In Stephen Covey’s classic productivity book First Things First, he includes a comprehensive review of various approaches to time management, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Some approaches are very high level, focusing on goals and values and life purpose, while other methods deal with optimizing daily workflow.

Covey argues, rather brilliantly, that trying to manage your life from the higher level perspective of your life purpose or from the lower level perspective of your daily to-dos are both suboptimal approaches. What’s needed is a perspective that balances your highest aspirations with your daily tasks. Covey explains that the perspective of the week is ideal for this.

My own productivity experiments lead me to agree. Thinking about my life purpose is great, but it’s hard to translate such high-minded ideals into simple daily actions — every single day. I can express...