Weekly Planning Simulator

About the Weekly Planning exercise

A week holds more planning than it seems: fitting work around appointments, spotting two things booked for the same hour, remembering that the dentist's time is in a message not yet played, allowing for the bus, and changing the plan when someone calls. After a stroke or brain injury, or with memory and attention changes, each of those steps can take longer and a clash can slip through unnoticed.

The Weekly Planning Simulator is a structured practice and observation activity rather than a quick exercise. A clinician starts a session and hands over the tablet; the client becomes Jordan, a fictional person, and spends about 20 minutes fitting 17 appointments and errands into an empty week while following three rules. Every placement becomes an observation record, checked against the key.

What Weekly Planning practices

Planning and organizing

Placing set-time items and choosing times for flexible ones such as laundry, a swim that has to finish by 10:00 am, and a bank call on a weekday between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm.

Holding rules in mind

Keeping Sunday free, nothing before 8:00 am, and 12:30 to 1:30 pm clear every day for lunch, while a family barbecue on Sunday invites a break.

Noticing clashes and missing information

Two pairs of appointments overlap, the dentist's day and time are only in a voicemail, a birthday card has to come before a visit, and a hospital trip needs 30 minutes each way by bus.

Updating a plan

At five minutes a friend calls to move Friday's visit to the morning, and two quick questions arrive mid-task, so the plan has to hold up while attention is pulled away.

How the tool works and what it records

Four switches set up a session: two distraction questions, the phone call, audio narration with the text always shown, and large print. A short practice on a three-day planner covers placing an entry, taking it out, the Could not schedule box, and the phone. Jordan is introduced, the client says how hard they expect the task to be and how many mistakes they expect, and the week opens: the list and the rules on one side, a planner from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm on the other. Tapping an item asks where it goes (In the planner with a day and times in half-hour steps, Could not schedule, or Next week) and why, with the reason optional. Entries can be changed or taken out, and items can be ticked on the list. Nothing on screen marks a clash, highlights free space, or says right or wrong.

The phone holds a voicemail from the dental office. At five minutes Ruth rings to move the visit; the call can be answered, declined, or left to become a voicemail. With distractions on, a question arrives at two minutes and another at seven. Tapping I've finished asks for confirmation and, when the voicemail was never played, whether anything still needs finding out; two quiet minutes bring an Are you finished? prompt. The record lists each item's expected and placed day and time with the kit's codes (not placed, different day, different time, placed twice, against a rule), then the rules, both clashes, the barbecue, the voicemail, the card, the travel time, the call, each distraction beside what was actually true, the time before the first entry and in total, before and after ratings, strategies seen by the app beside those ticked by the clinician, cues, and a full timeline. One session a month is free; Pro adds unlimited sessions, the observation record, and PDF export.

Screen or paper?

The screen suits sessions where the record matters: every placement is timed and saved, the call and the questions arrive on their own at the same moments every time, and each entry is checked against the key without counting by hand afterward. Paper planning practice suits working with a pen and a printed weekly planner at a table, sessions without a device, and clients for whom writing the week out is part of the practice.

There is a executive function guide on rehabworksheets.com, with printable practice to try alongside.

Using it well

• Keep the call and questions on the first time. They give the fullest record of how the plan holds up. Turn the questions off when the goal is a calm run of planning alone, and turn narration off for a client who reads faster than they listen.
• Stay quiet and use the toolbar. Log cues from the clinician toolbar instead of pointing. It can show one of the kit's eight strategy cards on screen, such as Check the slot before you place it, and each card shown is recorded as a cue.
• Code each distraction as it lands. The toolbar offers the kit's four response codes for each question and the call: continued the entry first, answered and returned, lost their place, or stopped and needed a prompt. The code sits beside the app's own facts in the record.
• Start with the two weeks side by side. The record draws the client's week next to one correct week from the key, then lists all 17 items with where each was expected and where it went. The clashes, the voicemail, and the travel time follow.
• Adapt for hand or reading difficulties. Everything is a tap on a large button; there is no dragging and no typing. Each item has a Listen button, large print enlarges the list, the rules, and the questions, and a partner can point while the client confirms each placement.

Common questions