposes such as Jukus (Japanese cram school), extracurricular activities, and examinations (I was enrolled in a boys school)-No traveling allowed without the permission of the school authority. When approved, one must act according to the schedule approved by the school.-No eating in public spaces even when the subject is outside the school boundaries-Route to school must be submitted and students may only act accordingly every day to and from school-Strict dress code which must be followed in and out of school-No electronic devices allowed -No possession of smartphones allowed. When cell phones are necessary as a communication with the student and its parents, only the traditional types are allowed.These are just handful of rules I can think of. Honestly, there are some rules that are legitimate and most of the rules exist to avoid unnecessary difficulties the teen might encounter. However, most of the rules are just against the liberty of the people in my opinion.Also, there are considerable amount of physical punishment applied in Japanese school and also from parents. Some students get beaten by teachers just because their ties were not properly tied. I remember getting beaten up by my parents for not been able to solve a math problem right. On my first mistake, I get spanked once. On my second mistake, I get spanked twice. On my third mistake, I get spanked thrice, and so on until both get physically tired or get bruised. I was lucky because only a decade ago, people used to cane students for incorrect answers, although this was banned. Yet, every so often, in the news, somewhere in Japan, a student would get beaten to death as “punishment” from teachers often for reasons like “forgetting to bring something” or “sneezing during an important speech” etc. This is just one phantom of the Japanese empire during World War Two still influencing Japanese society.Here is a magical stick which if a teacher flash it in front of the classroom, all the students in the room suddenly turn loyal to him or her　Also if shown to 80s and 90s kids, they somehow start to get goosebumps.This is called a “Shinai　竹刀” It is used in Kendo sports. However, there is another alternative usage in which classroom teachers dare to share it to a Kendo master…..What about me? I was lucky enough not to be born in “that” generation… One of my language arts teacher was a professional junior Kendo player. However, his language arts teacher had a policy which, if they answered incorrectly to an answer, students, regardless of gender, would be slammed by a bamboo sword. As being slammed by a bamboo sword by an amateur was the worst thing possible as a professional, he studied super hard and became a lone survivor of that punishment. As a result, he got a job as a Language arts teacher. Oh, the irony!Thus, people start losing their ego and commit suicide as a result.In short, Japanese education is a system which makes individuals into an economic machine. Children before enrollment have lots of dreams like participating in a volunteer activity, being a game developer, doctor, scientist to solve a particular problem, etc. The function of the system is to crush all of those hopes and extract the “individual” out to the collective. By the end of the process, the students would have lost most of their self so that they can be exploited by major corporations and government official. That's how the Japanese economy worked in the post war economic Growth. However, those days are over.Some people may ask, why don't then do home schooling or find alternative schools?The answer is: those options only exists in a very narrow pool of students. Homeschooling is illegal in Japan, at least at the present moment. Alternative school such as international baccalaureate schools and liberal arts schools are available, but only a handful of them exists. I only know three of them. Also, most parents would force students to go to cram schools after school and on weekends so there is no time to use online courses such as Khan Academy.Here is my average weekly schedule as a teenager (during the most intense period)As you can see, there is no time to play or follow your own passion what so ever since every day is occupied by school work. Both “Lesson (personal tutor) “ , “Cram school” as well as “exam preparation seminars” are for-profit institutions to support students to train to be successful in examinations. I started this sort of lifestyle when I was 11 years old. I'm considered late as most students start this practice at around age 9.,There are slogans for this term (used mainly in a satirical way)月月火水木金金！ “Mon, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Fri!”欲しがりません 、勝つまでは！h”Never desire anything, until victory!”すすめ一億火の玉だ！ “Proceed! 100 million fireballs!”All of the above are slogans used frequently during the pacific war, and are used for satire to describe the present situation of inefficient overworked​ society. The catchphrase on the top means to work without weekends. The second one means to never desire anything until victory. During the Second World War, this meant sacrifice everything for victory against the United States. Nowadays, it means sacrifice everything until successes in examination, or profit if the slogan was used in companies. The third slogan means​ the entire population should die for noble victory. After the war, it was used to sacrifice your life for the sake of our economy. Particularly the first and second one is used frequently even for literal meaning, not satire, in modern schools and some institutions as well.So here is how everything goes :Lack of funds in public educationDecline in the quality of public education, both in terms of safety and curriculumPrivate schools emergeParents send their kids to private middle schoolsCompetition in entrance exams raisesChildren as young as 8 or 9 get involved in the entrance exam competitionFor-profit cram school emerges to support students pass the examsNumber of schools and cram schools increases and fierce competition starts to emergeSchools start to do whatever they can to maintain good reputation for their survivalChildren abused as resultIncrease in suicide rates and hikikomoriFirst of all, the Japanese educational system strips many basic rights from children, such as the right to choose and the right to express themselves which is both granted by the declaration of the rights of the child in 1959. Usually, it’s the parents who choose the school in which the children enroll. Although public schools have extensive amount of freedom since public schools are restricted from creating certain rules for their students to follow, public schools are notorious for their issues involving bullying.

Amazing Marvin!It’s the only ONE-STOP productivity tool I know. It is also the only tool that lets you activate and deactivate “strategies” which allows you to build your own productivity system.Here is how I use it:Schedule and Manage my tasks for today:In the “Today” view I see all my tasks that I scheduled for today. I can schedule them for morning/afternoon/evening, add sub-tasks and add a time estimate to each task. This makes planning and managing my day extremely effective and easy. The red “!!!” is the procrastination tracker that shows me that I have postponed a task a couple of days already ;)2. Manage all my tasks and projects in the “Master List”The Master List contains all my to-do’s for every area of life. Each area (work, admin, social, body & mind) contains sub-categories and projects. Each project or sub-category contains the single tasks. This is where I dump all my tasks. When I plan my day and week, I go to the master list and schedule single tasks to my day or week.3. Manage my Weekly Schedule/Calendar:I like to work by a default schedule for my week which allows me to most effectively work through repetitive tasks. Amazing Marvin allows me to use my calendar in whichever way I want. I use it to block times for certain activities in my day.4. Built-in Timers and Super-Focus ModeWhen I struggle to focus I like to use the Pomodoro Technique. Amazing Marvin has a built-in timer which is great.Here are some additional features and strategies that you can activate in Amazing Marvin:Unfortunately, the app is not free, but the monthly membership is totally worth it. You can get a 30-day free trial here.Disclaimer: I work with the Amazing Marvin Team in their Affiliate Program. But this shows even more how much I am a fan of the app! I use Amazing Marvin every day exactly as described above - and I completely switched from Trello and todoist after I found out about the app. They are currently the only partner I work with.