Why four weeks
Four weeks is long enough to finish a small sample and short enough that you can see the end on day one. Longer plans become collections of intentions. This template uses the same shape as the result page: understand the path, complete one exercise, keep a sample, and find one practice opening.
The plan is general study advice. It does not place you in a role, and it does not set a price for your time. If a week slips, move the file forward. Do not add a new goal to compensate.
Week 1 — understand the path
Collect three examples that already exist. For each, write what the person sees first and where the example stops. You are building a map, not a critique of the authors. Two sentences per example is enough.
End the week with a single sentence: “My sample will be ___ and it will not include ___.” The second blank keeps the month small.
Week 2 — one exercise
The exercise should be finishable in two sittings. A page, a route, a chart, a form, a lesson outline, or a sheet of twenty rows. If you cannot describe the done state in one line, the exercise is still a theme.
Work where you can save. A notebook, a repository, or a folder with dates. Chat scrolls disappear. The exercise should survive a cleared tab.
Week 3 — keep the sample
A sample has three parts: the before, the after, and a note of one decision. The decision can be a margin, a column name, an error sentence, or a box you removed. Without the decision, the files look accidental.
Remove secrets, private names, and workplace material. Title the file with what it does, not with a quiz label.
Week 4 — one practice opening
Hand the sample to one person with one question. Watch where they pause. Change that part only. A second reviewer is optional and often noisy in the same week.
Write what you will repeat next month in four lines, using the same four weeks. Repetition is the point. A new identity each month is how samples stay thin.
Unfamiliar words? See the Glossary
